How to Pick Your Life Partner

Part 1

Valentines Day is really two holidays bundled up in one. For people in a relationship, its
Celebrate Your Relationship Day. For single people, its Youre Alone and Unloved Again This
Year Arent You Day. Its the one holiday that actively taunts an entire group of people.
Christmas used to make Jewish children cry until the first half of the 20th Century, when
Hanukkahturned into Jewish Christmas and solved the problem. And patriotic holidays like
Thanksgiving and Columbus Day will always cause a few tantrums because they happen to
celebrate genocide. But only Valentines Day causes mass depression.
Of course, many single people are perfectly happy with their lives and ignore Valentines Day
altogether, but to a large number of frustrated singles, Valentines Day feels like this:

And at first glance, research seems to back this up, suggesting that married people are on average
happier than single people and much happier than divorced people.
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But a closer analysis reveals
that if you split up married people into two groups based on marriage quality, people in self-
assessed poor marriages are fairly miserable, and much less happy than unmarried people, and
people in self-assessed good marriages are even more happy than the literature reports.
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In other
words, heres whats actually happening on Valentines Day.

Dissatisfied single people should actually consider themselves in a neutral, fairly hopeful position,
compared to what their situation could be. A single person who would like to find a great
relationship is one step away from it, with their to-do list reading, 1. Find a great relationship.
People in unhappy relationships, on the other hand, are three leaps away, with a to-do list of 1. Go
through a soul-crushing break-up. 2. Emotionally recover. 3. Find a great relationship. Not as bad
when you look at it that way, right?
All the research on how vastly happiness varies between happy and unhappy marriages makes
perfect sense, of course. Its your life partner.
Thinking about how overwhelmingly important it is to pick the right life partner is like thinking
about how huge the universe really is or how terrifying death really isits too intense to
internalize the reality of it, so we just dont think about it that hard and remain in slight denial about
the magnitude of the situation.
But unlike death and the universes size, picking a life partner is fully in your control, so its critical
to make yourself entirely clear on how big a deal the decision really is and to thoroughly analyze
the most important factors in making it.
So how big a deal is it?
Well, start by subtracting your age from 90. If you live a long life, thats about the number of years
youre going to spend with your current or future life partner, give or take a few.
Im pretty sure no one over 80 reads Wait But Why (Nana notwithstanding), so no matter who you
are, thats a lot of timeand almost the entirety of the rest of your one existence.
(Sure, people get divorced, but you dont think you will. A recent study shows that 86% of young
people assume their current or future marriage will be forever, and I doubt older people feel much
differently. So well proceed under that assumption.)
And when you choose a life partner, youre choosing a lot of things, including your parenting
partner and someone who will deeply influence your children, your eating companion for about
20,000 meals, your travel companion for about 100 vacations, your primary leisure time and
retirement friend, your career therapist, and someone whose day youll hear about 18,000 times.
Intense shit.
So given that this is by far the most important thing in life to get right, how is it possible
that so many good, smart, otherwise-logical people end up choosing a life partnership that leaves
them dissatisfied and unhappy?
Well as it turns out, there are a bunch of factors working against us:
People tend to be bad at knowing what they want from a relationship
Studies have shown people to be generally bad, as single people, at predicting what later turn out to
be their actual relationship preferences. One study found that speed daters questioned about their
relationship preferences usually prove themselves wrong just minutes later with what they show to
prefer in the actual event.
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This shouldnt be a surprisein life, you usually dont get good at something until youve done it a
bunch of times. Unfortunately, not many people have a chance to be in more than a few, if any,
serious relationships before they make their big decision. Theres just not enough time. And given
that a persons partnership persona and relationship needs are often quite different from the way
they are as a single person, its hard as a single person to really know what you want or need from a
relationship.

Society has it all wrong and gives us terrible advice
Society encourages us to stay uneducated and let romance be our guide.
If youre running a business, conventional wisdom states that youre a much more effective
business owner if you study business in school, create well thought-out business plans, and analyze
your businesss performance diligently. This is logical, because thats the way you proceed when
you want to do something well and minimize mistakes.
But if someone went to school to learn about how to pick a life partner and take part in a healthy
relationship, if they charted out a detailed plan of action to find one, and if they kept their progress
organized rigorously in a spreadsheet, society says theyre A) an over-rational robot, B) way too
concerned about this, and C) a huge weirdo.
No, when it comes to dating, society frowns upon thinking too much about it, instead opting for
things like relying on fate, going with your gut, and hoping for the best. If a business owner took
societys dating advice for her business, shed probably fail, and if she succeeded, it would be
partially due to good luckand thats how society wants us to approach dating.
Society places a stigma on intelligently expanding our search for potential partners.
In a study on what governs our dating choices more, our preferences or our current opportunities,
opportunities wins hands downour dating choices are 98% percent a responseto market
conditions and just 2 percent immutable desires. Proposals to date tall, short, fat, thin, professional,
clerical, educated, uneducated people are all more than nine-tenths governed by whats on offer that
night.
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In other words, people end up picking from whatever pool of options they have, no matter how
poorly matched they might to be to those candidates. The obvious conclusion to draw here is that
outside of serious socialites, everyone looking for a life partner should be doing a lot of online
dating, speed dating, and other systems created to broaden the candidate pool in an intelligent way.
But good old society frowns upon that, and people are often still timid to say they met their spouse
on a dating site. The respectable way to meet a life partner is by dumb luck, by bumping into them
randomly or being introduced to them from within your little pool. Fortunately, this stigma is
diminishing with time, but that its there at all is a reflection of how illogical the socially accepted
dating rulebook is.
Society rushes us.
In our world, the major rule is to get married before youre too oldand too old varies from 25
35, depending on where you live. The rule should be whatever you do, dont marry the wrong
person, but society frowns much more upon a 37-year-old single person than it does an unhappily
married 37-year-old with two children. It makes no sensethe former is one step away from a
happy marriage, while the latter must either settle for permanent unhappiness or endure a messy
divorce just to catch up to where the single person is.

Our Biology Is Doing Us No Favors
Human biology evolved a long time ago and doesnt understand the concept of having a
deep connection with a life partner for 50 years.
When we start seeing someone and feel the slightest twinge of excitement, our biology gets into
okay lets do this mode and bombards us with chemicals designed to get us to mate (lust), fall in
love (the Honeymoon Phase), and then commit for the long run (attachment). Our brains can
usually override this process if were just not that into someone, but for all those middle ground
cases where the right move is probably to move on and find something better, we often succumb to
the chemical roller coaster and end up getting engaged.
Biological clocks are a bitch.
For a woman who wants to have biological children with her husband, she has one very real
limitation in play, which is the need to pick the right life partner by forty, give or take. This is just a
shitty fact and makes an already hard process one notch more stressful. Still, if it were me, Id
rather adopt children with the right life partner than have biological children with the wrong one.
___________________
So when you take a bunch of people who arent that good at knowing what they want in a
relationship, surround them with a society that tells them they have to find a life partner but that
they should under-think, under-explore, and hurry up, and combine that with biology that drugs us
as we try to figure it out and promises to stop producing children before too long, what do you get?
A frenzy of big decisions for bad reasons and a lot of people messing up the most important
decision of their life. Lets take a look at some of the common types of people who fall victim to all
of this and end up in unhappy relationships:

Overly Romantic Ronald



Overly Romantic Ronalds downfall is believing that love is enough reason on its own to marry
someone. Romance can be a great part of a relationship, and love is a key ingredient in a happy
marriage, but without a bunch of other important things, its simply not enough.
The overly romantic person repeatedly ignores the little voice that tries to speak up when he and his
girlfriend are fighting constantly or when he seems to feel much worse about himself these days
than he used to before the relationship, shutting the voice down with thoughts like Everything
happens for a reason and the way we met couldnt have just been coincidence and Im totally in
love with her, and thats all that mattersonce an overly romantic person believes hes found his
soul mate, he stops questioning things, and hell hang onto that belief all the way through his 50
years of unhappy marriage.

Fear-Driven Frida


Fear is one of the worst possible decision-makers when it comes to picking the right life partner.
Unfortunately, the way society is set up, fear starts infecting all kinds of otherwise-rational people,
sometimes as early as the mid-twenties. The types of fear our society (and parents, and friends)
inflict upon usfear of being the last single friend, fear of being an older parent, sometimes just
fear of being judged or talked aboutare the types that lead us to settle for a not-so-great
partnership. The irony is that the only rational fear we should feel is the fear of spending the latter
two thirds of life unhappily, with the wrong personthe exact fate the fear-driven people risk
because theyre trying to be risk-averse.

Externally-Influenced Ed


Externally-Influenced Ed lets other people play way too big a part in the life partner decision. The
choosing of a life partner is deeply personal, enormously complicated, different for everyone, and
almost impossible to understand from the outside, no matter how well you know someone. As such,
other peoples opinions and preferences really have no place getting involved, other than an
extreme case involving mistreatment or abuse.
The saddest example of this is someone breaking up with a person who would have been the right
life partner because of external disapproval or a factor the chooser doesnt actually care about
(religion is a common one) but feels compelled to stick to for the sake of family insistence or
expectations.
It can also happen the opposite way, where everyone in someones life is thrilled with his
relationship because it looks great from the outside, and even though its not actually that great
from the inside, Ed listens to others over his own gut and ties the knot.

Shallow Sharon

Shallow Sharon is more concerned with the on-paper description of her life partner than the inner
personality beneath it. There are a bunch of boxes that she needs to have checkedthings like his
height, job prestige, wealth-level, accomplishments, or maybe a novelty item like being foreign or
having a specific talent.
Everyone has certain on-paper boxes theyd like checked, but a strongly ego-driven person
prioritizes appearances and rsums above even the quality of her connection with her potential life
partner when weighing things.
If you want a fun new term, a significant other whom you suspect was chosen more because of the
boxes they checked than for their personality underneath is a scantron boyfriend or a scantron
wife, etc. Ive gotten some good mileage out of that one.

Selfish Stanley

The selfish come in three, sometimes-overlapping varieties:
1) The My Way or the Highway Type
This person cannot handle sacrifice or compromise. She believes her needs and desires and opinions
are simply more important than her partners, and she needs to get her way in almost any big
decision. In the end, she doesnt want a legitimate partnership, she wants to keep her single life and
have someone there to keep her company.
This person inevitably ends up with at best a super easy-going person, and at worst, a pushover with
a self-esteem issue, and sacrifices a chance to be part of a team of equals, almost certainly limiting
the potential quality of her marriage.
2) The Main Character
The Main Characters tragic flaw is being massively self-absorbed. He wants a life partner who
serves as both his therapist and biggest admirer, but is mostly uninterested in returning either favor.
Each night, he and his partner discuss their days, but 90% of the discussion centers around his
dayafter all, hes the main character of the relationship. The issue for him is that by being
incapable of tearing himself away from his personal world, he ends up with a sidekick as his life
partner, which makes for a pretty boring 50 years.
3) The Needs-Driven
Everyone has needs, and everyone likes those needs to be met, but problems arise when the meeting
of needsshe cooks for me, hell be a great father, shell make a great wife, hes rich, she keeps me
organized, hes great in bedbecomes the main grounds for choosing someone as a life partner.
Those listed things are all great perks, but thats all they areperks. And after a year of marriage,
when the needs-driven person is now totally accustomed to having her needs met and its no longer
exciting, there better be a lot more good parts of the relationship shes chosen or shes in for a dull
ride.
___________________
The main reason most of the above types end up in unhappy relationships is that theyre consumed
by a motivating force that doesnt take into account the reality of what a life partnership is and what
makes it a happy thing.
Often, the key to succeeding at something big is to break it into its tiniest pieces and focus
on how to succeed at just one piece.
When we examined procrastination, we talked about how a great achievement is just what a
long series of unremarkable tasks looks like from far away. In the pixel post, we looked at a
human life up close and saw that it was just an ordinary Wednesday, again and again and
againand that achieving life happiness was all about learning to be happy on a routine
weekday.
I think the same idea applies to marriage .
From afar, a great marriage is a sweeping love story, like a marriage in a book or a movie.
And thats a nice, poetic way to look at a marriage as a whole.
But human happiness doesnt function in sweeping strokes, because we dont live in broad
summationswere stuck in the tiny unglamorous folds of the fabric of life, and thats
where our happiness is determined.
So if we want to find a happy marriage, we need to think smallwe need to look at
marriage up close and see that its built not out of anything poetic, but out of 20,000
mundane Wednesdays.
Marriage isnt the honeymoon in Thailandits day four of vacation #56 that you take
together. Marriage is not celebrating the closing of the deal on the first houseits having
dinner in that house for the 4,386th time. And its certainly not Valentines Day.
Marriage is Forgettable Wednesday. Together.
So Ill leave the butterflies and the kisses in the rain and the twice-a-day sex to youyoull
work that part out Im sureand spend this post trying to figure out the best way to make
Forgettable Wednesday as happy as possible.
To endure 20,000 days with another human being and do so happily, there are three key
ingredients necessary:
1) An Epic Friendship
I enjoy spending time with most of my friendsthats why theyre my friends. But with
certain friends, the time is so high-quality, so interesting, and so fun that they pass the
Traffic Test.
The Traffic Test is passed when Im finishing up a hangout with someone and one of us is
driving the other back home or back to their car, and I find myself rooting for traffic. Thats
how much Im enjoying the time with them.
Passing the Traffic Test says a lot. It means Im lost in the interaction, invigorated by it,
and that Im the complete opposite of bored.
To me, almost nothing is more critical in choosing a life partner than finding someone who
passes the Traffic Test. When there are people in your life who do pass the Traffic Test,
what a whopping shame it would be to spend 95% of the rest of your life with someone
who doesnt.
A Traffic Test-passing friendship entails:
A great sense of humor click. No one wants to spend 50 years fake laughing.
Fun. And the ability to extract fun out of unfun situationsairport delays, long drives,
errands. Not surprisingly, studies suggest that the amount of fun a couple has is a strong
predictor for their future.
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A respect for each others brains and way of thinking. A life partner doubles as a
career/life therapist, and if you dont respect the way someone thinks, youre not going to
want to tell them your thoughts on work each day, or on anything else interesting that pops
into your head, because you wont really care that much what they have to say about it.
A decent number of common interests, activities, and people-preferences. Otherwise a lot
of what makes you you will inevitably become a much smaller part of your life, and you
and your life partner will struggle to find enjoyable ways to spend a free Saturday together.
A friendship that passes the Traffic Test gets better and better with time, and it has
endless room to deepen and grow ever-richer.
2) A Feeling of Home
If someone told you you had to sit in a chair for 12 straight hours without moving, aside
from wondering why the hell they were making you do this, your first thought would be, I
better get in the most comfortable possible positionbecause youd know that even
the slightest bit of discomfort would grow to pain and eventually, torture. When you have to
do something for a long, long time, its best if its supremely comfortable.
When it comes to marriage, a perpetual discomfort between you and your partner can be
a permanent source of unhappiness, especially as it magnifies over time, much like your
torturous situation in the chair. Feeling at home means feeling safe, cozy, natural, and
utterly yourself, and in order to have this feeling with a partner, a few things need to be in
place:
Trust and security. Secrets are poison to a relationship, because they form an invisible wall
inside the relationship, leaving both people somewhat alone in the worldand besides, who
wants to spend 50 years lying or worrying about hiding something? And on the other side of
secrets will often be suspicion, a concept that directly clashes with the concept of home. This
is why having an affair during an otherwise good marriage is one of the most self-defeating
and short-sighted things someone could ever do.
Natural chemistry. Interacting should be easy and natural, energy levels should be in the
same vicinity, and you should feel on the same wavelength in general. When Im with
someone on a very different wavelength than I am, it doesnt take long before the interaction
becomes exhausting.
Acceptance of human flaws. Youre flawed. Like, really flawed. And so is your current or
future life-partner. Being flawed is part of the definition of being a human. And one of the
worst fates would be to spend most of your life being criticized for your flaws and
reprimanded for continuing to have them. This isnt to say people shouldnt work on self-
improvement, but when it comes to a life partnership, the healthy attitude is, Every person
comes with a set of flaws, these are my partners, and theyre part of the package I knowingly
chose to spend my life with.
A generally positive vibe. Remember, this is the vibe youre a part of now, forever. Its not
really acceptable for it to be a negative one, nor is it sustainable. Relationship scientist John
Gottman has found that couples with a ratio of fewer than five positive interactions for every
negative one are destined for divorce.
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3) A Determination to be Good at Marriage
Relationships are hard. Expecting a strong relationship without treating it like a rigorous
part-time job is like expecting to have a great career without putting in any effort. In a time
when humans in most parts of the world can enjoy freedom and carve their own path in
life, it usually doesnt sit that well to suddenly become half of something and compromise
on a bunch of things you grew up being selfish about.
So what skills does someone need to learn to be good at marriage?
Communication. Communication being on this list is as silly as oxygen being on a list of
items you need to stay healthy. And yet, poor communication is the downfall of a huge
number of couplesin fact, in a study on divorcees, communication style was the top thing
they said theyd change for their next relationship.
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Communication is hard to do well
consistentlysuccessful couples often need to create pre-planned systems or even partake in
couples therapy to make sure it happens.
Maintaining equality. Relationships can slip into an unequal power dynamic pretty quickly.
When one persons mood always dictates the mood in the room, when one persons needs or
opinion consistently prevail over the others, when one person can treat the other in a way
theyd never stand for being treated themselvesyouve got a problem.
Fighting well. Fighting is inevitable. But there are good and bad ways to fight. When a
couple is good at fighting, they defuse tension, approach things with humor, and genuinely
listen to the other side, while avoiding getting nasty, personal or defensive. They also fight
less often than a bad couple. According to John Gottman, 69% of a typical couples fights are
perpetual, based on core differences, and cannot be resolvedand a skilled couple
understands this and refrains from engaging in these brawls again and again.
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In searching for your life partner or assessing your current life partnership, its important to
remember that every relationship is flawed and you probably wont end up in something
that gets an A in every one of the above items and bullet pointsbut you should hope to
do pretty well on most of them, since each one plays a large part in your lifelong happiness.
And since this is a daunting list to try to achieve in a life partnership, you probably dont
want to make things even harder than they need to be by insisting upon too many other
checkboxesmost of which will not have a large effect on your happiness during dinner
#4,386 of your marriage. It would be nice if he played the guitar, but take it off the list of
must-haves.
Finally, Ill wish you a Happy Valentines DayI hope you enjoy yourself, whatever youre
doing for it. But just remember that Forgettable Wednesday is a much more important day.
__________
Sources
The facts and opinions in this article are based on a combination of dozens of hours of
research, on both scientific study results and expert opinions, and of my own personal
experience and observations and those of a number of my friends and family (many of
whom I interviewed in the last week). Special thanks to Eric Barker for his great
blog, Barking Up the Wrong Tree, from which I mined a number of sources for this post.