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Published online 13 February 2008 | Nature 451, 760-762 (2008) | doi:10.1038/451760a
News Feature
Love: You have 4 minutes to choose your perfect mate
What is the secret to finding the right partner? Two researchers are using unconventional techniques to find out. Matt Kaplan investigates the science of speed dating.
Eli Finkel and Paul Eastwick have probably seen more first dates than most. The social scientists at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, have watched hundreds of videos of single people as they participate in a curious, but not unpopular, trend known as speed dating.
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It's good to see people studying this kind of stuff since there are so many singles out there. Herold and Milhausen did a study in 1999 (J Sex Marital Ther) and found similar preferences among women - that they say they want the nice guy, but in actuality, go for someone else. There's a guru on dating out there, David DeAngelo, who created the Double Your Dating video series that emphasizes this point while citing lots of books. Robert Glover also wrote a book called "No More Mr. Nice Guy," explaining why men who act nice, which is what women say they want, end up failing in love and life.
Well, original and interesting study. However, speaking about love as an emotion (an amygdala firing), I don't agree it is uniquely human. Speaking about Love as a Choice, I do. Unfortunately, they are two different intities sharing the same nomination of Love. Common Love, its definition is found in dictionaries as passion, feeling... and is read in romantic stories and listened to in songs. I perfectly agree that this common Love could be scientifically interpreted even we are still in the "thin-slicing" level. The other type of Love, the uncommon one, only shares the name with the former however is totally different. It is about a conscious Choice AGAINST feelings (neuronal firings up there). It is about a choice of faithfulness despite the betrayal of a partner, a choice of giving despite a crirical need and a choice of forgivness despite a deep hurt. This type of ability is really what uniquely distinguishes us-homosapians and is unaccredited to scientific trials and computations. Obviously, choices of that kind are not easy to make especially with the lack of a model in the society. Jesus did it and tought me how to do it.
Samer, That is so true. I guess that the love of choice you're referring to is also called Agapao love. May we learn to practice it effectively as our Savior taught us to.
The dilemma is that this article is unclear as to what Finkel and Eastwick actually accomplished. Unfortunately, most studies on dating, love, relationships and male/female attraction end up kind of murky like this one. It's not because the research is not done well. It is because the researchers are attempting to harness that which cannot be neatly packaged, formulated and delivered to the public for consumption. If it is love that they were measuring then this is problem. Love is not something that can be measured and calculated and it certainly cannot be sized up in four minutes. I am confident that Finkel and Eastwick were delivered up handfuls of evidence that confirmed this and they presented us with some of the evidence in this article. You might think that researchers can't seem to get it right because love is a mystery but it's not. Love is not an emotion, an event, a date, a sexual attraction, kismet or destiny. Love is certainly not a 4 minute speed date. Love is a person. That's right. Love is embodied within an individual that you meet and you connect with for a multitude of complex reasons. These complexities are specific to you. In other words, your love is made to order for you. That's right. Not only is love a person but that person is custom made. Researchers may be able to examine many aspects of love but they will never be able to wrap themselves around true love and tell us what it is and how to get it. It looks different for each and every one of us. Love is a person. Look around you. They may be there.
Samer, faithfulness despite the betrayal of a partner has little to do with love and more to do with a psychiatric disorder. It's a little like faithfulness despite being beaten black and blue by your partner - the difference is in the type of abuse, physical or mental. And what Jesus and "our Saviour" have to do with a discussion about romantic love are totally beyond me, but each to his own I guess.