# The Science of Happily Ever After by Ty Tashiro - Blinkist

What’s in it for me? Find out how to make your “happily ever after” a reality.

If you’re dreaming of finding your Mr. or Ms. Right through a dramatic act of fate, your eyes meeting, passion erupting, and happily ever after ensuing … then prepare to be disillusioned. Did you know that you are most likely trying to choose a mate using “outdated software?” In other words, your brain is wired to seek a mate based on survival even though what you really want is a forever kind of love. Those are two very different goals that require very different processes.

In our Blink of The Science of Happily Ever After we’ll talk about why you only get three wishes for a relationship, go into the history of humanity and why we’re suddenly so ill-equipped to choose a lifelong partner, and lastly, we’ll deliver to you the three wishes you should be looking for and how to systemize how you identify and prioritize these traits.

Choosing wisely

Anna was a senior in high school, a top student, and very organized. One day, she decided that she didn’t want to leave high school with her virginity intact. So she made a resolution that she’d finally have sex with someone.

When it came time to choose the lucky guy, she decided she wanted someone good-looking, athletic, and Catholic. She set her sights on Jake, who fit the bill perfectly. They went on some dates, and finally, the moment came to do the deed.

They were so aflame with passion that they forgot to use protection. Almost as soon as it was finished, Anna looked at Jake and started noticing all the things about him that weren’t very attractive. She spent the next couple of weeks in fear that she may have conceived a child with someone she didn’t even like very much.

This story is the perfect microcosm for what goes wrong in relationships. Before we pick apart Anna’s story to find what she did wrong and what she did right, let’s define love.

Love, at least for this Blink, is defined as “liking plus lusting.” 

Liking consists of three traits: loyalty, kindness, and fairness.

Studies show that lust declines faster than liking, which isn’t surprising. It’s common knowledge that the “honeymoon” doesn’t last forever. With that knowledge, the obvious solution would be for people to prioritize liking someone a bit more heavily than lusting for them.

If that sounds a little too cerebral and unromantic, then brace yourself for the next part. You get three, and only three, wishes for your future partner. The reason why is a matter of statistics and probability.

Scientists use the Drake equation to determine the possible number of planets in the universe that might support life. Essentially, it’s a process of elimination. For example, in order to support life, the planet needs to be orbiting a star like the sun. That immediately narrows down the possibilities.

When it comes to finding a mate, your three wishes also narrow down your pool of possibilities dramatically, especially if you prioritize some of the rarer traits like a guy over six feet tall or a woman with a PhD.

As unromantic as it sounds, achieving a happily ever after is about statistical probability.

Let’s take a quick detour into why that sounds unromantic. We’re inundated with fairy tales from our earliest days, and many of us continue partaking in fairy tale stories via movies or romantic novels.

Meeting someone we’re attracted to is exciting. It floods us with endorphins. There’s a feeling of fate about it. We can only see positive traits. It feels like this was meant to be.

Unfortunately, it’s the belief that meeting your happily ever after is an act of fate rather than intent that likely leads to only 4 out of 10 couples achieving it.

Back to those three wishes. Maybe this number is upsetting. Maybe you have a top ten list of traits. Prioritizing your top three wishes isn’t about settling. Most people you meet will have more than three of your favorite traits. But to set yourself up for the best chance at a happily ever after, it’s important to be deliberate and purposeful about prioritizing your top three traits.

One thing Anna got right was that she chose only three traits – good-looking, athletic, and Catholic. What she did wrong was prioritize lust over liking.

Fortunately, she didn’t get pregnant and she learned to prioritize liking over lust when choosing her top three traits. In that way, she was able to find someone she has a much higher probability of living happily ever after with.

Why we’re romantic

Frédéric Chopin was a famous composer in the 1800s, right in the midst of the Romantic period. He was a small, sickly man suffering from tuberculosis.

One night at a gala, he met a woman named Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, otherwise known by her pen name, George Sand. She was six years his senior and frequently spoke of him as though he was a small child.

Their love affair was the epitome of Romantic ideals, full of passion and beauty. But as a relationship, there were plenty of warning signs that it wouldn’t work out. For one thing, Chopin found something repellant in Sand. And she found him to be inconstant, except for his cough which she mentioned was unfailingly present.

But we can’t really blame them for acting on their instincts instead of making a more logical choice, and there are good reasons for that.

Throughout most of history, choosing a mate has been a matter of survival. For centuries, humans were at risk of dying before they had chance to procreate. So while anthropological studies show that passionate love has always existed, mates were typically chosen based on traits that indicated health and energy.

In other words, a woman 500 years ago may have sought a man who was tall and handsome – indicating good health – and capable of working long hours – indicating the ability to provide enough sustainable energy to bring a child to reproductive age. Not exactly romantic.

But then, thanks to advances in food production and medical care, the human lifespan increased. Surviving until the age of reproduction was all but guaranteed. As a result, humans suddenly found themselves with time on their hands and the ability to pursue things for pleasure.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t time for our brains to develop adaptations to allow us to navigate the rules of passionate love. Instead, our brains are still wired to chase beauty – indicating survivability – and wealth – indicating sustainable resources.

Now, there’s no problem with having a preference for beauty and wealth, but let’s go back to those three wishes.

Your three wishes are, essentially, an investment in your future with a partner. While seeking physical attractiveness is likely your instinct, studies show that there is a diminishing return on that investment. After all, survival and the ability to bring children into adulthood is no longer a challenge. So that beautiful person you’re with, while they may be healthy and fit right now, needs to be able to offer you more than good health for the relationship to last.

The same is true of wealth. Studies show there is a diminishing return on wealth past the point that financial stability is achieved. In fact, you have an 80 percent chance of never having a financial problem that’s a threat to your relationship. So again, while there’s nothing wrong with wanting the finer things, you need to think carefully about where you place wealth on your wish list.

We started this section with a story about Chopin and romantic love. To bring this all together, let’s define romantic love. It’s the focus on our passion rather than practicality. Prior to the 1800s, people may have experienced passion but they made their choices based on survival. Now, with survival no longer a factor, people are free to pursue their passions.

As we mentioned in the first section, love is the perfect blend of liking and lust. When you’re in the middle of lust, it’s very difficult to think logically. That’s why – if you want to invest in a long-term relationship – your three wishes should be based on liking or long-term needs. You should know your three wishes well so that when you find your Chopin or your Sand, you don’t lose yourself in the passion of a doomed affair.

Healthy relationships are about elevating both parties. No one should be lost or consumed by passion but rather enhanced by it.

Tashiro’s parents have a long and successful marriage. When asking his father his secret, he replied that he never liked the theater. He’d spent many nights at theater openings by his wife’s side because, even though he’d rather have been watching the big game, he enjoyed making her happy. He also enjoyed being by her side. So he prioritized appreciation over selfishness.

Remember that liking is made up of kindness, fairness, and loyalty. That should give you some clue as to how to align your three wishes for the best chance at long-term relationship success.

Getting to happily ever after

Dan had a huge crush on Elyse. She was one of the first in the cafeteria each morning which was where Dan originally caught sight of her. Beautiful, composed, and put together, yes, it was a little odd that she ate salad for breakfast, but that didn’t matter too much to Dan.

He spent weeks wishing he could talk to her before he finally got up the nerve. He took his pancakes and headed her way, but he was a little embarrassed about his breakfast, so he stopped by the salad bar to try and fit some greens onto his plate. As he stopped to evaluate his choices, he looked up to see Elyse at his side. She smiled and invited him back to her table.

This seems like a positive start to a love story, so we’ll pause here and talk about the big promise of this Blink – how to predict the future of your relationship using your three wishes.

As mentioned previously, what we’re wishing for are traits because traits are forever. A person may be able to manage their traits, but the traits will still be there. So in a way, a person’s traits are your crystal ball.

To set yourself up for success, follow these three steps. First, notice important traits during the beginning of the relationship. Second, organize what you observe – that means literally writing it down. And third, objectively predict your chances of success based on the traits of the other person. Simple, right?

Unfortunately, biology has made us woefully inept at seeing traits let alone making wise decisions about them when we’re in the midst of a passionate relationship. We’re bad at making yes or no decisions on big topics. We’re bad at making decisions on small issues. We’re just bad at making decisions.

To make matters even more challenging, it turns out that your friends and family are better at accurately identifying your prospective partner’s traits than you are. But you’re primed to ignore or justify the negative traits and accentuate the positive.

So for the rest of this section, we’re going to give you a three-wishes cheat sheet and a system for planning the success of your next, and hopefully forever, relationship.

The trait categories we’ll focus on are personality, attachment style, and behavior in a current relationship.

Personality is how you think, act, and feel. It’s who you are. Besides focusing on finding someone you have things in common with, you also want to keep in mind three things.

First, avoid someone who is highly neurotic. Overreactors are typically aware enough of their own behavior to make an effort to hide their neuroticism for a time. So it may take a while to assess this trait. Watch for how your partner behaves under various degrees of stress or when things don’t go the way they want.

Second, watch out for cheaters. While people aren’t likely to advertise that they’re cheaters, people who seek novelty are more likely to get bored in a relationship. So that exciting person who’s so thrilling to be with might not be a good bet for the long run.

Third, put a premium on agreeableness. It isn’t that nice guys finish last … it’s that they stay in the race for the long run. If you’re going to prioritize one trait above all others, prioritize agreeableness. But this doesn’t mean someone who’s a pushover or always gives you your way. It just means someone who communicates well and believes that a win-win relationship is one where both parties are prioritizing the relationship.

Now, let’s talk about what to look for in attachment styles. There are three styles of attachment: Secure attachment is when someone is able to be close to others and is comfortable depending on and being depended on by their partner. Avoidant attachment is when someone struggles to be close to others and feels distrust throughout a relationship. And anxious attachment is when someone is so needy in a relationship that they want to disappear into the relationship.

It should be fairly obvious which one you should wish for. Secure attachment is a predictor of reproductive health, relationship satisfaction, and relationship stability.

Now that we’ve talked about personality and attachment style, let’s get into observances during a current relationship.

When forming a wish on this basis, look for a person who’s able to match your degree of enthusiasm whenever you’re telling them about your day; someone who pays attention and exhibits empathy; and someone who has enough self-esteem to accept love and enthusiasm from you.

To at last start down the path to happily ever after, follow these steps. First, decide on your ultimate goal. Second, analyze the way you’ve gone about achieving this goal in the past. Then, apply your new three wishes using the traits that you truly want to spend the rest of your life with. Fourth, create a framework in a journal or on a spreadsheet for holding yourself accountable for observing traits in your prospective partner. And finally, pay attention to your progress and mark the little wins.

Dan and Elyse didn’t work out. There were too many disparities between their personalities to reconcile. Dan’s insecurity was too much to overcome – and worst of all, he knew it. Elyse often resorted to cruelty and ridicule whenever he did something that wasn’t up to par. They simply weren’t compatible. Had Dan used a framework to assess the relationship, he could have predicted the future a little better.

The key to creating happily ever after – beside working on becoming your best self – is to observe traits as predictors of future behaviors and to prioritize the traits that are most predictive of a successful relationship.

Final Summary

Relationships don’t have to be a matter of fate or chance. In fact, it’s best if they aren’t. While we’ve been hardwired since the beginning of our species to seek mates based on survivability, in the last 150 years lifespans have increased and people are now able to pick mates based on preference. Unfortunately, our mate-selection processes are still wired for survival. So we have to take a deliberate and purposeful approach to dating. This includes focusing on the top three traits we want that predict the longevity of a relationship.