An Enduring Assumption About Love
This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.
For as long as people have been looking for love, many have been convinced that they know exactly what it looks like. We might talk about having a “type”: someone with certain traits, habits, beliefs, or quirks that we assume will add up to a successful match. But that certainty is often an illusion, Olga Khazan writes.
Studies suggest that what people say they want in a partner rarely predicts whom they actually fall for—or whom they build a relationship with. Chemistry, timing, shared experiences, and the slow work of falling in love with someone tend to matter far more than the traits that some people screen for on a dating-app profile.
This Valentine’s Day, explore stories that challenge the idea that love is about finding the “right kind” of person.
On Love and Choice
Most People Don’t Have a ‘Type’
By Olga Khazan
Many daters have a list of traits they’re looking for in a partner—but can be perfectly happy with someone who has few of them.
The Common Dating Strategy That’s Totally Wrong
By Arthur C. Brooks
If you’re looking for romance, stop focusing on what you and your date have in common. (From 2022)
Can You Ever Really Escape Your Ex?
By Faith Hill
Your repeated attraction to a certain “type” may come down more to psychological comfort than a mysterious connection. (From 2024)
Still Curious?
- “Nostalgia for a dating experience they’ve never had”: Young people are tired of swiping, Faith Hill wrote in 2024. Now they want serendipity.
- How to stop dating people who are wrong for you: Focus on the long term. Don’t try to replace your ex, Arthur C. Brooks wrote in 2022.
Other Diversions
- First jobs matter more than we think.
- The multibillion-dollar foundation that controls the humanities
- Robert F. Worth: Rod Dreher thinks the Enlightenment was a mistake.
PS
My colleague Isabel Fattal recently asked readers to share a photo of something that sparks their sense of awe in the world. “This scene is of Split Rock Lighthouse on Lake Champlain in Essex, New York, during an ice fog event. You can also see the Adirondack mountains in the background,” Robert C., 64, in Ferrisburgh, Vermont, writes.
We’ll continue to feature your responses in the coming weeks.
— Rafaela