If magnets attract opposites, does the science apply to love too?

We might feel excited about exploring our partner’s world when it’s so different from ours. Everything is new: new hobbies, fresh places to get used to, and novel adventures all around us.

But will we fit into this long term?

Then we have partners that are so alike that it’s like talking to ourselves. We connect with them on so many levels we have to pinch ourselves to ensure we’re not dreaming.

And here comes the same question, will this remarkable similarity stand the test of time?

So let’s put it to the test: similar vs. opposite, which one attracts us the most?

Friends for life look alike

We can start by looking at the behavior of our closest relatives, chimpanzees, and how they create meaningful bonds with each other.

Chimpanzees are known to establish long-lasting connections mainly with same-sex buddies but these aren’t merely based on kinship. Being related to each other doesn’t exclusively determine who hangs out with whom.

Two researchers from the University of Zurich took a closer look at two chimpanzee colonies in the Netherlands to see their bonding behaviors. They analyzed chimps spanning ages from 1.5 to 53 years housed in a fine zoo and found that chimpanzee friendships were more likely to form when individuals had similar personalities.

For instance, chimpanzees with similar levels of sociability, which is a bit like extraversion in humans, were more likely to form strong friendships and spend time together. In other words, those who share their outgoing and social nature will prefer others who are like them. This preference for similarity held for both unrelated and related individuals, although it seemed stronger among kin.

What about our species?

A groundbreaking study by researchers from the University of California and Yale dived deep into the genomes of friends. They examined over a thousand pairs of friends and compared them to stranger pairs and found that friends are more genetically similar to each other than to your average Joe on the street.

Friends share the same amount of genetic material as a fourth cousin would. It’s as if humans have this innate, almost subconscious tendency to go towards folks with similar genetics. This means that our genes not only shape our physical traits but also influence our social circles. Our DNA seems to have a say in who we choose to hang out with.

It’s a whole new dimension to the idea of “you are who you hang out with.”

So opposites don’t seem to attract in friendships, but do they in romantic relationships?

The love equation

Picture this: you’re in a socially monogamous society, and you’re looking for that perfect long-term partner. Now, you might think that going for the absolute best partner available is the way to go, right? Well, not really.

If you rush into a relationship without waiting for a good fit to pair up, you might end up with someone of vastly different quality, and those relationships tend to be shaky. The higher-quality mate can always find better options.

A smarter strategy is to assess your mate's potential, form preferences based on that, and choose a partner of similar quality.

This strategy relies on your ability to assess your worth and evaluate potential mates within your local pool. The thing is our self-perception and mate assessment are pretty relative and can be swayed by the people around us.

For instance, ladies tend to lower their self-esteem when they see profiles of super-attractive women. Meanwhile, guys might do the same when exposed to profiles of dominant dudes.

Our mate preferences are shaped by how we see ourselves.

Researchers from Cornell University took it a step further and explored two hypotheses:

1. Potentials attract: We go for partners with similar reproductive potential. For example, a highly attractive person seeking a highly attractive partner.

2. Likes attract: We prefer partners with traits like our own. For instance, a person values physical appearance in themselves and also values it in a partner.

What did they find?

• Individuals who have a high self-perception of themselves as desirable long-term partners tend to be more selective in their preferences when choosing a mate.

• When people assess themselves positively in certain traits (i.e. physical appearance or wealth), they tend to prioritize these same traits when looking for a partner. They seek partners who are similar to themselves in these specific attributes.

In Western societies, we tend to pick partners who mirror our self-perceptions in various trait categories. We go for partners who share our qualities, rather than chasing some elusive “best” partner out there. This holds for both men and women in the abovementioned study.

So it’s not always about finding the best, but finding the one who matches you best.

Do couples share musical preferences?

We saw that people often seek romantic partners who share similar qualities, but what about music taste?

Take online dating platforms.

What’s right there in your profile toolbox?

Your music preferences.

It’s become such a big deal that nine out of ten popular dating sites will ask you about your music tastes. Especially among the younger crowd, music is gold when it comes to showcasing your personality.

Two scientists from the University of Cambridge wanted to see music’s role in young adults' interactions with dating apps. In a six-week experiment where participants interacted online without any topic rules, they found that music took the spotlight. In the first week, 58% of participants were chatting about music compared to other topics like movies and football came second place with 41%.

In a world where you can talk about anything, music is often the star of the show.

But let’s take it a bit further.

At the University of Alabama, researchers focused on video dating and introduced male and female subjects to carefully crafted video profiles of potential opposite-gender dates. These profiles ranged from their career aspirations to their hobbies, including their taste in music or the lack thereof.

After 239 college students viewed these dating profiles, the researchers wanted to understand if and how these revealed music preferences affected how appealing participants found the person as a potential date and how sexually attractive they perceived them to be.

There were some very interesting results:

• Taste in music can significantly affect how datable people appear. College women, for instance, saw their appeal diminish when they aligned themselves with heavy metal rock or country and Western tunes. Also, men who favored country music tended to be less appealing to women, and the same was observed when women expressed a preference for country music.

• College men found themselves more drawn to women who dug heavy metal, even if they thought they lacked a bit in the sophistication department. Women who liked the same music as these men were perceived as more attractive, exciting, beautiful, sexy, sensual, and fun at parties.

• Classical music and soft rock, on the other hand, seemed like safer bets for both sides.

And here’s the secret sauce for success in dating: sharing musical preferences could boost people’s desirability and attraction factor.
When potential dates shared similar music tastes, it made them more appealing to those who were watching.

But there was a twist. Men seemed to place more importance on musical compatibility than women did. They were more likely to be attracted to women who shared their taste in music.

Women, on the other hand, were all about excitement and unpredictability, even if it meant dating guys with unconventional musical tastes. So, if a guy had a wild side, like being into heavy metal, women found that exciting and attractive.

And while they found these men attractive, they also perceived them as lacking in sophistication. It’s almost like they were intrigued by the wild side but acknowledged that these men might not be the ones you’d take to a fancy classical concert.

It’s a reminder that when you’re in the dating game, the playlist of your life might be calling the shots more than you’d ever imagine.

What do to when loved ones live apart?

Many couples might be physically separated due to work or study commitments and to keep the bond they use fancy tech to keep a sense of normalcy.

How do you convey the feeling of just being there when you go to sleep at night, especially when you’re miles apart?

Researchers from the University of Toronto and the Université Paris-Sud came up with an interesting solution. Gathering insights from six remote couples led to the creation of something called the “MissU” technology probe.

MissU aimed to explore how couples experience moments of connection during their daily lives and found there were many empty moments. These are those times when you don’t have anything specific to say, but you just want to feel connected. They often occur during routine activities like doing the dishes or winding down before bed.

Current communication tech doesn’t quite cut it for these moments. So MissU came up with the idea of sharing ambient sounds and music.

• You can share ambient sounds with your partner. MissU captures the sounds around you and shares them in real time with your loved one. It’s like they’re right there with you, hearing what you hear.

• You share your mood and presence with them. Its sensors pick up on things like your heart rate, body movement, and even environmental factors and translate them into a mood signal. Imagine your partner suddenly hearing an upbeat, heart-pounding track on their end, matching the tempo of your workout.

I couldn’t help but remember a futuristic device shown in the Netflix series called Osmosis that has a similar goal. In the series, people are implanted with nanobots that interface directly with another person’s mind and emotions so they feel what the other person feels.

“MissU” doesn’t go that far and only operates as an external device to maintain an emotional connection in long-distance relationships through these shared sound experiences.

Final thoughts

Both friends and romantic partners tend to have more similarities with us than differences.

We choose them because of what we share, not of what draws us apart.

We want to share something others will appreciate but if if our differences are too vast, how are we to connect?

This same principle applies to music. In those quiet moments (a.k.a. empty moments) when words can’t convey our feelings, music becomes a bridge to share our world with someone special.

Music holds a significant place in our lives, just look at how quickly it factors into online dating. If we can’t share the intimacy of melodies, there might not be compatibility after all.

In the world of attraction, magnets may come together when they’re opposites, but for most people, real connections happen when they have things in common.