<p><span class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><span><span data-post-image="" class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54a332d4ecad043d448b4568-1200-924/couple-relationship-romantic-love-2.jpg" border="0" alt="couple relationship romantic love"><span class="source"><span>Shutterstock</span></span><span class="caption">People in love "predict that their relationship will last longer than it actually does."</span></img></span><p></p></span></span>Wondering whether your relationship will go the distance?</p>
<p>Ask a friend.</p>
<p>That may sound counterintuitive. After all, you presumably have more information about your own romantic relationship than your college roommate, say. But you are also terribly biased.</p>
<p>Research has shown that each of us has a rosy view of our own relationship. Your friends, on the other hand, may be better able to see it for what it is.</p>
<p>A friend's perceptions of your romantic union, at least <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11761306">one study</a> has found, are actually better than yours at predicting the fate of your relationship.</p>
<h2>A Beautiful Illusion</h2>
<p>Most of us&#xa0;<a href="http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/eli-finkel/documents/62_MartzVeretteArriagaSlovikCoxRusbult1998_PersonalRelationships.pdf">harbor positive illusions</a> about the people closest to us, especially those central to our own identities - like a romantic partner. In many ways, this isn't a bad thing: In fact, people who idealize their partners <a href="http://psp.sagepub.com/content/23/6/586.abstract">tend to have longer-lasting relationships</a>.</p>
<p>But such a rosy view might also "cloud their judgement and influence their perceptions," <span>a team of psychologists from Purdue University and Southern Methodist University&#xa0;</span><span></span><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11761306">wrote in 2001</a><span>. The result?</span>&#xa0;People in love "<a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14792779343000112?journalCode=pers20#.VKRi_WTF_YA">predict that their relationship</a> will last longer than it actually does."</p>
<p>For better or for worse, however, your friends are generally less invested in your relationship than you are, and therefore less likely to be biased in how they see it. Fortunately, you can use their expertise to your advantage.</p>
<h2>Auspicious Beginnings?</h2>
<p>In that&#xa0;<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11761306">2001 study</a>,&#xa0;Christopher Agnew, Timothy Loving, and Stephen Drigotas acknowledged that people are not so great at predicting how their own relationships turn out, and designed an experiment to find out whether people's "social networks" - at the time just an old-fashioned term for friends and acquaintances - could act as more reliable soothsayers.</p>
<p>The researchers focused on 74 couples who had been dating for a median of one year and asked them to list their individual friends and joint friends. (The small, non-diverse group of mostly college-aged participants means that the study's results are intriguing, but by no means the final say on all human relationships.)</p>
<p>They interviewed the couples about their relationships, and then they sent questionnaires to hundreds of their friends, asking them to share what they really thought about their friends' pairings.</p>
<p>Six months later, 15 of the 70 couples the researchers could still contact had broken up.&#xa0;</p>
<p><span class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><span><span data-post-image="" class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54ab5453ecad04f47e342009-1200-924/couple-happy-relationship-smiling-2.jpg" border="0" alt="couple happy relationship smiling"><span class="source"><span>Shutterstock</span></span><span class="caption">"Given the amount of effort individuals put into their romantic endeavors, they are likely motivated to view their relationships in a positive light."</span></img></span><p></p></span></span></p>
<h2>A Crystal Ball</h2>
<p>In general, the study suggests, your friends are not as psyched about your relationship as you are - at least if you're a 20-year-old college student. At the beginning of the experiment, the people in relationships said they were more committed and happy than their friends seemed to think they were.</p>
<p>"Given the amount of effort individuals put into their romantic endeavors, [they] are likely motivated to view their relationships in a positive light," wrote Loving, in <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-6811.2006.00122.x/abstract">a later analysis</a>. "Otherwise, why would they be in them?"</p>
<p>However much your friends want you to be happy, it's not personal for them the way it is for you - and that distance turns out to be crucial.&#xa0;</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">While "friends' perceptions [were] somewhat aligned" with what the couples themselves reported, "joint friends, her friends, and his friends all [perceived] relationship state as significantly more negative than the couple members themselves did," the researchers explained in the paper.</span></p>
<p>As it turned out, these glass-half-empty perceptions of the couples were "powerfully predictive" of the fate of the relationships.&#xa0;<span>And the more couples blabbed to their friends about their relationships, the more accurate their friends' perceptions were. Meanwhile, t</span>he friends of the women in the pairings - most of whom were women themselves - seemed to be more in tune with their friends' relationships than both&#xa0;the couples themselves and their friends as a whole.</p>
<p>These findings, the researchers write, "are especially remarkable" since outsiders' impressions of relationships are based on secondhand knowledge and "considerably less information" than the couples have themselves. Of course, the authors note, couples have a "tremendous personal stake in the romance that clouds [their] judgement regarding it."</p>
<p><span class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><span><span data-post-image="" class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54ab5afdecad04631c34200d-1200-924/elderly-old-couple-relationship-longevity-healthy-bikes-happiness-aging.jpg" border="0" alt="elderly old couple relationship longevity healthy bikes happiness aging"><span class="source"><span>Shutterstock</span></span><span class="caption">Who will make it from a college romance to a retirement romance?</span></img></span><p></p></span></span></p>
<h2>No Such Thing As A Sure Thing</h2>
<p>Notably, the 2001 researchers did not actually ask participants whether they thought their friends' relationships would last. They simply asked participants for their impressions of each relationship, and then measured whether those impressions were predictive of the way the relationships turned out. (They were.)</p>
<p>In an <a href="http://psp.sagepub.com/content/25/11/1417.short">earlier, smaller study</a>, though, Canadian researchers found slightly different results: Students' roommates and parents were asked directly whether the student-couple would still be together after one year, and those confidantes were also able to make more accurate predictions than the students themselves.</p>
<p>That result seems to confirm that "ask a friend" may indeed be one good way to see into your relationship's future. But the couples in the Canadian study provided more accurate assessments of their own relationship's quality than did their parents and roommates, suggesting over-optimism even when they were cognizant of their relationships' realities.</p>
<p>H<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">ad the Canadian researchers simply looked at the outsiders' impressions of their roommates' relationships instead of asking for direct predictions, their findings would be in direct conflict with what the 2001 researchers found later; instead, it's a bit more muddled.</span></p>
<p>In 2006, Timothy Loving tried to make sense of some of this muddle with&#xa0;<a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-6811.2006.00122.x/abstract">a larger follow-up study</a>&#xa0;that looked at similar questions. He found that while the friends of female daters made accurate predictions about the future of their friends' relationships, "male daters' friends appear to have few unique insights" into their friends' romances. Perhaps, he suggests, women just disclose more to their friends, giving the male friends too little information to go on.</p>
<p>One of his key points though, is that there are too many variables to expect consistency, even among small samples that are roughly the same age. "Roommates" are not the same as "social network members" or "close friends," and it's reasonable to think that friends' predictive powers will vary depending on closeness. But Loving does suggest a question future researchers can ask the people in a relationship, to try to find the outsiders who will be most accurate and perceptive in their predictions: "Who knows you and your relationship best?"</p>
<p>If you're wondering what the future has in store for you and your plus one, it would be wise to set aside your rosy view and ask yourself that very question. Then, if you dare, ask that person what she really thinks about your relationship - and whether it will last.</p>

Here's One Way To Tell If Your Relationship Will Last

<p>With millions of singles skimming profiles on dating sites every day, it can be tough to stand out from the crowd. </p>
<p>But according to results from a <a href="http://www.wired.com/design/2014/02/how-to-create-good-online-dating-profile/#slide-id-410231">study WIRED's Caitlin Roper conducted</a> with OkCupid and Match.com, there are some strategies you can use to hack the system. </p>
<p>For one, using certain words in your profile are proven to make you seem more attractive to other users. WIRED worked with data analysts at the two dating sites to come up with the 1,000 most popular words, shown in the chart below (pink for words used by females, green for words used by males). <div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/52efc34fecad04751623f0f0-1200-900/2202ff_lovebynumbers_01.jpg" border="0" alt="2202FF_lovebynumbers_01" /><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.wired.com/design/2014/02/how-to-create-good-online-dating-profile/#slide-id-410231:full">Courtesy of Wired</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p>Surfing and yoga were attractive keywords for both genders, while London and New York were the two most popular cities mentioned. </p>
<p>When it comes to pop culture, it pays to agree with the experts. The critically-acclaimed shows "Homeland" and "Arrested Development" were the most popular in terms of what made users attractive, while "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and "Pulp Fiction" were the top films. </p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/52efb483ecad04526123f0f1-1200-900/wired tv shows.jpg" border="0" alt="wired tv shows online dating" /><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.wired.com/design/2014/02/how-to-create-good-online-dating-profile/#slide-id-410231">WIRED March issue</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p><span>Online daters tend to value good taste and intelligence in general. In fact, men who use "whom" get 31% more contacts from the opposite sex, regardless of whether they used it correctly. </span></p>
<p>The data crunchers even analyzed the 400 most popular OkCupid profiles to see if their profile pictures had anything to say about what attracts responses. According to their findings, you should look straight into the camera for your picture (88% of the most popular users did so) and show your teeth when you smile, as 54% of the hottest users did. </p>
<p>And if you're a guy, skip the selfie - although it's more than acceptable for women to post a selfie (45% of the hottest straight women did, in addition to 42% of the most popular lesbians), men posting selfies didn't fare as well (13% straight, 25% gay). </p>
<p>The full report can be found <a href="http://www.wired.com/design/2014/02/how-to-create-good-online-dating-profile/#slide-id-410231">online at WIRED.com</a> and on newsstands in the magazine's March issue. </p>

These Words Are Mathematically Proven To Improve Your Online Dating Profile

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/55390577ecad048a232d5fe2-1200-667/tinder%20swiping.png" border="0" alt="tinder swiping"><p class="source"><span>YouTube</span></p><p class="caption">You never know what's going to happen after you swipe right. </p></img></div><p></p></div></div>When it comes to online dating, everybody wants to find someone with whom they have a lot in common - as long as those commonalities don't include having the same parents.<p>But this is exactly what happened to Erik de Vries, 24, and Josephine Egberts, 22, according to Mic.</p><p>The long lost siblings reconnected after matching on Tinder and flirting for a few days before they figured out the truth.</p><p>The Dutch online daters have a story straight out of "The Parent Trap" - which is funny, because something similar happened to the star of that movie, Lindsay Lohan, when she <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2451633/Lindsay-Lohan-outs-brother-Michael-Tinder.html">discovered her own brother on Tinder in 2013</a>.</p><div><div><iframe src="//instagram.com/p/fRG3jUpcwk/embed/" width="658" height="" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" allowtransparency="true"></iframe></div></div><p class="embed-spacer"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Thankfully, Lohan recognized him as kin before any saucy texts were exchanged.</span></p><p>Egbert and de Vries didn't catch on that quickly, though.</p><p>The backstory: their parents divorced in 1999 and, instead of sharing custody of both kids, they divvied up their offspring, Mic reports. De Vries and his twin brother moved to Belgium with Dad, while Josephine stayed in the Netherlands with their mom.</p><p>When they came of age and de Vries moved back to the Netherlands for school, he and his sister saw each other on Tinder.</p><p>"The first time I swiped her profile I had absolutely no idea," <a href="http://mic.com/articles/116094/these-long-lost-siblings-amazingly-reunited-over-tinder">de Vries told&#xa0;<em>Mic</em></a>. "To be honest, it hasn't been on my mind in the past few years after Maarten, my brother, and I finished a failed search for Josephine a few years ago."</p><p>Like any red-blooded Dutch male, de Vries started flirting with his cute new Tinder match. But "in our next conversation," he said, "I started to get some clues and figured she might actually be my sister."</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/532040f5ecad046b712ef2ed-1200-572/screen%20shot%202014-03-12%20at%207.11.21%20am.png" border="0" alt="IRL Tinder"><p class="source"><span>YouTube</span></p></img></div><p></p></div></div><p>Instead of throwing an impromptu family reunion, de Vries was apparently a little freaked out. He terminated contact for a few days, <a href="http://mic.com/articles/116094/these-long-lost-siblings-amazingly-reunited-over-tinder">Mic reports</a>. But then:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span>Curiosity eventually got the best of him, so he confronted his Tinder match about her full identity. The two exchanged stories about their pasts - parents with a rocky divorce, long&#xa0;lost siblings - and soon realized: They were brother and sister.</span></p><p>After meeting up about a week later, they were brought together once more in a reunion of all three siblings by <a href="http://www.datingsitekiezen.nl/nieuws/broer-en-zus-na-jaren-herenigd-dankzij-tinder">the Dutch website Datingsite Kiezen</a>.</p><p>As for this new Tinder use case - reconnecting with lost family members - Tinder cofounder and CMO Justin Mateen is likely not surprised. He has insisted from the outset that the app is for making every kind of connection.</p><p>"The vision is more about social discovery than just dating," he <a href="http://observer.com/2014/01/tinder-is-the-night-high-speed-digital-app-gets-you-more-ass-than-the-l-train/">said in a 2014 interview</a>&#xa0;with the Observer. "We launched our dating vertical first, because it was a sticky place to start."</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-burpee-full-body-workout-2015-3">This simple exercise will work out every muscle in your body</a></h3>        <div>            <div>    <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script>    <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="lyeGY3dDqIOrfWUeyzqcSzvAuvKi9t3n" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>    <script>    if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; }     RunFunctions.push(function()    {         var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', 'lyeGY3dDqIOrfWUeyzqcSzvAuvKi9t3n',{ autoplay: 'false' });     });    </script>    <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div>        </div>        <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script>    </div>

A guy and a girl matched up on Tinder - later, they found out they were long-lost siblings

<p><div class="image-container float_right" style="width:480px"><div class="image"><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/51f82d65ecad049167000006-1200-924/dating-5.jpg?maxX=480" border="0" alt="dating" width="480" /><p class="source"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/videocrab/2099211453/sizes/o/in/photolist-4cv1qV-4j2SJs-4jSWib-4m6Nvr-4onBBU-4orJ23-4pcqpA-4qStMb-4tCtnn-4uNsp8-4vH4A8-4ByisX-4Cubq4-4LbVco-4RCPVe-4TS9FJ-4Xaoq1-4YfpW1-4YjHr5-54Hgok-5846wx-59741s-5aFUnd-5csBhp-5i4hYw-5jUi2b-5m5sgs-5p7qdE-5smo3f-5xx9XP-5zvA3S-5BkE4Z-5CnaeF-5JPr5q-5T4vsa-61WZd3-6asWuz-6cetJC-6d7rEi-6h8iap-6hBZ7Y-6hCMRr-6pxq1r-6pxqov-6pxqrZ-6pxqBa-6pBy6m-6pBy7E-6pByaw-6pBybE-6pBycS/">Flickr/videocrab</a></p></div></div>A new <keyword id="6355244" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Study">study</keyword> out of Chapman University in California says that nearly two-thirds of men believe women should contribute to <keyword id="6367193" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Dating">dating</keyword> expenses.</p>
<p>The paper — titled "<a href="http://blogs.chapman.edu/press-room/2013/08/12/research-on-which-gender-pays-for-a-date-shows-changing-but-also-resistance-to-changing-conventional-gender-norms/">Who Pays for Dates?</a>" — was based on survey data from 17,000 heterosexual and unmarried participants, 4,000 of whom provided written responses.</p>
<p>The study found that 64% of the men surveyed believe that women should pay their own way on dates, with 44% admitting that they would stop dating a woman who never paid.</p>
<p>Yet even though the majority of men believe women should be going Dutch, 84% of the male respondents said that they pay for most of the dating expenses.</p>
<p>The women surveyed seemed more conflicted. While 57% of women said they offer to pay on dates, 39% confessed that they secretly hoped the man would still pay.</p>
<p>But the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/who-pays-on-a-date-2013-7">conventions of dating</a> can only last so long. As relationships progress, 40% of both men and women say that they begin to at least partially share dating expenses within the first month and 83% of women reported sharing expenses by six months of dating.</p>
<p>Researchers report that the same basic patterns were seen regardless of daters' ages, income, or education.</p>
<p>Co-writer of the paper and assistant professor of psychology at Chapman University David Frederick <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/13/men-paying-for-date_n_3749104.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003">told The Huffington Post</a> that the study was important because the initial arrangement could persist as the relationship progresses.</p>
<p>“The motivation for the study was to understand why some gendered practices are more resistant to change than others; for example, the acceptance of women in the workplace versus holding onto traditional notions of chivalry,” <a href="http://blogs.chapman.edu/press-room/2013/08/12/research-on-which-gender-pays-for-a-date-shows-changing-but-also-resistance-to-changing-conventional-gender-norms/">Frederick said in the study</a>.</p>
<p>He added that the men who embrace chivalry — a benevolent form of sexism — may also engage in other forms of sexism, such as viewing women as subservient or reacting in a hostile manner toward women who don't conform to typical gender roles.</p>
<p>The results were presented in New York City at the American Sociological Association's 108th Annual Meeting this past Sunday.</p>

You Searched For "male daters" and got 4 results

Here's One Way To Tell If Your Relationship Will Last

Lauren F Friedman

These Words Are Mathematically Proven To Improve Your Online Dating Profile

Madeline Stone

A guy and a girl matched up on Tinder - later, they found out they were long-lost siblings

Molly Mulshine

Two-Thirds Of Men Think That Women Should Pay On Dates

Megan Willett