When Ellen Fein filed for divorce in 2001, the media pounced on the proceedings [source: Tresniowski]. And who could blame them? A self-proclaimed love expert calling it quits in the relationship department makes for irresistible headline fodder. Six years earlier, Fein and best friend Shelly Schneider had co-authored the runaway hit "The Rules," which promised surefire ways for women to make all of their romantic dreams come true, based on the premise that menare natural hunters, seeking out desirable women like prey.
Akin to strict diets and fitness regimens, "The Rules" edicts didn't leave much room for cheating, either: A woman should never call a man she's interested in, period [source: The Rules Book]. A guy who wants to go Dutch on a date might as well just go home [source: The Rules Book]. And if a boyfriend hasn't proposed marriage after a year of dating, a savvy gal should move on, pronto [source: The Rules Book]. In short, don't court him, he'll court you.
Despite selling more than 1 million copies, "The Rules" left plenty of people skeptical [source: Bittman]. Could long-term romance really be bound by immutable laws? Considering that Fein's own path toward remarriage in 2008 broke one of her cardinal rules (she dated her husband for three years before marriage), the idea that there are must-dos in dating is arguably a myth [source: Brady]. And pop principles about love aren't the only axioms on the chopping block. According to the following five love lies, even conventional wisdom about happily-ever-after may not be so spot-on.
First loves make big, but not best, impressions.
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5: First Love Is the Best Love
Like riding a bike, witnessing the breathtaking vistas of the Grand Canyon or finishing a marathon, many find that the euphoria of falling in love is most salient the first time around. Often romanticized as an emotional high that can never be achieved again, first loves certainly make a deep impression on people's future relationships. But Jennifer Beer, a former graduate student at University of California at Berkeley, found that those initial, heady relationships can do more harm than good. Since first serious relationships are so self-defining, ones that sour might disable some from pursuing healthy, happy partnerships in the future [source: Scalise]. In fact, Beer projected that formative romances can have a deeper impact on relationship patterns moving forward than people's interactions with and observations of their parents' partnerships.
Because of the major indentation that first love leaves on the heart, British sociologist Malcolm Brynin advocates approaching initial relationships more casually [source: Hill]. His research concluded that those relationships establish unrealistic standards for coupling moving forward, setting people up for dysfunction down the road. Instead of clinging to the notion that the first is the best, pragmatic men and women would be wiser to assume better relationships are in store.
Moving on from that first love and acquiring relationship experience along the way, men and women may return to old flames with surprising success rates. A study conducted in the late 1990s by California State University psychologist Nancy Kalish calculated a 76 percent chance that couples reuniting following at least a five-year hiatus would stick together [source: Norton].
Men are more likely to say "I love you" first.
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4: Women Are More Romantic
Stereotypically, women are considered the more moony-eyed, love-obsessed sex, dotting their i's with hearts and wistfully flipping through bridal magazines before they even go on a first date. Female readers also comprise the majority of the romance novel market, devouring fateful tales of plain-faced governesses, vampire girlfriends and otherwise whimsical leading ladies [source: Romance Writers of America]. When it comes to real-world relationships, however, emotive women might be more practical than they're given credit for.
A 2011 study conducted at Pennsylvania State University found that male college students were more likely to fall in love and drop the magic three words sooner than their female co-eds [source: Harrison and Shortall]. Moreover, a separate analysis of six studies on romantic communication found that men react more positively to hearing "I love you," than women do [source: Ackerman, Griskevicius and Li]. Evolutionary psychology explains that unexpected gender difference as a female tactic to root out a suitable suitor. It's advantageous for them to refrain from falling head over heels and allow men to take the love leap first to mitigate the reproductive risk of being left in the lurch as a single mother [source: Galperin and Haselton]. In today's dating landscape, it's also a way to avoid being dismissively labeled as a fool for love.
Like attracts like, romantically.
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3: Opposites Attract
To paraphrase Columbia University psychologists who tracked mingling behavior at a cocktail party in 2007: Guests at mixers do not mix [source: Lehrer]. As much as people might like to think that they want to meet new and interesting strangers, the knee-jerk compulsion is to flock toward kindred spirits. That Columbia cocktail party study is just one of many confirming a similarity-attraction effect (SAE)among humans that can be readily witnessed in high school cafeterias segregated by teenage cliques.
Yet in romantic scenarios, people start out with earnest intentions to disprove the SAE and support the cliché that opposites attract. For instance, a 2009 survey polled participants about the types of desired qualities in potential mates, and 85.7 percent described personalities different from their own [source: Law]. But they went on to pursue like-minded mates, because SAE also applies to romantic coupling under the anthropological auspices of positiveassortative mating. Cross-cultural research has confirmed that menand women tend to be drawn toward compatible partners from similar socioeconomic backgrounds, education levels and even political affiliations [source: Fisher]. That isn't to say that folks are seeking out a veritable twin to spend the rest of their lives with, but rather complementary companions.
Sexual monogamy is uncommon among mammals.
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2: Monogamy Is Meant to Be
In late June 2011, the New York Times magazine featured a comment-stoking story about infidelity. Rather than railing against statistics of sexual activity outside of marriage and long-term relationships, the article provided an avalanche of anecdotal evidence that for today's modern lovers, building a life together doesn't necessarily mean sharing a bed together every night [source: Oppenheimer]. As readers knit their brows feverishly, wondering whether such an open arrangement could be emotionally sustainable, 95 percent of mammalian species shrugged their shoulders and carried on with their philandering ways [source: Than].
Though combined social and sexual monogamy is the standard relationship construct among many global cultures, it isn't as Nature intended. Only 3 to 5 percent of mammalian species practice lifelong social monogamy, and DNA technology has demonstrated that those few faithful breeds, such as wolves, really aren't so sexually devoted [source: Barash]. Recent research also posits that social monogamy is merely a byproduct of limited options. When nature provides enough desirable mates to go around -- hello, Homo sapiens -- evolution opts for promiscuity [source: Viegas].
Accepting the innate human impulse toward sexual exploration, along with the possibility of catering to it within an emotionally monogamous relationship, isn't a rejection of monogamous relationships. Rather, some argue that it's an honest acknowledgement that the incredible diversity of the human species may naturally result in a diversity of pair-bonding styles [source: Clark-Flory]. In that light, it doesn't sound so much like moral decay as societal evolution.
Breakups might not be as bad as we think.
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1: Breakups Are Unbearable
Presented with the prospect of romantic breakups, people tend to batten down their emotional hatches and prepare for the worst, as if an incoming hurricane were about to render the psyche an unrecognizable scrap of wreckage. Or, in academic parlance, people make for terrible emotional meteorologists, poorly skilled at affective forecasting. When asked to predict how potently misfortune -- lostfootball games, sour bets and undesirable election results -- will sting, people see nothing but stormy weather ahead, studies have shown [source: Eastwick et al].
A 2007 study conducted at Northwestern University also discovered that the possibility of a breakup feels a lot worse than the reality of one. The researchers checked in with 28 participants before, during and after splits from significant others to gauge how their expectations for dealing with and moving on from the breakups compared with their real-world progress. Just like people in a separate study, who imagined being let down for much longer about losing a bet than they actually were, the heartbroken recovered more quickly than expected [source: Eastwick et al]. This might be because brains begin reevaluating whether severed romantic relationships were so sweet after all, neurologically ushering the newly single toward emotional repair faster than they might consciously notice [source: Luscombe]. Sure, the only cure for soured love is time, but it's at least a small comfort that blessed relief will arrive sooner than anticipated.
Conger, Cristen. "Top 5 Love Lies" 12 February 2012. HowStuffWorks.com. <http://people.howstuffworks.com/5-love-lies.htm> 22 May 2012.
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