The Love Algorithm

Welcome to the grand, messy laboratory of human pairing. We’re told from childhood that in love, “opposites attract.” It’s a phrase borrowed not from psychology, but from 12th-century observations of magnets and popularized by a 1950s pop song. How romantic.

We apply a principle of electromagnetism to the most complex emotional algorithm on Earth. The universe says a proton and an electron get along, so surely a neat-freak and a chaos-goblin can make it work. But science, that eternal buzzkill, suggests we’re more often narcissists in love with our own reflection.

Studies on “assortative mating” show we overwhelmingly pair up with people who match us in education, socioeconomic status, political leanings, and even traits like conscientiousness. We don’t seek opposites; we seek collaborators for the start-up company of “Us,” and you don’t want a co-CEO who believes the corporate strategy is reading goat entrails.

The “opposites” myth is just a story we tell to make the inevitable, tedious compromises of cohabitation seem more exciting than they are. “We’re so different!” is more palatable than “We’ve agreed to a mutual non-aggression pact over towel folding.”

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