And that can have costs in a relationship

The answers confirmed her initial suspicions. It was fairly common for the students to be turned off by the very thing that first attracted them to the person they were-or had been-dating. In the past few decades Felmlee has been conducting studies with couples to explore this problem of what she calls “fatal attractions.” “We asked one guy what he liked about a former girlfriend, and he listed every part of this woman’s body, including the most brightwomen.net echa un vistazo a este sitio web intimate parts. And when he answered the question ‘Why did you split up?’ he said that the relationship was based only on lust. I thought, ‘Well, he got what he wanted initially.’”

Felmlee says that someone who is seen as humorous at the start of a relationship can later be considered “flaky” or “immature

The list goes on. ” One woman reported that she was attracted by her boyfriend’s sense of humor, but then she complained that he “doesn’t always take other people’s feelings seriously (jokes around too much).”

Caring is another positive quality with a downside. Felmlee reports that one woman was attracted to a man who was “very attentive” and persistent, but she disliked that he “tries to be controlling.” Another woman described a former partner as “caring,” “sensitive” and someone who listened to her. Yet she did not like the fact that he also got jealous very easily, and “he hated it when [she] wanted to spend time with other friends.”

In a way, fatal attraction resembles the inverse of a concept called hedonic reversal, which is when something that is intrinsically unpleasant-like eating hot chili peppers-becomes enjoyable with repeated exposure. We start off finding a quality of our mates attractive, and over time it becomes annoying. Felmlee has tested people all over the world, and the same pattern seems to hold.

The other thing she consistently finds is that the more strongly someone exhibits a particular trait, the more likely that trait is to become aggravating. Read more “And that can have costs in a relationship” →