Katharina Buczek
Remember the popular 2010 film “She’s Out Of My League” starring Jay Baruchel and Alice Eve?
If the title is not telling enough, Baruchel played the role of an “average guy stuck in a dead-end job” who was stunned when a beautiful, successful career woman fell in love with him.
The idea of starkly different characters falling in love has been a long-used trope in Hollywood–giving hope to many viewers of the rom-com films for decades.
But, how truly realistic are these pairings? And, are they bound to last?
A new study conducted by University of Missouri Assistant Professor Sean Prall says no.
Prall recently traveled to northwest Namibia, located in southern Africa, and studied the behavior of Himba– a “group of semi-nomadic agropastoralists.”
He first interviewed community members about the “desirability” of others in the group. Using this information, Prall was able to assign a “mate value” to each person– “a metric describing how likely people are to want to be in a relationship with someone.”
Afterward, he analyzed the relationship statuses of people relative to their mate value.
Surprisingly, Prall found that people who are “similarly desirable” are more likely to enter a relationship with each other. Moreover, these relationships are much more likely to be successful.
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