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Life

29th May 2017

Science has whittled down the future of your relationship to just six questions

Rory Cashin

The science of love isn’t exactly … scientific.

All the numbers and algorithms and statistics and tests and theories in the world can’t tell you how you feel about your specific significant other, but that isn’t going to stop them for trying!

The folks over at DataRobot have put together a series of questions that will essentially give you a percentage of how likely your relationship will last, at least for the next two years.

Working off a study from Stanford which questioned 4,000 people about how they met their partners and how they’ve managed to stay together (or not), and off that back of that information they’ve created a predictive model based on these six basic questions:

  • What is your relationship status? (Single isn’t an option obviously, but married couples are statistically more likely to stay together than non-married couples)
  • How long have you been together? (The longer you’ve been together, the more likely it is that you’ll stay together)
  • How old are you, and how old is your partner? (The bigger the age-gap, the more likely you’ll break up)
  • What is the highest level education completed by yourself and your partner? (Finishing school and college are often synonymous with being involved in long term relationships)
  • How many children between the ages of 2 and 5 live with you? (Children between these ages are found to be the most stressful upon relationships)
  • How many different relatives to see you each month? (The more family members you both see, the more likely you’ll stay together longer)

So answer all of those (from the quiz here) and you’ll get a percentage score for how well your relationship will do in the long run.

But again, remember, try not to take it as a fact.

Science can’t tell us who to love and for long!