Are you single forever? you may have these

In romantic comedies, singletons are often portrayed as ice cream-eating cat lovers—but beyond big-screen stereotypes, it turns out, actual The personality traits of people who have given up on love.

In a new study published in the journal Psychological Science, researchers have discovered three key characteristics that may indicate whether someone is destined to fly alone for the rest of their lives.

Research shows that, overall, people who spend their entire lives alone are less outgoing, less conscientious, and less open than those who are married or in a relationship.

“There are differences between lifelong single people and those who are in a relationship,” declared study author Julia Stern, a senior researcher at the University of Bremen in Germany.

The team, from Germany, Canada and Switzerland, sought to uncover certain personality patterns among lifelong singles amid a rise in the number of unmarried people around the world. Their goal is to devise better ways to help this growing population.

“We have to take extra care of these people,” Stern declared.

To uncover possible signs of eventual falling out of love, researchers recruited more than 77,000 people over the age of 50 and divided them into five groups: currently in a relationship, never living with a partner, never married, or never in a long-term relationship Lovelorn. relation.

Participants then filled out surveys related to life satisfaction and the Big 5 personality traits. These require openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.

They found that participants who had never been in a long-term relationship had lower scores on extraversion, openness and conscientiousness than participants who were currently single but had been in a long-term relationship or had been married in the past.

They also had lower average life satisfaction.

Researchers have yet to determine whether personality differences are because certain personality types may be more likely to initiate relationships or if long-term relationships shape personality.

However, scientists suspect the former must have played a role in this romantic chicken-or-egg debate.

“For example, extroverts are more likely to be in romantic relationships,” Stern said.

The team also found that single women are happier than single men, older people are more willing to fly alone than middle-aged people, and that being single leads to lower happiness in countries with higher marriage rates.

To help perennial loners, Stern advocates developing plans to de-single, taking into account these personality differences and connecting older singles with like-minded people.

“It might help if someone cares about them or looks after them regularly,” she said.