Researchers classify relationships in four rom-com categories
A new study promises to define your relationship for you once and for all, boxing you into one of four tidy categories reminiscent of the rom-com movies you know and love.
This one's a step further than the multiple-choice magazine quiz – it's backed by science. Three relationship researchers worked with 400 couples over nine months, checking their levels of commitment over time.
Using this fool-proof method, they found four categories your relationship could fit into - conflicted but passionate, partner-focused, social butterflies, and the dramatic.
1. Conflicted but passionate
They break up, they make up. Think Notting Hill, The Notebook and most of all, Ashton Kutcher and Brittany Murphy in Just Married - the one where they get hitched, drive into a snow drift, kill a dog and eventually their love conquers all.
Perhaps you've set your Facebook relationship status to "it's complicated"?
The study says these couples have ups and downs and their commitment levels wax and wane depending on their latest make up or break up. However, it's not all doom and gloom. Just like Ashton and Brittany, they're likely to stick together and conquer it all in the end.
Study author Brian Ogolsky says, "These couples operate in a tension between conflict that pushes them apart and passionate attraction that pulls them back together".
2. The partner-focused
Fancy a night in on the couch with a bowl of pasta, re-runs of Suits and the dog? Just like Jack Black and Kate Winslet in The Holiday or Diane Keaton and Morgan Freeman in 5 Flights Up, you spend a lot of time with your significant other and have a relationship based around shared interests and a life built together.
You tend to be a bit more cautious, building the relationship from the inside out. The study says these couples are likely to go the distance and tend to be the most satisfied.
3. The social butterflies
You could be the real life version of Monica and Chandler - well, maybe without the purple apartment and the neurotic clean freak angle!
The social butterflies are couples whose relationship is built on mutual friendships and a feeling of friendship felt for each other. They spend a lot of time together in their social groups, which builds their relationship with each other. These couples tend to be very stable and have good chances of long term happiness.
4. The dramatic
Well, you could basically be any big screen couple who breaks up and never gets back together. Dramatic couples sometimes struggle to see the positives, and break up because the struggle starts to erode the relationship. They are twice as likely to break up as the other couples.
You're 500 Days of Summer or Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Good news is, they all find their true love in the end!
First appeared on Stuff.co.nz.
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