The old saying goes that “opposites attract,” but mounting research is increasingly finding the opposite: that actually, we’re drawn to people who are more like us. For instance, a 2017 study conducted at University College London analyzed the Facebook profiles of roughly 1,000 couples and found that partners shared strong similarities across all of the “big five” personality traits: openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. In another 2017 study, researchers observed that there were significant similarities — on 87% of variables, including values, recreational activities, and attitudes, — between people who were coupled up.
