KOMPAS.com - It's official: sex doesn't sell. Well, not if you're looking for love anyway. A study of nearly 150,000 romantic hopefuls found friendship rates over the sins of the flesh.
The survey, by online dating website eHarmony.com.au, reveals traits of friendship and chemistry came in as the top two most popular relationship ideals, heavily outranking sex appeal and physical attractiveness.
Eighty per cent of respondents listed romance and physical closeness in their top 10 of wants, while sex appeal came in 19th most important and physical attractiveness was trailing the others, ranked at 28.
And it may come as a surprise for some that it's not just women who value the more traditional qualities - it seems men want them too. Both genders and all ages listed friendship and chemistry as their top two.
The site's relationship and research expert Dr Gian Gonzaga says it's reassuring that Australians value friendship in relationships.
"Friendships provide a great foundation for long-term success," he said in a statement to AAP.
Aussies aren't perfect, however, and some important qualities are being overlooked.
"Sharing the same values and beliefs as your partner is a powerful predictor of happier, longer-term relationships, yet these qualities were ranked only 16th and 23rd respectively," Dr Gonzaga said.
In a nutshell, women want kind, talkative men, while it might come as no surprise that men list physical closeness higher on the priority list than women.
Men also want to be able to let their skeletons out of the closet, whereas women want to remain more tight-lipped about their past.
Over 50s don't rank attractiveness as important as other age groups, nor do they want physical closeness as much as the 35-49 age group who find it twice as important.
Online dating has boomed in recent times and the former general manager of Australia's most popular dating site RSVP, Hannah Schwartz, said during her two years at the helm, the baby boomer clientele grew markedly in size.
"There was a great take-up and adoption across all age groups, the fastest growing group was the boomer group, over 50 to 55s," Ms Schwartz said.
Although safety is a concern with online dating, they employed strict safety controls, but Ms Schwartz said the safest bet was to take it slow.
"If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is," she warned.
Although Tiger Woods didn't need any help from websites, Australians are enthusiastically signing up to new infidelity website Ashley Madison, with 18,000 already signing up within weeks of its Australian launch.
But it's not all sour news. As the eHarmony survey reveals, those seeking fidelity and true love still exist.
What singles want in a partner from the eHarmony survey:
The top 10 most sought after qualities people want in a partner:
- Friendship between me and my partner
- Chemistry between me and my partner
- Enjoying the way I feel around my partner
- Having my partner be open with me about feelings
- My partner's personality
- My partner's kindness
- Romantic attraction I feel for my partner
- Being able to easily talk about personal problems with my partner
- Enjoying physical closeness with my partner
- Being able to discuss with my partner how I am feeling towards him/her
Top Five Least Important Qualities (ranked 35-30 respectively):
- Knowing that my spouse is usually to blame when things go wrong
- Importance of match's income
- Importance of match's religion
- Importance of match's education
- Importance of match's height
Topline Findings:
Men v Women:
- Friendship and chemistry are the two most important qualities to both men and women
- Women place more importance on kindness than men (ranked 4th v 11th)
- Partners' ability to communicate is seen as more important by women than men (ranked 7th v 13th)
- Men place more importance on enjoying physical closeness than women (ranked 5th v 12th)
- Being able to tell my partner everything about myself is more important to men than women (ranked 10th v 17th)
By Age:
- All age groups ranked friendship 1st and chemistry 2nd
- Being able to easily talk about my personal problems with my partner was ranked 7th by Gen Y, but 10th by 35-49s
- Romantic attraction held less importance for the over 50s (ranked 10th) than it did for all other age groups
- Enjoying physical closeness is most important to singles aged 35-49 (6th), and least important to singles 50+ (12th)
- Personal values was ranked most highly by those 50+ (14th), and least important by Gen Y (16th).
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