What do you really want in a partner? It may seem like a simple question, but when you really try to pinpoint what attracts you to someone else, it’s not so easy. But a new study offers insight into what thousands of women are looking for in a mate.
The Ideal Partner Survey — a collaboration between the menstrual cycle tracking app Clue, the University of Göttingen in Germany and MyONE Condoms — asked 64,000 women in 180 countries what they wanted in a partner and the most important factor won by a landslide. The top trait to 88.9% of women is “kindness.” Coming in a close second was “supportiveness” at 86.5%, followed by “intelligence” with 72.3%.
Women do still care about appearance, but according to the survey, only 22.3% thought an “attractive body” was important. And qualities including an attractive face, ambition, assertiveness, and financial security all ranked behind whether or not someone was kind and considerate.
That may be surprising in today’s world, but Virginia J. Vitzthum, senior scientist at the Kinsey Institute and Clue's lead researcher on the project, explains that kindness is "like gravity — essential but little-noticed until it's gone."