When Did Falling in Love Become a Bad Investment?

Detailed summary

Dating has become an exercise in managing risk and spotting red flags. But what happens when we approach falling in love like a financial decision?

Not to make this about myself, but a little bit about myself: I'm a hopeful romantic, by which I mean that I'm perfectly aware that love, for all its va-va-voom, has its limitations. Marriage is an actual contract, after all, and both parties have to pull their weight. But I also believe that the love Hollywood keeps feeding us is achievable, albeit in a considerably less glamorous form.

You meet someone, you like them, you see the potential. Then you work at love and, every so often, hopefully more often than not, you're rewarded with that wonderful inundation of affection that makes the whole enterprise worthwhile.

I don't spend my days contemplating romance, but recently I've found myself thinking about it in relation to my children, who are still too young to spell the word properly.

It's an odd feeling, wishing movie-like love for your children while knowing how little control anyone has over whether it happens. I'm writing this as my husband entertains our oldest daughter by wearing a blanket as a costume, and I'm reminded that watching him with our children is one of the many things that makes me fall in love with him all over again. Naturally, I find myself hoping that one day she'll have someone willing to make a similar fool of himself for her.

Of course, I had my fair share of dreadful dating experiences before marrying. And I have enough single friends and relatives giving the search for love everything they've got to know that dating in 2026 sounds like the most miserable undertaking of the modern age.

The numbers suggest something interesting about how Americans are responding to it all.

According to Match and the Kinsey Institute's 2026 Singles in America study, 34 percent of singles prioritize peace and emotional safety over passion and excitement, compared with just 14 percent who favor the latter. Among women, the divide is 40 percent to 9 percent.

I understand the preference: emotional safety is enormously important and I would be horrified if my…

But…

Opening of the article, excerpted from Newsweek. To read the rest, open the article on the publisher's site.