When you think of finding true love, how many times in your life do you envision that experience will happen? If you answered once, you're in agreement with 50 percent of UK women, who will find true love once in their life, according to a (somewhat dubious and probably not scientific) recent study by Haagen-Dazs. It seems that men are either luckier in love or perhaps just feel more intensely, since the same study found that more than half of men have fallen in love five times in their lives.
Looking more deeply into the statistics, 47 percent of women compared to 39 percent of men reported falling in love only once in their lifetimes. Looking at those who loved between two and five individuals, men fall on the higher end once again, as 51 percent of them fell into this category, versus only 47 percent of women. The gaps aren't huge here though and this is a study conducted by an ice-cream company mind you, so don't read too much into the results. A survey conducted in 2013 with a similar question found that people fall in love twice on average in their life and Dr. Helen Fisher of Rutgers says men fall in love faster than women do, because of our evolutionary history. So, the results of this survey may actually be in-line with current research on the subject.
The survey doesn't end there though, as Haagen-Dazs also looked at the nature of romantic relationships. Despite the changing times and our generations rejections of the relationship norms of our parents, three out of four people believe in the existence of true love, so if you're still looking for your soul mate, you're not alone. Even those who reported never having had been in love (only five percent of participants), most were young and still believed that their Prince or Princess Charming would come along.
Now in terms of when relationships actually get serious, 33 percent said that a relationship only reaches that level after meeting each others families. Interestingly, only three percent said this happens after having sex, which the researchers chalk up to the rise in hook-up culture and casual sex.
Despite this, it seems that love is prevailing though, as the previously mentioned findings suggest people still believe in partnership. "It was refreshing to see that real love still exists and isn't all about physical attraction, but rather real values such as honesty," Lucy Beresford, a therapist from the School of Life, comments.
It seems that perhaps the best of both worlds are presenting themselves. To reference Sex and the City, if you're more of a Samantha and like to have lots of casual hookups, there are a lot of other people who you can partake with without getting into a serious relationship. If you're more of a Charolette looking for marriage and babies, you can probably find someone who wants that too, it just may take longer for that relationship to get serious.
Images: Jackie Nell/Flickr; Getty (1), Giphy (1), LiesThruaLens/Flickr
