There’s a familiar story about love floating around. You know…the one where timing, luck, and emotional availability do most of the work. Science has a less flattering suggestion, however. Some people stay single longer because they’re a little too good at thinking things through.
In a long-running study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, researchers observed more than 17,000 people in the UK and Germany as they moved from adolescence into adulthood. One conclusion raised eyebrows. Smarter, more educated participants spent more time single.
“Our results demonstrate that both socio-demographic factors, such as education, and psychological characteristics, such as current well-being, help predict who will enter into a romantic relationship and who won’t,” said study co-lead author Michael Krämer of the University of Zurich.
Why Smart People Are Finding Themselves Single
This doesn’t mean smart people scare love away. It points to a different dating style. More hesitation, more analysis, and fewer impulsive yeses. The researchers found that young men with more education and lower well-being who lived alone or with parents stayed single longer, while living with friends correlated with better odds of coupling up.
This lands in the middle of a broader change. According to The Economist, singlehood among adults aged 25 to 34 has doubled over the past 50 years. Roughly half of men and more than 40 percent of women in that age group now live without a spouse or partner. The reasons range from economics to cultural change, but the result is the same. Being unattached has gone from transitional to normal.
The Zurich study also looked at how staying single for long stretches plays out over time. People who remained unattached into their late 20s reported lower life satisfaction and more loneliness. Depression scores climbed, too, across genders. Well-being rose after people entered their first romantic relationship.
“Well-being deficits became more pronounced in the later 20s,” the authors wrote, adding that remaining single for long periods carried moderate risks to mental health.
There’s a mildly smug irony baked into all this. The same traits that make someone cautious, reflective, and selective can also make relationships harder to initiate. The study doesn’t argue that single people are failing at love. It suggests they’re actually optimizing for stability in a dating culture that rewards speed.
Thinking carefully pays off in classrooms and offices. In dating, it can turn into a long pause that never resolves.
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