Do opposites attract? A giant new study says no – these couples say yes

According to a meta-study released this week, there's “no compelling evidence” that opposites attract.

Eighties pop star Paula Abdul famously convinced a generation that opposites attract with her Number One single of that name. But this week, scientist Tanya Horwitz, from the University of Colorado Boulder, put a giant dampener on the idea. Causing equal measures of delight and consternation, Horwitz announced that it’s birds of a feather that successfully flock together.

Having examined more than 130 personality traits across millions of couples, comparing data from nearly 200 previous studies dating back to 1903 with current analyses, Horwitz released a study that found “no compelling evidence” opposites attract. Instead, traits like political and religious attitudes, level of education and certain measures of intelligence were strongly similar between couples. There were links between height, weight, medical conditions and personality traits. Plus bad habits liked company, too: heavy smokers and heavy drinkers tend to couple up with each other.

Where contrast emerged was in a tiny fraction of traits, including whether someone is a “morning lark” or a “night owl”, tendency to worry – and hearing difficulty. Not enough to base a relationship on? Our writers reveal all:

‘I’m uptight and he’s Mr Chillaxed’

Camilla Tominey, writer and associate editor

It was only fairly recently that I discovered my parents had a secret nickname for me and my husband, Dominic. Unbeknown to us, they have been calling us “Mutt and Jeff” behind our backs since we married 18 years ago in 2005. For those unfamiliar with the long-running and widely popular American newspaper comic strip created by Bud Fisher in 1907, lanky Mutt and pintsized Jeff have come to represent mismatched couples everywhere.

In many respects, we are complete opposites. I live to work; Dom works to live. He did a maths degree; I’m functionally innumerate. I have a filing system; he has scribbled bits of paper scattered around the house. He’s a musician; I can’t carry a tune. He can’t throw anything away; I’m a Marie Kondo tidy freak.

We only seem to have one recurring row in our marriage and it largely revolves around where I have “hidden” all the stuff he’s misplaced. Observers would no doubt say that I’m uptight and he’s Mr Chillaxed, but they’ve never seen him when the Wi-Fi’s down or we’ve missed an airport turnoff (which is always my fault, even when he’s driving). Even those smug, supposedly “perfect pairings” have “carguments”, right?

But like most couples who have lived together for nearly 20 years but can still laugh our way out of any marital disharmony, there has always been more that unites us than divides us. From our mutual appreciation of the Naked Gun films to our views on politics and religion, we are on the same wavelength. He’s one of three and I’m one of three so we had three children. We’ve never disagreed on their education or the way we are bringing them up in our interchangeable good-cop-bad-cop way. And we both love cricket, which is, you know, better than being forced to sit through 40 overs of a sport you don’t even understand, let alone enjoy.

We don’t really “do” Valentine’s Day cards but last year, for reasons neither of us can quite explain, we both popped to Sainsbury’s and unwittingly came home with exactly the same card for each other. That probably just about sums us up: two very independently minded, kindred spirits.

‘We always had the same values’

Sarah Ivens, writer

Born to working-class parents in London and fifth-generation Tottenham Hotspur fans, Russ and I had a brief dalliance when we landed at the same university in the 1990s. At the University of Kent in Canterbury we were 19-year-old party animals with similar interests – we both had started getting our long hair highlighted, and he loved playing the guitar, while I loved boys who played the guitar at me. Take That’s Relight My Fire was a shared anthem, and we both lived off kebabs.

That teen romance came to nothing, until – 15 years and a few failed relationships later – a mutual friend said we should reconnect. “You’re both 34, and both single Brits living in America.”

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As expats, we had even more in common, and from that first phone conversation onwards we bonded over our shared bewilderment over baseball, breakfast tacos and lack of gun control that everyone around us in our adopted country thought was normal. Married within the year, we set up a little English house in the US: both loving nothing more than settling down to a night of Downton Abbey munching over-priced, imported Cadbury’s chocolate.

We always had the same values, raised in similar families, but having our similarities highlighted so dramatically while living abroad really made us all the more alike. Approaching our 15-year wedding anniversary, aged 48, and two hybrid Brit-American kids later, twinning seems to be winning.

‘I’m a Brummie scumbag, he’s an Etonian county stalwart’

Hannah Betts, writer

Uh-oh, according to this vast new study, Terence, my partner of nine years, and I would appear to be doomed. In fairness, this is exactly what legions of Telegraph readers maintained when we penned a joint column a few years ago.

There was a certain – how shall we put it? – rabid incredulity among our allies when we started holding hands. He was 40 and I was 43. On our first date – me newly sober, him sipping Rioja – I informed him that I was an all-or-nothing, nought or 10 kind of a girl. He countered that he was a blissfully contented five, moderate in all things.

For Terence is a joyously happy, carnivore lark who loves wild camping, the countryside and exercise – a frugal, moderate realist who despises luxury. I am a depressive, vegetarian owl, who lives for my bed, Claridge’s and the metropolis in general – a profligate fantasist with a passion for high style. I am also an (atypically loud) introvert, he an (unusually serene) extrovert.

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I am a state-school Brummie scumbag, he’s an Etonian county stalwart, who boarded from the age of 8. He enjoyed school, I detested it. He attended university in the sunny south of France (Montpellier), I in boggy Blighty (Oxford). I despise planning, routine and any form of commitment, being a lifelong improviser/last-minute merchant. Tezzer is a dogged prepper, spreadsheeting his entire existence. He relishes rules, whereas I rebel. He adores what he refers to as “The Little World” (after Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander). I harbour a phobia of “The Quotidian”.

We’re obviously going to need an “and yet” here for our relationship to make any sense. So…

And yet, regarding The Big Stuff, there is some crossover. We’ve both sorted ourselves out a bit, dealt with our foibles, done “the work”. We’re similarly over-educated, relishing literature, history, art, ideas. Our political views are similar, moral beliefs still more so. Plus – and here’s the weird one – we must be starting to look alike somehow, as – only this weekend – a child mistook us for brother and sister. Altogether now – yuck.

Different but ‘spookily similar’

Eleanor Mills, writer and editor

My husband and I couldn’t be more different. When we met in The Shanti Guest House in Hampi, India, I was 26, on holiday from my job as features editor of the Daily Telegraph, while he was a juggler who’d spent the previous few years backpacking around India and central Africa. He is tall, sinewy and dark, a brilliant sportsman. I am short, round, blonde and love swimming. I am an extrovert; sociable, friendly and noisy; he is quiet and super-thoughtful. I like to stay up late and sleep in, while he is up with the lark. Yet we’ve been happily married for 21 years, together for nearly 27 and have raised two gorgeous girls.

The truth is that while we seem totally different, we are actually spookily similar. We find the same things funny, read the same books – and often catch each other’s eye and know we are thinking the same things in any situation. I always know exactly what he will eat on a menu and he cannily preempts my needs. He is a domestic god, while I am a home-terrorist, (forbidden from loading the dishwasher); I cook, he shops. We often joke that it’s lucky that I went out to work and he mans the home front because it would have been a disaster if our roles were reversed.

But marriage is a team sport. It’s about the whole being greater than the two halves – having complementary strengths. Together we are a force. Without him I’d be lost. He’s my rock, my anchor. My best friend. My love.