Why People Misjudge Chemistry Early On

Strong early attraction is frequently treated as evidence about a relationship's prospects. Much of what produces that intensity is unrelated to compatibility, which is why the prediction fails so often.

Uncertainty amplifies feeling

Not knowing where you stand with someone occupies attention, and occupied attention is easily mistaken for the strength of an attachment.

A person who replies unpredictably generates more thought than one who replies reliably, and the additional thought registers as additional interest rather than as unresolved doubt.

This is why intensity often drops once a situation becomes secure, and why the drop is sometimes misread as the relationship losing something rather than gaining certainty.

Novelty supplies its own charge

Early meetings involve continuous new information about a person, and the process of acquiring it is engaging independently of what the information turns out to be.

Once the acquisition slows, the engagement attached to it fades, and what remains is whatever the two people actually enjoy about each other's company.

That residue is the better indicator, but it is only visible after the novelty has been used up, which takes longer than most people allow.

Arousal from other sources gets attributed

Physiological arousal produced by nerves, alcohol, an unfamiliar setting or a physically demanding activity is not clearly labelled by the body as to its cause.

The mind supplies a cause from context, and on a date the most available candidate is the person sitting opposite, whatever actually produced the state.

This misattribution effect is well documented in psychology and explains why memorable first meetings tend to happen in unusual rather than comfortable settings.

Familiarity is mistaken for recognition

Somebody whose manner resembles a person from earlier in your life will feel immediately known, and that ease is easily interpreted as unusual compatibility.

The resemblance can be to someone who was good for you or to someone who was not, and the feeling of recognition is identical in both cases.

This is the reason strong early familiarity deserves neither the weight it is usually given nor the suspicion it sometimes attracts.

The predictive material accumulates slowly

What tends to determine whether a relationship works is how disagreements are handled, how reliably arrangements are kept and how each person behaves when tired or under pressure.

None of that is observable in the conditions of early dating, which are designed to display people at their most rested and best presented.

The gap between the two kinds of evidence is why a promising start and a workable relationship correlate far less than people expect them to.