Anyone who’s worked at a restaurant knows that half the fun of seeing couples out on their first dates lies in trying to gauge their attraction levels. According to a new study, most of us are remarkably good at it.
Researchers at Indiana University Bloomington showed 28 men and 26 women 24 videos of couples at speed-dating events, asked the observers to rate the daters’ interest in their partners, and compared those answers with the daters’ own reports. Though the researchers expected women to be better judges, men turned out to be equally good — and both genders judged just as well after watching for ten seconds as they did after watching for a minute or more. It was less of a surprise to find that men were easier to judge than women. And men and women alike were unable to judge the intentions of women who later admitted to having feigned interest in their partners. Women, it seems, are mysteries even unto themselves.
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