Suprising points about happiness economics and positive psychology as it related to relationships after further reading from various sources

No singles are conceited or self-absorbed enough to celebrate a single-ness anniversary, but couples are. So, you can be forgiven for thinking that that being in a relationship is superior to singledome.

Sure, some people found their soul mates, their “ones,” their people. But others went on a date that somehow dragged into a year long relationship, when it shouldn’t have. It took a lot of effort. And you chose to use your effort doing whatever you wanted, instead of tailoring your schedule to someone else’s.

Instead of learning from your relationship, and using the, “He’s taught me so much” line, you learned from your refusal to be tied down. You learned from flirtation, from sex, and from people who cared, but couldn’t commit.

-http://thoughtcatalog.com/maya-kachroo-levine/2015/06/read-this-if-youre-in-your-20s-and-have-never-been-in-a-serious-relationship/

one large study in Germany found no difference in happiness between married and unmarried people.

-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_psychology#Marriage

A mismatch in levels of sexual desire within a couple is associated with poorer relationships (Blais, Sabourin, Boucher and Vallerand 1990 ). And heterosexual women’s feelings of love, trust, passion, intimacy and overall relationship satisfaction have been found to correlate with the frequency and quality of sex (Costa and Brody 2007).

Recent research (Smith 2007) found that people report sexual experiences as more positive when they fulfilled each of the three basic psychological needs proposed by Ryan and Deci:

Positive sex happens when both partners are interested and actively choose what to do between the sheets. Rather than enacting scripts, by consciously being aware and able to communicate their own authentic desires their need for autonomy was fulfilled.

Partners who felt they knew what they were doing in the bedroom and were able to develop their sensual repertoire fulfilled the basic need for competence.

They also felt intimate, desired, loved and respected, fulfilling the need to relate to others.

• http://positivepsychologynews.com/news/cassie-robinson/20071125501

The mind-numbing equation takes into account the number of single women aged 24 to 34 living in his home city of London - meaning Backus’s chances of meeting his dream woman on a night out are slim. The economics expert said: ‘There are 26 women in London with whom I might have a wonderful relationship. ‘So, on a given night out in London there is a 0.0000034 per cent chance of meeting one of these special people.

-www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1242818/The-formula-finding-love-Why-theres-285-000-chance-meeting-perfect-partner.html

About 37% of college graduates have not had romantic relationships.

-https://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-college-graduates-have-never-had-a-romantic-relationship

For women, life satisfaction was predicted by zest, gratitude, hope, appreciation of beauty and love, whereas men's life satisfaction was predicted by creativity, perspective, fairness and humor

-www.researchgate.net/publication/226476882CharacterStrengthsandWell-BeingAreThereGenderDifferences

Studies suggest that certain character strengths, including zest as well as curiosity, gratitude, hope, and humor are highly correlated with life satisfaction, whereas other strengths demonstrate low correlations with life satisfaction (appreciation of beauty and excellence, creativity, kindness, love of learning and perspective) - Proyer, Ruch and Buschor (March 16, 2012). "Testing Strengths-Based Interventions: A preliminary study on the effectiveness of a program targeting curiosity, gratitude, hope, humor, and zest for enhancing life satisfaction."

-Journal of Happiness Studies. Springer. Retrieved April 1, 2015.

What I shame about the bolded part since I just discovered opiuo and my intuition is that it would dramatically improve my life. Suppose it's just an addiction. Darn the false prospect eudemonia from aesthetic appreciation.

In rich societies, where a rise in income doesn't equate to an increase in levels of subjective well-being, personal relationships are the determining factors of happiness.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happiness_economics#Relationships_and_children

Recently, Anderson et al. found that sociometric status (the amount of respect one has from face-to-face peer group) is significantly and causally related to happiness as measured by subjective well-being.

-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_psychology#Social_ties

See also: cost of raising a child. I only want kids cause they're light, portable, comfy, accessible and a downward social comparison that reinforces my normativity, authority and self-efficacy when I look after one. But it's because of the superficiality of those reasons that I'd rather not commmit to the burden of responsibility of having them, particularly since those features are pretty transient (newborn to 2 years old maybe)

tl;dr: friends are important to happiness, relationships are basically irrelevant! What a relief! Except for having kids. That's a relationship you don't want if you want to be happiest.