HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO FALL IN LOVE? _ A fascinating survey asked women about their journey to falling in love with their current partner. An impressive 30 percent reported experiencing love almost instantly, proving that love at first sight isn’t just a fairy tale. Another 30 percent found themselves falling within several weeks, while 26 percent took a few months to develop those deep feelings. Interestingly, only 8 percent needed six months to a year, and a patient 4 percent took over a year before realizing they were in love.
And, on a related note: HOW LONG TILL YOU FELL IN LOVE? _ A blog for women asked: “How long did it take for you to fall in love with your current man?”
• 30% said it happened almost instantly
• 30% said it took several weeks
• 26% said it took several months
• 8% said six months to a year
• 4% said it took over a year to fall in love.
STUDY SAYS PARENTS ARE MISERABLE _ Parents are miserable. Researchers (University of Western Ontario and the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research) wanted to figure out why some families decide to stop at having only one child. So they analyzed data from a German survey that covered more than 20,000 people across the country, and tracked their reported well-being from three years before having kids to at least two years after their first child was born. They found that people are usually pretty happy before having kids. That happiness goes up when anticipating the birth of their first child and stays high during the year their first child is born. After that, everything goes downhill. Thirty percent of parents stayed at the same level of happiness. But on a 1 to 10 scale, 37 percent of parents had a one-unit drop in “happiness units,” while 19 percent had a two-unit drop and 17 percent had a three-unit drop. To compare that to actual sad life events: unemployment and the death of a partner usually lead to a one-unit drop in happiness, and divorce only causes a 0.6-unit drop. On average, parenthood leads to a whopping 1.4-unit fall in happiness.
