What's the most important quality you look for in a partner?

Recently I was chatting with a friend about her dating adventures and a relationship she had decided to call quits. She shared she likes and dislikes of the relationship and the reasoning behind her decision. And like any good friend I quizzed her on what she actually wants in a relationship and the types of men she's attracted to. (See what I'm doing here?) I'm THAT stereotypical matchmaker friend. I'm going to find you a man! We ended our conversation with me on her phone, jokingly swiping right for yes and left no. Using a popular dating app, Tinder. As I can imagine what you're thinking right now, I'm REALLY scoring friend points, ha ha. But our conversation got me thinking, what do people look for in a partner? If you could choose the most important quality in a person, what would it be? 

I reached out to a few friends for their thoughts. Their answers varied as some shared faith, compassion, or drive was the most important, and others identified personality or humor as the top priority. 

As one friend put it,

{"Being able to laugh at yourself when you do/say something random or ridiculous, while being able to also find humor in times of struggle and happiness is the number one thing I value in my relationship right now, because it really is a huge portion of what life is all about."}

Another friend shared,

{"A quality that I find most important in a life partner is passion. Not just the hot and steamy kind of passion.... but the kind of passion that motivates others. Someone who is passionate about life, their career, their family, their hobbies, their future, etc."}

And another one added,

{ "Faith -  because everything else follows.... trust, compassion, love, and so on."}

I found a lot value and understanding in each of my friends responses and had a difficult time pinpointing one exact quality myself. I agreed with all! So I decided to do some research and I came across an article discussing this exact same topic. Here's what they found... 

Kindness was the most important quality desired in a partner. It glues a couple together. Which makes sense because a lack of kindness devalues every other quality mentioned and so forth. As I continued my research I time and time again found the same evidence all pointing to kindness and generosity. Even when looking across different cultures!

It was one of those aha! moments for me. When I thought about my relationship with Kyle one of the best qualities I could think of was his kindness and generosity. That was one of my favorite things about him! I also remember being a young college girl, skeptical of nice guys... I would ask myself, could there truly be a guy I would date that would actually be kind-hearted? Well I discovered my answer was yes... and fast forward a few years and here we are married. 

Researching this information and asking some friends for their input also got me questioning different stages of a relationship and could those qualities change as your relationship evolves? I believe yes! I loved the example my friend said about humor. At this point in her relationship humor may be the one thing that keeps the bad not looking so dark or the happy times 10 times more joy to savor. 

So according to the research this might put the nice guys finish last myth to an end. Or at least highlighting what people really want out of a partner.

What are your thoughts? What's the most important quality you look for? Do you believe those qualities can change throughout a relationship?

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