The boyfriend test we didn’t know we needed – and shows that I should have gone for a maths nerd all along

1. Lifestyle

As a new study finds that asking men specific questions about their problem-solving skills might weed out bad partners, Olivia Petter asks whether we could all benefit from creating our own ‘boyfriend tests’

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In news bound to thrill and terrify straight men everywhere, they can now be assessed on their potential as a romantic partner by taking a boyfriend test. At least, that’s the theory of a team of researchers at Oakland University, who analysed 202 heterosexual men who’d been in relationships for at least six months and found that those with better problem-solving skills and abilities to spot patterns made steadier and more reliable partners. In other words, the nerds did best.

The authors of the study, led by data analyst and social scientist Gavin Vance, found that the men they studied who had a very specific type of intelligence – the ability to spot patterns in sequences of numbers and letters – were less likely to be tempted to take risks outside of a relationship, and were therefore more likely to stay faithful to their partner. They were also less likely to have displayed jealousy, exhibited controlling behaviours or insulted their partner, in addition to displaying fewer signs of psychopathic traits.

It goes against everything women are conditioned to be attracted to: brooding bad boys with a penchant for writing tortured poetry in their Notes apps, wearing vintage leather jackets, and being emotionally unavailable. In other words, the pained souls that pop culture has forever held up as lascivious lotharios. He’s Gossip Girl’s Chuck Bass. The OC’s Ryan Atwood. The Vampire Diaries’ Damon Salvatore. And so on. Rarely are the maths geeks lingering in the back of the classroom upheld as the good boyfriend, but science has different ideas.

Whether we are ready for the lesson is debatable. The allure of the hot mess bad boy persists. Just last month, a study published in the Journal of Research in Personality found that the nicer the guy, the less likely he is to have a romantic partner.

After analysing data from 3,780 adults in Australia, Denmark and Sweden, the study found that neuroticism and agreeableness had negative associations in men. Meanwhile, men who were outgoing, confident and sociable were significantly more likely to be in a relationship compared to those who were more introverted. For women, the opposite was true. “An assertive, extroverted man may get positive responses when approaching potential partners, while an assertive woman might face ambivalence or negativity,” said the study’s co-author, Filip Fors Connolly, an associate professor of sociology and psychology at Umea University in Sweden.

And so heterosexual women have a problem: we’re more likely to shun the quiet geeks with a steady head on their shoulders, even though they’re probably going to be the best partners. How to get around this?

Don’t worry, there is an app for that, or probably will be soon. In a predominantly digital dating landscape that is constantly advancing, in which AI is being integrated into most platforms, it’s not hard to envisage a world where good boyfriend and girlfriend tests do actually exist. Yes, it might all sound a bit Black Mirror, but matchmaking technology has existed for years and is already being used by apps to help tailor our preferences, a process that AI promises to improve. “Where AI is brilliant is that it can learn patterns,” said Bumble’s CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd in an interview with The New York Times published earlier this year. “It can then scan hundreds of profiles if not more and it can say, ‘Hey, I think you should meet this person because they have similar values.’ That’s where sorting and machine learning can be really powerful.”

The subject of artificially engineered matchmaking to the degree where an algorithm can introduce you to your soulmate is even the subject of a new film, All of You, directed and co-written by William Bridges, who has also written for Black Mirror. Starring Imogen Poots and Brett Goldstein, the film takes place in a world in which a company called Soul Connex offers to pair you up with your life partner via a single test. It’s easy to see how ripe this concept is for drama, and how easily the idea of the test could be subverted: can we ever truly find the person we’re meant to be with through a third-party service, no matter how advanced it is?

We’ll have to wait a few years to see when things like this inevitably enter the dating market. But in the meantime, perhaps straight women can follow the advice of Oakland University’s research team, boosting their chances of finding lasting love by dating the guy with the analytical problem-solving skills instead of the guy writing the bad poetry and dreaming of being in a band. A good egg-head, if you will.

Of course, all this is based on a relatively small sample size, and Vance’s team has stressed that the study is correlational and so can’t prove cause and effect. But that doesn’t render the idea of a boyfriend exam any less fascinating, particularly when you really think about what really makes a man a keeper. So, with that in mind, here are the five questions I reckon you should be asking your potential suitors for your very own boyfriend test – do take them with a pinch of salt:

1. Have you ever ghosted anyone, or left them on “read” for longer than 48 hours? (permissible in exceptional circumstances, ie stolen phone or sudden death)
2. How much therapy have you had? (minimum requirement of five hours)
3. How many exes have you labelled “crazy” instead of analysing your own contribution to the downfall of a relationship? (ideally zero)
4. Have you ever written a woman a poem instead of clearly communicating your feelings? (avoid if so)
5. Are you an actor or musician? (the correct answer should be obvious to this one)

Now you know, test and act accordingly. Godspeed.

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