So, recently a team of psychologists found a correlation between the divorce rate and year book pictures of all things. They claim if you want to know if you will have a happy marriage just look at your future spouse’s high school yearbook picture… I say good thing they didn’t say look at the haircut cause I’d be screwed.HA! These researchers also say that they believe the correlation could be that smiling people have a happier disposition or it could be that smiling people attract other smiling people creating a happy relationship. I say Cough bullshit cough cough! Let’s just put my relationship out there for an example. In my high school yearbook pictures I have that big cheesy Gina smile that I am well known for. However, my fiance’s picture is hardly a crack or an attempt to crack a smile. Now, based on these researchers I should attract other happy people. Nope! Fallacy #1. or that my smile would create a happy relationship and again Nope! Fallacy #2. Now let’s not discuss why I am engaged to someone I am unhappy with cause I may say it’s because I smile…:) So, obviously there are exceptions to everything and some fallacies in every piece of research but really I can’t imagine basing my entire relationship on the way my partner smiled in high school, and for all of us that survived high school we all know the reasons we could have not smile or smiled for that picture. I would however love to see this hypothesis tested a bit more to include an adult photograph. I know many people who do not smile in photos and are miserable people. But again, capturing human existence without the turn, pose, and say cheese mentality has been some of the best photographs in American history.
I heard that BS too, and I just think its another way for people to try and explain what works, or doesn’t work in a relationship. I smiled, Scott didn’t and yet we have been married for 28 years. Relationships work when you have (two) people that love and respect each other as people and want to make it work. Simple.