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Dating, data, and Jane Austen

Word to the wise: Don't put too much stock in first impressions in general and especially when dating.

I haven't yet read Why men marry some women and not others : the fascinating research that can land you the husband of your dreams  by John T. Molloy, though I now put a request in to my library for it. I only found the title as a result of Googling the author's name that came to my attention on p. 112 of the Heath brothers' book Decisive.
  in the section

photo from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/36/Rex_Whistler_-_Pride_and_Prejudice_2.jpg/800px-Rex_Whistler_-_Pride_and_Prejudice_2.jpg
The gist of the book is related in this article: https://www.tesh.com/articles/why-do-men-marry-some-women-and-not-others/, which, unfortunately misuses the word peaking for piquing. But in any case, the point is that the author's conclusions are based not only on his own experience but surveys of 4,000 people. The last point in this article is the one the Heaths pick up:

"Women who go out for a second or even a third date with men they aren't initially crazy about often end up happily married to them. "

The Heaths are a bit more precise,  putting it as follow:
"20% of the women reported not liking their spouse-to-be when they first met. (This also implies that there are millions of other people who met their future  spouse and then walked away because their gut instinct led them to abandon the interaction too early)."
What Molloy had to prove through data in the 21st century,  Jane Austen grasped from her own limited life's observations two centuries earlier. The first title she gave her most famous work, Pride and Prejudice was First Impressions, and, of course, the lesson of the book is not just that the simplistic love wins but that one has to overcomes one's first impressions and get to know what a person is really about. 

If Lizzy and Mr. Darcy would have behaved like most young singles today, they would have just stuck to their guns, dismissing the other person because, they'd say, they "already know" them on the basis of just a couple of brief interactions that did not go well. In contrast to the somewhat quiet and reserved Mr. Darcy who fails to make a good first impression, Mr. Wickham is charm itself. But the former proves to be a man of integrity and the latter to be a dishonorable opportunist. Lydia lets herself be swept away by the charmer (a fate that Marion just barely escapes in Sense and Sensibility) and could have brought her entire family down as a result of her impulsive action. 

There is a general them in the novels that those who are the most attractive at first glance are not always to be trusted, and that good character matters more than initial attraction. 






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