Love, Sex, and Loneliness: What Really Changes When You Start Dating
Sunday, October 5, 2025.
For centuries we’ve been told that coupling is the ticket to happiness.
Fairy tales, romantic comedies, your aunt at Thanksgiving—everyone promises that life improves dramatically the moment you find “the one.”
But science, ever the party guest who insists on facts, has a more measured story: yes, relationships help, but mostly in a few predictable areas.
A new study in Social Psychological and Personality Science (Qin, Hoan, Joel, & MacDonald, 2025) suggests that entering a relationship does indeed boost well-being, though not in the miraculous way culture has long promised.
The Study: Following the Newly Coupled
Researchers tracked more than 3,100 single adults over six months. At the start, everyone had been unattached for at least three months—plenty of time to have formed an identity around their solo Netflix queue. Six months later, participants fell into three groups:
Stayed single (steady as she goes).
Got into a relationship and stayed in it (the romantically successful).
Got into a relationship but broke up (the romantically cautionary).
The team measured life satisfaction, sexual satisfaction, loneliness, and how content people felt about their “relationship status.” They also used propensity score weighting, a statistical trick that helps control for the fact that people who are more sociable, attractive, or optimistic may be more likely to partner up.
What Actually Improved
The big gains? Three areas:
Sexual Satisfaction. It shot up, which should shock no one. Having a partner usually means more regular intimacy than yelling “good night” to your cat. This echoes earlier work showing partnered individuals generally report greater sexual fulfillment (Muise et al., 2016).
Loneliness. Unsurprisingly, those with a partner felt less isolated. Romantic partners often serve as primary attachment figures, buffering against loneliness (Hazan & Shaver, 1987).
Satisfaction with Relationship Status. Folks simply like saying, “I’m in a relationship.” It brings personal validation and social legitimacy in a culture that still treats “single” as a temporary condition, like waiting for your luggage at baggage claim.
Life satisfaction did tick up—but barely. A relationship cannot fix work stress, debt, or the fact that your landlord just raised the rent. This supports earlier research that while marriage or partnerships bring a temporary bump, global happiness soon drifts back toward baseline (Lucas et al., 2003).
Who Benefited Most
Men reported larger increases in life satisfaction and relationship status satisfaction than women, a finding consistent with long-standing evidence that men often benefit disproportionately from partnerships (Kiecolt-Glaser & Newton, 2001).
And while people who strongly wanted a relationship gained the most, even those with lukewarm interest in romance still showed improvements in sex and companionship. Apparently, even reluctant daters enjoy pizza shared with someone else.
Breakups, of course, spoiled the party. Participants who coupled and then uncoupled saw few benefits and sometimes reported lower satisfaction than those who had stayed single all along. Stability mattered more than novelty.
The Stability of Singlehood
For those who stayed single, life was steady. No dramatic gains, but no steep losses either. This fits with research suggesting that many singles thrive when their life matches their values—building strong friendships, pursuing personal goals, and enjoying autonomy (Adamczyk, 2017; Kislev, 2019). In other words, singlehood isn’t purgatory unless you believe the advertising.
Cultural Scripts: The Romance Industrial Complex
Here’s where culture complicates the science. In Western societies, partnership isn’t just a lifestyle choice—it’s an achievement badge.
Couples are celebrated with showers, registries, and ceremonies involving three-tier cakes. Singles get… maybe a “good for you” when they move apartments without help.
Sociologist Bella DePaulo (2006) calls this “singlism”—the bias that assumes single people are incomplete, waiting to be redeemed by romance.
The problem is that this cultural overreach convinces people that a partner should overhaul their entire life. When the reality turns out to be improved sex, less loneliness, and a warmer glow at weddings—but not a complete transformation—many feel disappointed.
Not because the relationship is bad, but because the marketing was dishonest.
And scripts vary across the globe. In East Asian cultures influenced by Confucian norms, partnerships are often framed less as personal fulfillment and more as family obligation (Yum, 2003). The benefit is not “self-actualization through love” but “grandmother stops nagging.” Which is its own form of well-being, though rarely measured in Western surveys.
The Real Takeaway
So, does love make you happier? Yes—just not as much as Hollywood promised.
The real benefits are domain-specific: more satisfying sex, less loneliness, and the social perk of being able to say, “Yes, I’m taken.”
But romance will not erase workplace misery, financial stress, or your uncle’s political rants at dinner.
Perhaps the wisest approach is to temper expectations.
Think of romance not as a universal cure but as a targeted therapy: it alleviates loneliness, boosts intimacy, and offers companionship in a world increasingly designed for pairs. Modest gains, yes—but not trivial ones.
Or, as Geoff MacDonald himself put it: don’t expect your entire life to change when you partner up. Expect your sex life to improve, your time for hobbies to shrink, and your Friday nights to get less lonely. That, friends, is what the science calls a large effect size.
Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.
REFERENCES:
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Qin, H. Y., Hoan, E., Joel, S., & MacDonald, G. (2025). In what domains does entering a romantic relationship boost well-being? A longitudinal investigation. Social Psychological and Personality Science. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506241234567
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