Forget ‘The One’: Most people fall in love TWICE in their lifetime

From The Notebook to Titanic, many classic rom-coms centre on a singular, defining love. 

But a new study suggests that in the real world, ‘The One’ should actually be extended to ‘The Two’. 

Experts from The Kinsey Institute have revealed that most people fall in love twice in their lifetime. 

For their study, the team surveyed more than 10,000 singletons about their experiences with ‘passionate love’.

They found that almost a third had been in love twice, while 11 per cent even said they’d been in love four or more times.

However, it was less happy news for 14 per cent of respondents, who said they’d never experienced passionate love.  

‘People talk about falling in love all the time, but this is the first study to actually ask how many times that happens across the lifetime,’ said Dr Amanda Gesselman, lead author of the study. 

‘For most people, passionate love turns out to be something that happens only a few times across their entire life.’

From songs to TV programmes, falling passionately in love has been widely documented for centuries. 

However, until now, how many times people actually experience it has remained a mystery. 

‘Relatively little is known about how often people experience passionate love across the lifespan, or how this frequency differs by demographic characteristics,’ the researchers explained in their study, published in Interpersona. 

‘If passionate love is a foundational element of romantic development, which in turn positively predicts mental and physical well-being, then it is important to understand who experiences it and how often.’

To get to the bottom of it, the researchers enlisted 10,036 single adults aged 18 to 99.

The participants were asked: ‘In your lifetime, how many times have you been passionately in love?’

The results revealed that 14.2 per cent had never been in love, while 27.8 per cent had experienced it once, 30.3 per cent twice, 16.8 per cent three times, and 10.9 per cent four or more times. 

Unsurprisingly, age was positively associated with the number of passionate love experiences. 

‘Older participants reported slightly more passionate love experiences than younger participants,’ the researchers said. 

The findings suggest that, contrary to popular belief, most people don’t have soulmates. 

Instead, they find multiple people to love throughout their lifetimes. 

‘The finding that most participants had experienced passionate love an average of twice suggests that passionate love is common – in that it is experienced at least once by most people – but it occurs infrequently on an individual basis,’ the researchers added. 

‘These results highlight the episodic and sometimes elusive nature of passionate love.’

The study comes shortly after research revealed the main factors contributing to remaining single.

According to experts from the University of Zurich, people with higher levels of education, who live with their parents, or who are male are most likely to stay single. 

‘Our results demonstrate that both socio-demographic factors such as education, and psychological characteristics such as current well-being, help predict who will enter into a romantic relationship and who won’t,’ co-lead author Michael Krämer said.