There Are 4 Distinct Types Of Romantic Partners — Which One Are You?

If you are anything like me, you have likely done a million personality quizzes to find out everything from your Myers-Briggs personality type to The Hunger Games character you’re most similar to. 

These personality tests are both ideal and problematic because they place us into boxes but, for some of us, those boxes are helpful. (OK, the psychology ones are, knowing that I’m more of a Haymitch than a Katniss, perhaps not so much).

Now, though, researchers in Australia have discovered that when it comes to relationships, there appears to be four distinct romantic partners and most of us will strongly identify with one of them.

The four types of romantic partners

The research, which was published in Personality and Individual Differences found that there are four distinctly different types of lover. These are:

• Mild romantic lovers
• Moderate romantic lovers
• Libidinous romantic lovers
• Intense romantic lovers

These categories were defined by looking at over 800 young people who were in love.

The researchers claimed this four-cluster solution “makes sense theoretically and is consistent with current limited understanding of the psychological expression of romantic love and understanding of individual differences and evolutionary theory”.

Interesting.

Mild romantic lovers

According to the paper, mild romantic lovers show the lowest intensity of romantic love when it comes to aspects such as obsessive thinking, commitment and frequency of sex.

They make up around 20% of the population and are most often cisgender heterosexual men. 

The mild romantic lovers have fallen in love more than anyone else but, conversely, their relationships tend to be shorter and they are unlikely to have fallen in love before a relationship has been made ‘official’.

Basically, they take a while to fall in love and it rarely lasts long. Eek.

Moderate romantic lovers

These make up most of the population, according to the research, with a whopping 40% of respondents falling into this category. These lovers are unlikely to have children and are more likely to be men.

These lovers don’t have obsessive thinking patterns but they are often highly committed to their partners and have relatively frequent sex.

Aside from being even-mannered, the researchers said these respondents are ‘entirely unremarkable’. 

Charming.

Libidinous romantic lovers

This category is made up of just under 10% of respondents. 

These lovers are highly obsessive, often not cohabiting and have highly exceptional sex frequency, averaging around 10 times a week.

The people in this category reported the least amount of mental health problems but the highest proportion taking SSRI’s, so I guess they’re working!

Intense romantic lovers

Making up 29% of respondents, these respondents are the second largest category in the study. They have the highest intense obsessive thinking and commitment, and a relatively high sex frequency.

“By all accounts, this cluster is intensely in love”, say the researchers.

“They have the highest proportion who fell in love before their romantic relationship and the lowest proportion of unreciprocated love. Intense romantic lovers are the only group with more females than males and had the highest proportion identifying with a non-traditional gender.

“Intense romantic lovers had the highest gender inequality. They had the highest relationships satisfaction.”

I know where I fall, do you?