There’s no lucky number when it comes to love

Researchers and entrepreneurs have been trying to crack the formula for finding love for decades, if not centuries. And so to the latest finding from scientists at Oxford, keen to discover the degree to which individual daters can actually make use of the bewildering array of options she or he may encounter through online dating sites.

After studying 150,000 users of eharmony, a website for people intent on finding lasting love, the researchers concluded that singles should chat to no more than seven new connections a week – the limit, they say, of our mental capacity to interact meaningfully with others. Anything more, and it all starts to be more trouble than it’s worth.

As much as I find dating, and particularly internet dating, a topic worthy of endless research, studies like these have always got my goat. For all their clever jargon, they’re often totally obvious – is there anyone with half a brain who would dispute that chatting to infinite new matches can be too much of a good thing?

In fact, social science studies like these are the reason, after my Master’s on women’s experience of internet dating, that I chose to tackle the topic through history rather than the present. I figured that at least then, we might find out something we didn’t already know.

My message to daters keen on the serious pursuit of love is this: do what feels right. If you feel swamped in pointless chat with people you don’t care about, then stop. If you love the “throw everything at the wall and see what sticks” approach, then do that. In dating, there are no wrong approaches, only pointless studies.