“Do I date the person I like, or the person who likes me? Romance is an either-or choice.”
It sounds philosophical until somebody asks:
“Why are both options one-sided?”
Exactly. The binary quietly deletes the outcome most people probably want: I like them, and they like me. Somewhere in the distance, Tetsuya Takeda seems to be warming up for a full-speed “What it means to be human…” lecture.
Research also suggests that romance is not one line from “the person I want” to “the person who wants me.” Early romantic desire contains separable components: how generally inclined I am to desire others, how broadly desirable the other person is, and how much unique chemistry exists between this particular pair.
So the binary is not nonsense. It describes a real situation — mainly after reciprocity has not yet formed or been confirmed.
1. The Binary Deletes a Quadrant Before the Debate Starts
Two directional questions already create four states.
| They like me | They do not particularly like me | |
|---|---|---|
| I like them | Mutual attraction | My unrequited interest |
| I do not particularly like them | They like me, but I do not reciprocate | No mutual match |
“The person I like” and “the person who likes me” focus on the two asymmetric cells. But mutual attraction was on the board from the beginning.
This is less “ramen or curry?” and more deleting the two-way road from the map and asking which one-way street defines transportation.
Mutual liking is not secret DLC. It ships with the base game.
2. Research Does Not Reduce Attraction to One Popularity Ranking
A 2022 PNAS paper combined three speed-dating studies: 559 participants, more than 6,600 dates, and over 6,100 follow-up reports. Initial desire was partitioned into:
- Actor effects: how generally desirous or selective a person tends to be.
- Partner effects: how consensually desirable a potential partner is.
- Relationship effects: how much a person uniquely likes this specific partner beyond those general tendencies.
Partner and relationship effects were especially predictive of later romantic desire, contact, and actual dating.
In plain language, “everyone tends to like this person” and “this person works unusually well for me” are different variables.
A 2009 real-world speed-dating study likewise found actor, partner, and unique dyadic components, with some support for reciprocity.
3. Being Liked Does Not Automatically Install Love
“Then just like the person who likes you” sounds efficient. Unfortunately, humans do not have:
[LIKED BY SOMEONE] → [INSTALL ROMANTIC FEELINGS]
Reciprocity of liking exists, but it is not mechanical. General warmth toward everybody is not psychologically identical to uniquely liking you in particular.
Being liked can help attraction grow. It cannot be commanded into existence.
4. Why Do the Two Arrows Miss Each Other So Often?
Mutual attraction requires:
Me → A and A → Me
Two choices must intersect. Unrequited attraction requires only one.
Large-scale online-dating research across four U.S. cities adds another mechanism. In the 2018 Bruch and Newman study, men and women messaged partners who were, on average, about 25% more “desirable” than themselves according to the study’s network measure. Reply probability fell as the desirability gap increased.
This is not a universal law; it is context-specific evidence from a particular U.S. service, period, cities, and heterosexual market.
But the mechanism is intuitive. If many people point somewhat “upward,” the person I desire and the person who desires me will often be different people.
One-sided attraction is common not because mutual attraction is fictional, but because bilateral matching requires two choices to line up.
5. Why Choosing “The Person Who Likes Me” Can Feel Rational
Pursuing someone who strongly attracts you involves uncertainty. Someone whose interest is already visible can feel safer.
A 2013 series of studies found that greater fear of being single predicted romantic interest in less responsive or less attractive targets and, in speed dating, lower selectivity when expressing interest.
That does not mean “choosing someone who likes you = settling.” Safety, responsiveness, respect, lifestyle compatibility, and willingness to build a relationship can be legitimate priorities, and attraction can grow.
A 2018 correction clarified the wording of the measure used in Study 3 of the 2013 paper. It did not retract the paper’s overall thesis, but careful use of the evidence should mention it.
6. What the Binary Gets Right — and What It Misses
Before reciprocity is known, people may genuinely face a trade-off between pursuing someone they strongly desire and exploring a relationship with someone whose attraction offers more certainty.
Feelings also need not start at identical intensity. An asymmetric beginning can become reciprocal.
So the binary can describe a decision point inside an unresolved matching process.
What it misses is that romance is not only “Whom do I choose?” It simultaneously includes “Whom does the other person choose?”, plus dyad-specific compatibility.
A better model is:
Find someone I can want
- find someone who can want me
- find cases where those two sets contain the same person.
Mutual attraction is not a miraculous third option. It is successful bilateral matching.
7. Is It Fair to Date Someone Only Because They Like You?
Their affection is information about their preference, not an obligation imposed on yours.
But distinguish:
- “I am not intensely in love yet, but I want to know them better.”
- “I do not see them romantically and do not expect that to change.”
The first can be a reasonable beginning. In the second, using the other person’s affection mainly as a safety device can consume their time and expectations.
The key is not whether both start at 100/100 intensity. It is whether both genuinely want to explore or build the relationship without disguising an absence of interest.
8. Conclusion: Do Not Delete Mutual Attraction Before Starting the Philosophy
A more precise version of the original question is:
When mutual attraction has not yet formed or been confirmed, should I pursue someone I strongly desire, or develop the possibility with someone who already desires me?
That is a real question.
But “the person I like vs. the person who likes me — romance is an either-or choice” immediately invites:
“Where did the case where both people like each other go?”
Unrequited interest exists. Reciprocity exists. General desirability exists. Unique compatibility exists. Aspirational pursuit can make arrows miss. People can also prefer lower uncertainty.
All can be true at once.
Mutual liking is not DLC. It was in the base game.
And if you remove it before beginning your grand theory of love, somewhere in the distance Tetsuya Takeda starts sprinting.
9. Limitations and References
Much of the evidence comes from speed dating and online dating. Some samples are Western, U.S.-based, young, or predominantly heterosexual. The 2022 work includes a sample of men who date men, but the findings should not be treated as universal across cultures, orientations, ages, and relationship stages. Observational dating-market data also do not prove strong causal claims by themselves.
The defensible conclusion is narrower: a one-dimensional “person I like vs. person who likes me” model throws away too much information to describe romance as a whole.
- Eastwick, P. W., et al. (2022). Initial impressions of compatibility and mate value predict later dating and romantic interest. PNAS, 119(45), e2206925119. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2206925119
- Luo, S., & Zhang, G. (2009). What leads to romantic attraction: similarity, reciprocity, security, or beauty? Evidence from a speed-dating study. Journal of Personality, 77(4), 933–964. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2009.00570.x
- Bruch, E. E., & Newman, M. E. J. (2018). Aspirational pursuit of mates in online dating markets. Science Advances, 4(8), eaap9815. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aap9815
- Spielmann, S. S., et al. (2013). Settling for less out of fear of being single. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 105(6), 1049–1073. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0034628
- Spielmann, S. S., et al. (2018). Correction to “Settling for less out of fear of being single.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 115(5), 804. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000227
