#92 Love by the Numbers: Can Romance Really Be Predicted?

What if love isn't just a mysterious emotion but something that follows predictable patterns? Relationship theorist Zoey Charif joins us to reveal how her groundbreaking research can actually predict relationship success with mathematical precision.

After experiencing heartbreak during her criminology studies, Charif spent 18 years developing a revolutionary formula that measures relationship compatibility. She explains how we can calculate our "self-score" by rating ourselves on our top five values—things like family, purpose, and dependability. This self-evaluation creates a numerical representation of our self-respect and self-love, forming the foundation for healthy partnerships.

The magic happens in the numbers. Through extensive surveys of 300 couples, Charif discovered that successful relationships consistently show a fascinating pattern: partners view each other approximately 4% higher than they view themselves. This slight elevation creates a sustainable dynamic of mutual admiration and respect that allows relationships to thrive. Couples who demonstrate this pattern stay together, while those with misalignments eventually separate.

Charif also breaks down relationship personality types, distinguishing between "practical" individuals who prioritize values and "emotional" types who emphasize feelings and attraction. She warns against extreme emotional tendencies that romanticize obsession and fantasy—patterns often reinforced by Disney movies and pop culture narratives about "love at first sight."

Whether you're struggling to understand why past relationships failed or seeking to strengthen your current partnership, Charif's formula provides a revolutionary framework for relationship success. Her book "Love Can In Fact Be Calculated" offers a complete guide to applying these principles in your own life. Follow our podcast for more insights that challenge conventional wisdom and provide practical guidance for navigating the complex world of modern relationships.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Relationship Theory
• 1:22 Origins of the Love Calculation Theory
• 5:21 Understanding Self-Scores and Values
• 9:45 Data Insights from Relationship Surveys
• 16:27 Practical vs Emotional Personality Types
• 24:57 Breaking Free from Romantic Distortions
• 27:50 Closing Thoughts and Book Information

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the Straight from the Source's Mouth podcast. Frank talk about sex and dating. Hello everyone, tamara here, welcome to the show. Today's guest is Zoe Sharif. She's an author and a relationship theorist, and we'll be talking about self, love and her book. Love Can, in Fact, be Calculated. Thanks for joining me, zoe.

Speaker 2: 0:20

Hi, thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1: 0:23

Yeah, I think this will be a great another great educational topic.

Speaker 2: 0:26

So looking forward to hear what you have to say when I just jump right in and say how you got into this topic, sure, Back in the day, when I was studying criminology, I had a very deep intrigue for human behavior and it just so happens that I think in my third year, I was cheated on by my long-term boyfriend and he's someone that I loved truly with all my heart. And when I found out that he cheated on me, I was absolutely heartbroken to fixate on wanting to understand relationships, wanting an explanation for what happened, right? Because, of course, as I was studying criminology, that's what we do we look for explanations for crime. Well, in this case, I'm like I want an explanation for love and I want an explanation for heartbreak, because it's not fair. And how can I avoid this break? Because it's not fair, and how can I avoid this? You know, moving forward.

Speaker 2: 1:32

So I didn't realize that at that time, when I was learning about love and and how it relates to brain chemistry, and how it relates to evolutionary psychology and how it relates to spirituality and metaphysics and all of that, I didn't realize that I was actually starting my journey in understanding and applying a theory that I have now published. So the theory is that love can in fact be calculated, and that's actually also the name of my book, but it's essentially. But it's essentially, I would say, 18 years worth of work in terms of refining the theory, then gathering surveys, then applying data analytics and confirming that I can, in fact, predict whether two people will stay together or not.

Speaker 1: 2:18

Yeah, so I assume you're familiar with Gottman their work as well. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 2:24

Absolutely, and it's actually in line with what I pitched to, because I believe Gottman, one of the traits or one of the factors that he determined could predict whether two people will stay together in the long run was if the woman, the female, has influence over the man, right? So I thought that was very interesting, but I think that my theory actually provides a bit more context to that, because I mean, I would definitely have to read how he portrayed it and how he articulated a bit more. But that can very easily be misunderstood, as she's either manipulative, or she's not accepting someone who's you know, against what she's saying, or she needs someone to always back her. You know, I mean, when you say influence, that's a pretty big word and when you say it's if the woman has more influence, that can really spiral, that narrative can really spiral. So actually, what I found in my book is yes, it's true, but here's the context For the relationships who tended to stay together, it's because they view them slightly better than themselves, slightly better, and I'll explain what I mean.

Speaker 2: 3:49

So the way the formula works is first you evaluate your self-respect and self-love, which I call a self-score. So there's a way to determine that and the way you determine it is first you pick your five top values. That and the way you determine it is first you pick your five top values and, based on those top values, you give yourself a score for each one in terms of how you feel you show up right. So if, for example, one of my top values is family but I feel like I'm really dropping the ball in going to family gatherings, I feel like I'm not talking to my parents enough. I feel like, you know, I'm not hanging out with my nephew enough. Whatever it may be, I might not give myself a top score there Right. Another example could be purpose. Am I pursuing purpose? I respect people who do that. I would love to show up as someone who's purposeful, but am I really truly showing up as that person that I think I would respect? Right? So essentially, with these five values, you tally up your score. So, let's say family, I give myself 15 out of 20, right. Um, for, uh, what was the other one purpose? I give myself maybe another 15 out of 20. Maybe for finances? I had a really big year and I feel like I'm on top of my game, so maybe I'll give myself a 20 out of 20, right, whatever it may be. I tally that up and that self-score is a measurement of my self-respect and my self-love. Now let's assume I give myself an 80%. Now I am now measuring my partner and how he shows up based on my values. Okay, and he's going to have his own set of values and he's going to evaluate me based on his values. The values don't always have to match right Exactly to the T. Usually they do, but not always. So now let's assume that my partner has an 80%. Okay, that's perfect. It's perfect because we are now determining matched lifestyles, matched values and also how we're both showing up. Okay. But here's the thing Our surveys showed that the couples who tend to stay together the partner has four percent on average partner scored than the self score.

Speaker 2: 6:14

That means that the perfect relationship for me is if I'm evaluating myself as an 80 percent. An 85 percent would be the perfect relationship for me and 85% would be the perfect relationship for me. And what do you know? Vice versa. So the same was true for men. Men tended to want to stay in relationships when they admired their partner by an average of 4%. So, going back to Gottman, it's absolutely true. Influence, though the way I articulate. It is more admiration, it's respect, and when you have admiration and respect, that translates to influence. And that's essentially what we saw, adding on to Gottman's theory, where I agree with what he's saying. I I'm just just the context. I think my the narrative might spiral again. I'm not sure exactly how he articulated it and I should definitely educate myself on that in case I'm asked about it again.

Speaker 1: 7:18

But yeah, no, I mean you definitely. Yeah, adding the context is good too. Like I know, I think they talk about four traits or ways you react to each other, predicted or not. So like or be like. It's basically the negative side, like if you're contemptuous or if you do this, then it's not going to work.

Speaker 2: 7:34

So yeah, exactly so, contempt is actually a huge thing too, and I feel like that can also be validated by the theory. The number one, also be validated by the theory. The number one value that we found that both men and women had when they were looking for a partner was dependability and reliability. So, essentially, you're looking for a rock, essentially you want someone to support you, and that's the number one, no matter the age group, no matter the gender. That was what everyone was looking for.

Speaker 2: 8:08

So what happens? If someone drops the ball right Like, you're going to feel unsafe, you're going to feel bothered, resentful, right. So again, going back to Gottman and in my opinion I'm adding context to what he's saying Contempt is true, but I think that's because that's the main value. So when you start to lose, when you start to get lazy in that particular category, the consequences of that is contempt, the consequence of that is resentment. So, yes, those traits that he found, I believe are symptoms of something deeper than that, and I think the deeper layer there is that they're not showing up based on the standards that you know the person has.

Speaker 1: 8:59

Yeah, that definitely makes sense. Yeah, so how do you apply the science to all this? Or I know you mentioned some surveys like how does all that work? Or if you were continuing on the other, then you can keep going.

Speaker 2: 9:09

Yeah, so okay, based on 300 surveys, we had five different categories. Four of those categories were couples who were currently broken up, and only one of those categories were couples who were currently together, the ones who were broken up. We split it up. We. Only one of those categories were couples who were currently together, the ones who were broken up. We split it up. We. The four categories of that was he, she, they broke up with me or I broke up with them, right? That was the second category. The third one is we are on a break, and the fourth one was it was a mutual break or, sorry, a mutual breakup, breakup, right. So all of those. So we found different levels actually of differences of scores for those broken up, and there was only one category where the partner score was higher than the self score, only one, and that's the ones who are currently together.

Speaker 2: 10:03

Hence influence, right, your partner has to be able to influence you for you to want to stay that stay there. But again, influence is the symptom of respect. Influence is a symptom of admiration. That's the deeper layer that we're looking for here. We're not looking for a relationship where the woman or man can influence their partner, we're looking for admiration and again, that will naturally lead to influence. Right the ones who were currently on a break, the partner score was lower by an average of 5%. So there's a slight misalignment there. So apparently, according again to this data, you either have to be an exact match or the partner has to be above you. If they're below you, you're likely not going to be fulfilled and that lack of fulfillment will likely cause distortions. So I have a section in the in the book called distortions. One of them, for example, is a self-sacrificer versus a self-focused, dynamic right. So if you think that your partner is that much above you like oh sorry, let me rephrase that. So, going to the other category of the ones who are broken up, it was mutual breakups. The mutual breakups had a partner score of under 10%, so clearly something was not working out right.

Speaker 2: 11:39

Clearly there was a misalignment there, and oftentimes when there is a misalignment, that's going to project onto the relationship. So if, for example, I'm not happy with how my partner is showing up, right, whether they're not dependable, or the family values are just not where I need them to be, or their finances are not great, so everything is on my shoulders, whatever it may be, well, I'm going to start projecting that into the relationship. So what's going to happen when I do that? I may not meet my partner for the values that they have. If his values is also dependability and reliability, I can very easily say you're barely showing up for me, why would I show up for you, right? Or if let's say, he's not showing up for how I need him to family wise, well, why would I show up to things that he needs for me? So that's where it starts to project.

Speaker 2: 12:34

And you know the goal is not to understand it and then just wipe your hands clean and say, okay, I'm out. That's clearly not the goal, right? The goal is communication. The goal is getting back to a place of alignment, whether you're just starting today, whether you're in a long-term relationship.

Speaker 2: 13:03

About red zone, which is two people with low self-esteem right, so low sells, a low self score and a low partner score. Then there's a yellow zone where you have one low score and one high score right, so it can be a low self score and a high partner score, or it can be the other way around. That's yellow because we're seeing a large discrepancy and, as the data shows, that will eventually lead to misalignment and if there's nothing holding you guys together, such as kids or a mortgage or something, it'll be easier to kind of go your separate ways, right? And even if you do have all those things binding you together, the goal is not to be miserable and just to stay because you have to out of obligation, right, you want to be happy and you want to be fulfilled, and what comes with that is a your partner showing up for you and also you showing up for your partner, but again also you showing up for you. So your self-score is also very important and it's a big part of the equation here for a healthy relationship. So, leading to that, we have the green zone. Green zone is when you have a high self-score and a high partner score.

Speaker 2: 14:05

Again, those are the relationships that tend to last. The 80 versus 85%. Those are very high scores. In fact, women on average have a self-score of 76%. Men on average, have a self-score of 73%. If you're just about there, you're probably healthy. You're probably just like the rest of us, right? If you're above that, that means you have a very healthy sense of self, which is great. Which is great, and it's actually what you need in a healthy relationship, because if you have anything below 70, you're not likely going to show up well in that relationship. You're likely going to project your stuff into the relationship and into the dynamic and then your partner eventually might be over it, right, and then he or she is going to project stuff into the relationship.

Speaker 1: 15:18

Yeah, and then both get defensive back and forth, like you said.

Speaker 2: 15:21

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So we also found the two remaining categories where I broke up with them or they broke up with me. Right, the they broke up with me. The partner score still had a much lower score, which I thought was interesting. Right, and again it goes back to if you're not happy with them, you're likely going to project that into the relationship. They're not going to show up. Well, right, you're both not showing up for each other, essentially, right, um, but yeah, you can be broken up with and still assume that the other person has a low score. Right, again, because they probably projected bad things into the relationship. Right, cause they were probably checked out. And then, other way also is if you did the breaking up, um, same thing, right, like they're, they're not showing up for you, misalignments happen, and then there you go, you both decided to call it quit yeah, I mean makes sense all that yeah yeah, I just it always brings me back to my own, where I'm.

Speaker 1: 16:20

We're doing all of that stuff. So it's like for once. You know, I used to date people. That definitely wasn't the case, like all the the misalignments and all the negativity I definitely had in the past.

Speaker 2: 16:30

So I see both sides of it for sure. It happens, happens, it happens. We're all human. You know, when the love language just came out, it was so popular because there was a way that people could explain hey, I do love you, it's just not the way you need me to love you, right, I am doing my best to show up for you, you're just not receiving it because it's not your language, right? This is actually of love languages on steroids. This actually says hey, here are the list of things that I need. Here's a numerical explanation of where you stand, right, based on my perception. And again, everything is based on perception here, right, there's no truth per se, but it's absolutely a tool for communication.

Speaker 2: 17:21

And I'll be honest with you, my husband and I, look, marriage is not easy. It's really not right. When we first met, he was 4% above me and we both had high scores, which is great. And then, of course, you start to live together. Had high scores, which is great. And then, of course, you start to live together. You, you've got the wedding planning, you've got the wedding, and then you start to see different sides of each other. You start to project frustrations, right, um? And then you start stop showing up with each other as much. So we got to a point where we were not aligned and I actually pulled up the book and I'm like, babe, like we need to get back into where we were, because this isn't working for either of us, and we were both just not happy.

Speaker 2: 18:12

I essentially listed out the things, the values. He did it as well, and we both realized that we got lazy. We got lazy and you know, I mean, it's not how do I put it? When you're that specific about family, I'm giving you X, right, of course you're going to have examples for that. You're going to're gonna say, well, that time that you did this, I felt this and this and that's why I'm not giving you a full mark here, right, yeah, and same thing with him. It's like, well, I feel like you've been kind of getting sloppy, you know, with, like, the house maintenance or whatever.

Speaker 2: 18:52

Um, so in communicating that, then the goal is to each of you start showing up better for the other person. Earlier I mentioned the importance of a self score. A high self score, which again means high self respect, high self esteem, high self confidence. Right, if I'm showing up in my relationship and I'm very unhappy with where I'm at in life. You know that cliche you can't love someone else unless you love yourself. I literally, numerically explain that the data shows that unless you have a high self-score, you're not going to show up well in a long-term relationship and it'll likely dissipate, it'll likely end due to frustrations, due to toxic patterns, toxic communication distortions and all of that and I've had so many guests lately that we talk about similar, like different takes on similar stuff.

Speaker 1: 19:54

but yeah, yeah, the core values, like that's kind of like a given that you know, the more shared values you have, just the more it's going to work out. And I definitely agree and have now that I have that, I'm like, oh yeah, it's so much better this way. Yeah, but do you want to? Is there more to your science? Or do you want to talk about how they can find your book and if they work with you other ways?

Speaker 2: 20:18

I mean with the science. There's another thing we identified personality types in terms of how you do your calculations and how you score your partner. So one that seems to be most relatable is the practical versus the emotional. So the practical personality type is will essentially look at only values, right? So throughout this whole episode I only spoke about values. But there's a secondary part to this calculation, which is traits, and that's attraction. Okay, it's how you measure attraction.

Speaker 2: 20:59

If you're more driven to engage in relationships based on attraction but rather than values, that makes you an emotional right. The emotional personality type If you are more driven based on values and not as much on emotions, so you are a practical personality type. Now, both of those have healthy sides and extreme sides. So you can be a healthy emotional, where you're just slightly leaning towards traits but still very much taking values into account. Or you can be an extreme emotional, where you don't care about the values. You just care about how your emotions feel and how the sex feels and how magnetized you are right. So logic kind of goes away here and I think that a lot of us tend to fall into the extreme emotional personality type. Now, the least common personality type was the extreme practical, which actually I thought was great to see. I'm like, I'm so glad that we're not all using each other and we're not transactional as humans, because that's what the data showed. So the extreme practicals will say I just care about values, I don't even care about emotions, I don't care about attraction, whatever right, that's not what drives my relationships. But although it did show up in our surveys, it was a very small percentage of the population. So again, I'm just really happy to see that.

Speaker 2: 22:27

But going back to the extreme emotionals, I think that we've all been there where we live in fantasy and we're like oh my God, my angels must have sent this person. Oh my God, if I feel this strongly, it must be meant to be. There must be past lives there, there must be a soulmate connection, a chaser runner, and I'm not denying that those things are true and that they exist. But what I am saying is that your angels do not want you to self-harm. You're not put here on earth to be a self-sacrificer or to be an emotional servant to another human. You're here to make yourself happy. In my opinion, by the way, you're here to be purposeful and be happy so that you can project that happiness and that love back into earth, back to other humans.

Speaker 2: 23:16

If you are completely drained and you're not performing well in your own life, you're not going to project health into this world and then we're just going to feed off of each other's energies, right, all to say, when you fall into this spiral of overthinking of another person, overthinking their behaviors, overthinking whether you know it's the runner chaser dynamic, and again you're romanticizing self harm and you're romanticizing obsession and romanticizing again just these dynamics that aren't healthy, that are not balanced, yeah, you're probably falling into an extreme emotional distortion and you're probably not going to be able to hold on to that relationship, because that's another thing we saw with the extreme.

Speaker 2: 24:06

The healthy emotional can not the extreme emotional. So if you're putting all your eggs in the basket of emotions and not enough in the values, you're not even going to hold on to that relationship. So like, catch yourself, catch yourself, catch yourself when you spiral and, by the way, it's very normal, we've all been there, we are all human, we all love to love, I get that Right. But I think just the romanticizing of, oh, like the, just the romance of it, that's where we need to take a step back because it's not healthy.

Speaker 1: 24:40

Yeah, I mean all the. We grew up with all the princesses and all that stuff and Prince Charming saving us so, especially as women.

Speaker 2: 24:46

So yeah, which is a red flag. I mean, I do believe in fairy tale endings. I do believe that some people are just meant to be. They meet when they're so young and they're just so beautiful together, right up until 4050 years old, like I do believe in those stories. But I also believe that this era of dating will pull you into thinking that you just fell into that pattern, or that you not the pattern, but you fell into that situation and you're right. We grew up with Disney movies, beautiful Disney movies, and we grew up in believing in the true love is immediate. The true love Well, maybe not immediate, but true love is immediate. The true love well, maybe not immediate, but true love exists yeah, I would say like love at first sight.

Speaker 2: 25:32

You know just yeah, thank you, that's. That's what I was looking for. Love at first sight there can be in the enjoying of traits at first sight right, but you got to balance it out with values at the end of the day. The whole jasmine aladdin thing that's not typical. It'd be great, but it's not typical.

Speaker 1: 25:54

Romeo and juliet I don't think that was disney, that was shakespeare yeah, I've been that person before, like distorting and like making up stuff, and then and even he'll remind me my current partner he's like. He's like that's not reality. He's like you know like we're gonna have differences, we're's like. He's like that's not reality. He's like you know, like we're gonna have differences, we're gonna have this. He's like I'm like, yeah, but I wish we wouldn't. He's like but that's not reality. So he like brings me back.

Speaker 2: 26:16

I get that Like I truly believe that we just love to love, like I believe we enjoy it so much. Right, and if you look at brain chemistry, though, you know, essentially it's a dopamine hit, it's like an influx of oxytocin and it feels great, but eventually you're going to crash. So the goal is to just kind of keep it stable, right. So, as an extreme emotional, when you're constantly looking for that high, the crashes might happen. You might start to um, distort, you might start to distort reality, you might start to assume someone feels the same way for you when they do not, and you start creating fantasies in your mind, you start obsessing, and then, if you combine that with an anxious attachment personality type, or you combine that with trauma personality type, or you combine that with trauma, which I won't say that all extreme emotionals have trauma, but I will say that if you have trauma, you're more likely to fall in that category, because you're afraid of abandonment. And, yeah, you just, you know there's just distorted, distorted and dysfunctional love.

Speaker 1: 27:28

Unfortunately, so is there a place that's easiest to get your book or anything else you want to share about yourself? Yeah, so you can pick up my book through Amazon.

Speaker 2: 27:39

It's called Love Can In Fact Be Calculated, or Barnes Noble. Barnes Noble website has it. If you're in Southern California it's available at the Spectrum location and Huntington location.

Speaker 1: 27:51

Okay, anything you want to say, like for closing, or did you? Was there more to finish before you even had a closing thought?

Speaker 2: 27:57

No, I appreciate you having me so much. I hope that I described the theory well enough and that it was not too confusing.

Speaker 1: 28:05

No, no, yeah, it was good, and then they can get the book if they needed to get more information. So awesome.

Speaker 2: 28:12

Well, thank you so so much. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 1: 28:15

Yes, thank you, and if you love this episode, be sure to tell your friends about it and follow the show as well. All right, thank you everyone. Frank talk, frank talk sex and dating educate.