WikimediaHooray for all sofa sloths, Netflix and chill could actually save your dried up relationship.
A new study published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships found that couples who stay in together are more committed, which definitively proves being a lazy partner pays.
The data collected showed that watching TV together could foster intimacy in your relationship, just as sharing mutual friends, hobbies and interests can create a deep bond.
GIPHYDisclaimer: You have to be watching the same thing, in the same room… Also, split-screening does not count. I checked.
I’m sure this news will be welcomed by many couples. After the honeymoon period during which you stay up late swapping your dreams, hopes and aspirations, sometimes the simple truth is that partners run out of things to say to each other.
Enter, pop culture. The study, which was conducted in the UK, America and Canada, shows that couples with a ‘shared identity’ are better off in the long term – and luckily these mutual social groups can be totally fictional.
The study says:
In particular, sharing media with a partner may allow people to compensate for lacking a shared group of friends with their partners.
In other words, sharing media may allow people who lack a shared social network to foster a shared social identity with partners that deepens interdependence and promotes closeness.
So you don’t have to hang out with your boyfriend’s handsy mate Dave on the weekend. You can both spend some quality time with the drug-dealing cast of Narcos or the convicts in Orange Is The New Black.
GIPHYWhile the results do suggest that we live in a sort of limbo between the real and fictional realms – and that’s more than a little alarming – I welcome a school of thought that dismisses traditional #CoupleGoals for something more realistic.
Thank god science says we can no longer be guilt tripped by unattainable social media power couples and listicles about how to ‘spice up your love life’. Frankly, staying in with a movie and a Vindaloo is enough spice for a lot of us on a school night, thank you very much!
I hope this study ushers in a new era of cool, achievable couple goals, the likes of which I haven’t seen since Deadpool (aka. Ryan Reynolds) copped a feel of his wife, Blake Lively.
The scientists, who titled their thesis ‘Let’s stay home and watch TV: The benefits of shared media use for close relationships’ truly know what the good people of 2016 want to hear.
Thanks for having our backs, science.
A former emo kid who talks too much about 8Chan meme culture, the Kardashian Klan, and how her smartphone is probably killing her. Francesca is a Cardiff University Journalism Masters grad who has done words for BBC, ELLE, The Debrief, DAZED, an art magazine you’ve never heard of and a feminist zine which never went to print.