What Are We Really Looking For?
Entry No. 003 ·
By The IF Team
What you are really looking for is usually shorter than your list: a few needs, held firmly, and a longer run of wants, held loosely. In a relationship, a need is something you could not be happy without in the long run: kindness, honesty, feeling safe, and the same answer on the big decisions, such as children, monogamy and the kind of life you want. A want would make a relationship lovelier, but you could live without it: someone taller than you, a partner who loves live music too. A dealbreaker is simply a need that someone clearly fails. Keep your needs few, make them about how a person treats you and the life you want to build, and let everything else be a want.
If you have ever lain awake wondering whether you are too picky, or about to settle, the worry is a good sign: you are taking your own happiness seriously. The trouble is rarely the standards. It is that most lists never say which lines are walls and which are wishes. If you are still working out what you want, begin with what to look for in a partner.
We built IF, the dating app for everyone, single or in a relationship, around the same idea. On IF’s paid plans, someone who misses a preference you mark as a Need moves down your deck, never out of it. And timing need not stop you: if the person who meets every need is not single yet, you can still tell them how you feel, in a sealed IF that waits until you are both single. No conversation ever opens on IF while either of you is in a relationship.
Needs vs wants: what is the difference?
The simplest test is time. A need is something whose absence would make you unhappy in five years, however good the first five months felt. A want is something whose absence you would notice, shrug at and forget. Most needs describe how two people treat each other and where their lives are heading. Most wants describe a surface: looks, weekends, what someone studied.
Needs usually sound like this
- Kindness that does not switch off when you disagree.
- Honesty, including about whether they are single and what they are looking for.
- Feeling safe and respected.
- The same answer on children, or at least not opposite ones.
- Agreement on exclusivity: monogamy, or something more open.
Wants that often pose as needs
- A minimum height, or a strict limit on age gaps.
- A particular job, degree or income bracket.
- Shared hobbies: climbing, running, the same band.
- A certain look, or the type you have always gone for.
A want is not shallow. It only causes trouble when you treat it as a need, because then it quietly removes people who would have met every need you actually have.
If you are already in a relationship
The line matters once you are together too, because it changes how you ask. A want can be raised lightly: “I’d love it if we went dancing more.” A need deserves a plainer sentence: “When you go quiet for days after an argument, I stop feeling safe. I need us to talk it through.” Voice every want like a need, and your partner stops hearing which is which. A missed want leaves you disappointed for an evening; a missed need leaves you lonely in the same room.
Dating priorities and non-negotiables: keep the list short
Your dating priorities come in two tiers: a few non-negotiables, the needs you will not trade, and a longer, looser list of wants. The non-negotiables should fit on one hand; three to five is plenty. Each extra line rules out people you would have liked, usually over something you would have stopped noticing by the third date.
Attraction research backs this up. In a speed-dating study at Northwestern University, the ideals people stated beforehand failed to predict whom they actually desired once they met. Keep the short list for what experience, not imagination, says matters: the values you live by, the big life decisions and how conflict goes.
How to set dealbreakers without writing off good people
A dealbreaker is a need with a clear line: the point at which you would stop seeing someone, however much you like them. Draw yours so that they protect you rather than shrink your world.
- Write down every quality you have ever wanted, then sort it into needs, wants and do-not-cares.
- Run the five-year test on every need. Would its absence make you unhappy in five years, or only disappointed on a first date? Anything that fails moves to wants.
- Check it against your past. What did you miss when a relationship ended? A need you have never missed may only be a want.
- Turn labels into behaviours. “Nobody who works in finance” is a label. “Nobody who habitually cancels at the last minute” is a behaviour, and behaviours are what you live with.
- Decide how you will find out. Children and exclusivity can come up by the third date; kindness under pressure takes longer to see. Saying what you want early is most of dating intentionally.
- Review it every few months. A new stage of life can turn a want into a need, or the reverse: someone who did not mind about children at 25 may care deeply at 35.
Dealbreakers also weigh more than you expect: in a 2015 set of studies led by the psychologist Peter Jonason, people gave traits to avoid more weight than traits they sought. Aimed at a real need, that instinct protects you; aimed at a want, it simply costs you people.
A dating dealbreakers list to start from
Treat this as raw material. Circle your true needs, cross out the rest, and add what is missing.
The big decisions
- They are sure they do not want children and you are sure you do, or the reverse. It is the one difference that cannot be split down the middle; dating someone who does not want kids walks through what to ask early.
- They want an open relationship and you want monogamy, or the reverse.
- They never want to marry, and marriage matters to you.
- They are rooted in a place you are determined to leave.
How they treat you
- Contempt: the eye-roll while you are still talking, the joke at your expense in front of friends.
- Lying, even about small things, and blaming you when you notice.
- Pressure to move faster than you are ready for.
- Kindness aimed only at you, which vanishes with waiters, friends and exes.
How they live
- Drinking, smoking or drug use that clashes with how you live.
- Money habits that would sink a shared life: hidden debt, reckless spending.
- Very different ideas of how much time a couple should spend together.
Some lines are not preferences at all. Anyone who makes you feel unsafe, or meets a boundary with anger, is not a dealbreaker to weigh but a reason to walk away. On IF, Report and Block sit on every profile you can identify, every report is reviewed within 24 hours, and our safety guidance is there too.
Is height a dealbreaker, or just a want?
Height is one of the most argued-about preferences in dating, and almost always a want. It is fine to find tall people attractive, but treat a range as a wall and you remove everyone just outside it before they speak. Ask what the number stands for. If it is really about feeling protected, that is a need you can test for in how someone behaves; if it is about how you look together in photographs, it is a want you can let go.
Try widening your range by five centimetres either way. On IF, a height range left as a Want only nudges the order of your deck; nobody disappears for being a few centimetres out. If you ever laugh across a table with someone and only notice their height on the walk home, you will have your answer.
Is being single a need, or a question of timing?
Being single sits on almost every list, and it is easy to see why: you cannot build a relationship with someone while they are in another one, and nobody should cheat or lie to make room for you. But being single is not a quality. It is a moment in someone’s life. The person who meets every need you have may simply have met someone else first. That says nothing about whether they are right for you, only that the timing is not yet yours.
Feeling that pull is not settling, and it is nothing to be ashamed of. You can keep it to yourself and carry on dating. You can tell them, and some people would rather know, but opening up face to face has risks: it puts them on the spot inside a relationship they have chosen, and it cannot be taken back. You may be better off saying it once in an IF, a private, sealed message that asks nothing of them today and opens only if you are both single one day. No conversation can open on IF while either of you is in a relationship, and if the timing ever lines up, you are there to show them how much you have always liked them. Right person, wrong time? Wait for them on IF, and keep living your life while it waits. The right person at the wrong time looks at that choice in more depth.
Am I settling or being too picky?
You can be both at once: too picky about wants and too relaxed about needs. The signs look different.
Signs you might be settling
- You are explaining away a need rather than questioning a want: “They go cold when I’m upset, but they’re so driven.”
- You feel lonelier with them than you did on your own.
- You are staying mainly because starting again feels worse.
- You have stopped saying what you want because it leads to arguments.
- Friends who love you go quiet whenever their name comes up.
Fear drives a great deal of settling. In a 2013 study, psychologists at the University of Toronto found that people more afraid of being single were more willing to settle for less responsive partners. Loneliness is a poor judge of character. If these signs describe your relationship, the honest options are to tell your partner what is missing and work on it together, or to end it cleanly. The only wrong turns are cheating and lying. And if you notice that someone else meets a need your relationship does not, that feeling is honest, not a betrayal: you can say it in an IF. It cannot start a conversation while either of you is in a relationship, nothing about it needs hiding, and if the timing ever lines up, you are there to show them how long you have felt it.
Signs you might be too picky
- You turn people down for reasons you could not explain to a friend without wincing.
- Your list runs past five needs, and most of it is about looks, jobs or height.
- You rarely reach a second date, and cannot say what went wrong on the first.
- The longer you scroll, the more everyone looks wrong.
That last sign is not a character flaw. The psychologists Tila Pronk and Jaap Denissen found that people shown one dating profile after another grew steadily more likely to reject each new one, with the chance of accepting someone falling by 27% on average from first profile to last. Sometimes the cure is not a lower standard but a shorter session. If being single has lasted longer than you would like, why you might still be single looks at the other reasons honestly.
Settling vs compromise: how to tell the difference
Every good relationship involves compromise, so the question is what you are giving up, and why.
- Compromise trades wants. Settling gives up a need.
- Compromise runs both ways. Settling is one person bending while the other stays put.
- Compromise leaves you feeling respected. Settling leaves a low hum of resentment.
Moving to a city you like slightly less for your partner’s work, a smaller wedding than you pictured, learning to love their terrible taste in films: that is compromise. Staying with someone who mocks you when you disagree, or who is certain they never want the children you are certain you do, is settling, however many wants they tick.
A machine-learning analysis of 43 long-term studies of couples found that how satisfied people felt depended far more on the relationship itself — sensing that a partner is committed, feeling appreciated, how much you fight — than on either person’s individual traits. Compromise on traits comes cheap; settling on how it feels to be together does the damage.
Can you date someone with different politics?
Politics is where the line between needs and wants gets most personal. When the Pew Research Center surveyed single Americans looking for a relationship in late 2019, most Democrats said they would not consider a committed relationship with someone who had voted for Donald Trump, and nearly half of Republicans said the same of a Hillary Clinton voter.
A vote is a label, though, and labels make poor dealbreakers. Views about the shared life you would build — raising children, spending money, practising a faith or not — and anything touching your dignity are needs. A different party or view on tax, held with respect, is for many couples only a want.
The real test is how you disagree. In the psychologist John Gottman’s research, contempt is the strongest predictor of divorce, and politics is an easy place for it to leak out. If you can argue about an election and still like each other at breakfast, the difference may enrich you both.
Let your priorities do the sorting
Knowing your needs and wants is half the work; the app you use decides what happens to them. As of September 2026, Hinge’s Dealbreakers are a firm line: turn one on for a preference, and you will not see anyone who does not match it. That is useful for a true need, and costly for a want you marked by mistake.
Where IF fits
Where Hinge draws a wall, IF, the dating app for everyone, single or in a relationship, takes the other road on purpose. On the IF and IFinity paid plans, Priorities let you drag your filters — age, distance, height, what someone is looking for, drinking and more — into order around a row marked Needs / Wants. Everything above it is a Need; everything below is a Want, weighted by rank. A profile that clearly misses a Need sinks far down your deck but is never removed, because a person is never just the boxes they tick. On every plan, the one hard filter is who you have asked to be shown: men, women or non-binary people.
When two single people find each other, IF works like any dating app: a Like, once accepted, opens a chat. When the person who meets your needs is in a relationship, or you are, no chat can open, but you can still send an IF: a sealed message of up to 250 characters that waits until you are both single. They may be told an IF is waiting, never who sent it or what it says, though people can sometimes guess from context. Your first IF is free.
It is the advice of this whole guide, built into an app: hold a few needs firmly, keep your wants loose, and never let timing alone decide whether the right person hears how you feel. Knowing your needs is the easy part; telling the person who meets them takes a little courage, and that is rather the point: you say it once in an IF, mean every word, and let it do the waiting while you get on with your life. If the timing ever lines up, you are there to show them how much you have always liked them, and maybe it leads you to where you were meant to be all along.
Questions people ask
What is the difference between needs and wants in a relationship?
A need is something you could not be happy without in the long run, such as kindness, honesty, safety and agreement on children and monogamy. A want would be lovely, but you could live without it: height, hobbies or a particular job.
What are the most common relationship dealbreakers?
Of the options a 2019 Pew Research Center survey put to Americans looking for a relationship, the most common were someone who lives far away, has a lot of debt or voted for Donald Trump, each ruled out by about half. The ones most worth holding firmly are dishonesty, contempt, pressure and a real split on children or monogamy. Looks and height rarely survive the five-year test.
How many non-negotiables should you have?
Three to five, usually covering how someone treats you and the big decisions, such as children and monogamy. Any more are wants in disguise: run the five-year test on each, and move whatever fails.
Is it settling to wait for the right person?
Not if they meet your needs and only the timing is wrong. Settling means giving up a need; waiting means holding on to one. The healthy way to wait is to say it once, in an IF, and keep living your life, so that if their situation ever changes, you are already there to show them how much you have always liked them.
Count your needs on one hand, give everything else a little room, and when you find the person who meets them, tell them: with a Like if you are both single, or with an IF that waits for your timing to line up.