What to Look for in a Partner (and How to Know What You Want)

Entry No. 093 ·

In a lamplit university halls common room, a group of friends of about nineteen or twenty sprawl across a worn sofa and floor cushions sharing slices of pizza from plain cardboard boxes; a young woman in a plain loose sweatshirt and wide jeans laughs easily at something the young man beside her has just said, a deep rose pink mug in her hands, while their friends, all in plain unbranded hoodies, tees and jeans, chat and tease around them. The mood is relaxed, warm and quietly hopeful.

By The IF Team

What should you look for in a partner? Someone who is kind, reliable and emotionally steady; who can disagree with you without contempt and make up afterwards; who is curious about your life and glad when it goes well; and who wants roughly the same future you do. That is most of it. The harder part is knowing which of those you truly need, which you merely prefer, and how to tell whether a real person has them — because research suggests the list in your head is a weaker guide than how you feel together.

If you have been dating for a while and feel less certain of what you want than when you started, you are not doing it wrong. Endless profiles make everyone a little blurry, including you. This guide covers the qualities worth looking for, how to find out what you actually want, the modern dating advice that holds up and what to do when you are torn between two people. And because the right person does not always arrive at the right time, it covers where IF fits: the dating app we built for everyone, single or in a relationship. You Like someone when you are both single, and when the timing is not right yet, you say how you feel in a sealed IF that waits.

The qualities of a good partner, and how they show up

Ask people almost anywhere what they want in a long-term partner and you hear a version of the same shortlist. A study of more than 10,000 people across 37 cultures found people in every culture studied placing great value on kindness, dependability and good health — qualities that barely fit on a profile card. So the list below holds whether you are looking for a boyfriend, a girlfriend or someone you might one day call your husband or wife; what changes with commitment is how much the big questions weigh.

  • Kindness that does not need an audience. Watch how they speak to the waiter who brings the wrong dish, the driver who takes a wrong turn and the friend who is running late. Kindness aimed only at you, and only for now, is a performance.
  • Reliability. They do what they said they would, when they said they would. It is the least glamorous quality on this list and the one you will miss most in its absence.
  • Emotional steadiness. Everyone has bad days. The question is whether their bad day becomes yours — whether they can name a feeling rather than leaving you to guess it.
  • Disagreement without contempt, and repair afterwards. Arguing is normal; the tone is what matters. Contempt — mockery, eye-rolling, the superior sneer — is the single strongest predictor of divorce in John Gottman’s decades of research. Look for someone who can say “I was wrong” without a speech.
  • Curiosity about you. They ask the second question. They remember the name of your difficult colleague. They are glad, visibly, when something goes well for you.
  • Commitment you can feel. Not grand promises, but steady signs that they are choosing you, again, without being asked.
  • The same direction on the big things. You do not need matching hobbies. You do need to be roughly aligned on children, where you want to live, money, and how much of your lives you want to share.
  • Timing that lines up. Someone who wants a relationship when you do. Nobody controls this one: the right person can arrive with a partner, or with a heart not ready yet, and neither makes them any less right for you. If they are with someone, or you are, an IF lets you say it now, so that if the timing changes, you are already there.

Red flags that outweigh any list

Some things cancel out every good quality above. Walk away from pressure to move faster than you want, from anyone who lies about whether they are single, from charm that switches off the moment you say no, and from anyone who makes you feel you are too much for having needs at all. If something feels unsafe, trust that over the chemistry, and keep the basics of staying safe on a date to hand.

Why your list is less reliable than you think

Here is an uncomfortable finding from attraction research: most people are not very good at predicting who they will want. In one speed-dating study, the qualities people said they wanted beforehand — looks, earning prospects, a warm personality — failed to predict whom they actually desired once they met. The person who swore they needed someone fiercely ambitious lights up for someone who wants a quiet life by the sea.

It goes further once a relationship is under way. A machine-learning analysis of 43 long-term studies of couples from 29 laboratories found that the strongest predictors of how good a relationship felt were features of the relationship itself — sensing that your partner is committed, feeling appreciated, sexual satisfaction, believing your partner is happy, and how much you fight — ahead of either person’s individual traits.

That does not make your preferences useless. It changes what they are for. A list is a way to decide who to meet, not who to love. The real test only begins once you are sitting across from someone, noticing who you become around them.

Look for ease, not just a spark

Some of what feels like chemistry is really uncertainty: the jolt of not knowing whether they will reply, the high when they finally do. If you have a history of falling for people who keep you guessing, that feeling may be a familiar pattern rather than a sign of compatibility. If the pattern keeps repeating and keeps hurting, it is worth talking to someone about where it comes from.

Meanwhile, the person who makes you feel easy, safe and a little giddy by the third date is often dismissed as “nice, but no spark”. Attraction matters — you should want to kiss them — but give a warm, steady person more than one evening before you rule them out. Desire often grows with familiarity. Anxiety rarely turns into peace.

How to know what you want in a relationship

Knowing what you want is less about imagining a perfect person and more about reading the evidence you already have. Try this, ideally with a notebook and an honest afternoon.

  1. Look back before you look ahead. Think about the people you have dated or loved. What did you miss when it ended? What were you relieved to be free of? Patterns in your past are more truthful than any fantasy of the future.
  2. Notice how you feel after, not during. Chemistry is loud in the moment. The better signal is the journey home: do you feel calmer and more like yourself, or wired and slightly on edge, replaying everything you said?
  3. Separate the relationship from the person. Before you picture a face, decide what kind of life you want: how much time together and apart, whether you want monogamy, whether you want to live together, marry or have children, and whether you plan to stay put or move.
  4. Write it all down, then cut it in half. The first list is always too long. What survives the cut is what you need; the rest is what you would like.
  5. Say it early and plainly. What you want only helps if someone else can hear it. “I’m looking for something serious” on a second date is not too much. It is information, and it saves you both months.

Needs and wants are different lists

A need is something you would be unhappy without over years, not weeks: kindness, honesty, a shared answer on children. A want is something that would be lovely — a love of hiking, a particular sense of humour, a certain height. Most people carry too many needs and too few wants, which is how good matches get discarded for being five centimetres short. Keep your needs few and your wants generous. IF’s paid plans work the same way: split your preferences into Needs and Wants, and a profile that misses a Need sinks far down your deck without ever being removed. We go deeper in how to separate needs from wants and set your dealbreakers.

The big questions that will not wait

A few differences do not soften with time, and whether to have children is the clearest. If you might want them and they are sure they do not, read what to know about dating someone who does not want kids before you fall any further. Life stage shifts the list too: what you want in your 30s, in your 40s or over 50 is rarely what you wanted at 25, and that is growth, not inconsistency.

So does your history. If you are dating as a single parent, a partner’s patience with a changed plan may matter more than any shared hobby; if you are dating someone with kids, so does your readiness to come second on some evenings. Dating after divorce tends to sharpen what you will not repeat, and dating after being cheated on can make trust feel like the only item on the list. Let your history inform your needs without letting it write all of them.

Modern dating advice that actually holds up

Most modern dating advice is either rules about when to text or reassurance that the right one is out there somewhere, usually wrapped in a vocabulary that changes every year. Here is the smaller set that survives contact with real life.

  • Swipe less, meet sooner. In one set of experiments, people shown a long run of dating profiles grew steadily more rejecting, with the chance of accepting someone falling by 27 per cent on average from the first option to the last. Endless choice makes everyone look worse. A few good conversations and an early drink beat an evening of scrolling.
  • Meet people where you already are. The apps are one route, not the only one: meeting someone without dating apps is slower to start and often quicker to tell you something real, and it works in a small town where you already know everyone as well as in a city. And when you do meet someone in person, IF’s Search lets you find them by the email, phone number or Instagram handle they shared with you, so a real-life spark has somewhere to go: a Like if you are both single, or an IF if the timing is not right yet.
  • Date in a way that suits your temperament. If a loud bar on a Friday night drains you, suggest a walk or a quiet coffee instead; dating as an introvert is not a handicap, just a different pace.
  • Date with intention, not urgency. Know what you are looking for, say it, and let pace follow clarity. Dating intentionally is less a technique than a habit of deciding rather than drifting.
  • Take breaks before you need them. If the apps have started to feel like admin, a few weeks away will do more for your judgement than another hundred profiles, and any IF you have already sent keeps waiting while you are away, so stepping back costs you nothing. On the days being single feels loudest — Valentine’s Day is the obvious one — remember that a date booked out of loneliness tells you little about what you want.
  • Believe the pattern, not the performance. Early dates show everyone at their best, and consistency over weeks tells you more than any brilliant evening. If months pass with no name for what you are, getting out of a situationship will help you ask where you stand.
  • Say how you feel while it is true. If you are both single, say it plainly, in person or with a Like. When they are with someone, telling them face to face is brave, but opening up like that has risks: it puts them on the spot and can unsettle a friendship overnight. You may be better off with a sealed IF that opens only once you are both single, so that if the timing ever lines up, you are already there.
  • Hold your standards and loosen your preferences. If you worry that you are too picky, or that you are settling, why you might still be single takes both fears seriously.

Torn between two people

Sometimes the problem is not that you do not know what you want, but that you want two different people. It happens more than anyone admits, and it does not make you fickle. It usually means each of them answers a different part of you.

Before you compare them, check where each stands. Do they want what you want, and can they start something now? If one of them is in a relationship, IF will not open a conversation between you while they are, and whether they stay is their choice. That does not make your feelings wrong or rule them out: you can still tell them, in an IF that opens only if you are both single one day. If that is where you are, start with your real options when a crush is taken. Otherwise, try these.

  • Compare how you are with each, not their CVs. Who do you become — funnier, calmer, more anxious, more guarded? Go back to the qualities above and be honest about which each person actually shows, not which they might one day.
  • Notice who you want to tell first. When something good happens, whose name comes to mind before you have decided anything?
  • Take a short step back from both. A week or two without seeing either often clarifies more than another date with each.
  • Ask whether you are choosing, or avoiding a choice. Sometimes a second person is a way of not committing to the first. If neither feels right, the honest answer may be neither.
  • Be fair to both while you decide. If you are not exclusive, you do not owe anyone a running account of your diary, but do not let either believe they are the only one when they are not, and do not let it drag on. When you choose, tell the other person kindly, and when you are ready to commit, here is how to have the exclusive talk, and the one app you do not have to delete. On IF, you simply make it IF official: switch your status to “in a relationship”, and you keep your account.

If you are already in a relationship and torn between your partner and someone new, the stakes are higher, but the feeling is human and nothing to be ashamed of; the only lines are cheating and lying. No conversation can open on IF while either of you is in a relationship, but whatever you decide, an IF lets you tell the other person honestly how you feel, and it waits, sealed, until you are both single. We cover the bigger decision in should you break up because you like someone else.

Where IF fits

IF is a dating app for everyone, single or in a relationship, built around one idea: once you know what matters, you should be able to tell the person who has it, whatever the timing. Every profile carries a relationship status its owner declares, and our community rules ask everyone to be honest about it. Two single people can Like each other, and an accepted Like opens a chat. On paid plans, the Needs and Wants split above shapes your deck but never removes anyone, because people are more than their filters.

When the person who fits is with someone else, or you are, no conversation ever opens on IF, but you can still send an IF: a private, sealed message of up to 250 characters that opens only once you are both single. If you are single and they become single, you get 24 hours to reveal it; if you are the one in a relationship and they are single, it reveals when you change your own status to single. Then they see who you are and what you wrote, and if they accept, a chat opens. How an IF works covers every case.

If they are on IF, they may be told that an IF is waiting, but not who sent it or what it says until it is revealed. If they are not, one sent to an email address triggers one short invitation email, while a phone number or Instagram handle sends nothing. People can still guess from context. Knowing that, the choice is yours.

Your first IF is free. Right person, wrong time? Wait for them on IF. Writing one takes a little courage, and that is rather the point: you say it once, mean every word, and then it does the waiting while you keep dating and living your life. If the timing ever lines up, you are already there to show them how much you have always liked them, and it may lead you to where you were meant to be all along.

Questions people ask

What are the most important qualities in a partner?

Kindness, reliability, emotional steadiness, the ability to argue without contempt, genuine interest in your life, and alignment on the big decisions such as children and where to live. Across cultures, kindness ranks at or near the top of what people say they want in a partner.

How do you know if someone is right for you?

Not from one brilliant evening. Look for a pattern over weeks: you feel calmer and more like yourself after time together, they do what they say they will, you can disagree and make up, and you want roughly the same future. If you keep having to guess where you stand, that is an answer too.

Is it bad to have a checklist for a partner?

Not if it is short. A checklist is useful for deciding who to meet and poor at predicting who you will fall for. Keep a few needs firm and let everything else be a pleasant surprise.

What are red flags in a partner?

Contempt, pressure, a gap between words and actions, lying about whether they are single, and any reaction to a boundary that leaves you feeling unsafe. One bad day is not a red flag. A pattern is.

How do you choose between two people you like?

First check where each stands. If one is in a relationship, timing decides that part for now, and a sealed IF lets you say it today, ready for the day that changes. Then compare who you are with each, take a short break from both, and be honest with both once you decide.

You do not need a perfect list, only a short, honest one and the nerve to say it out loud — in a Like when you are both single, or in an IF that waits for the day your timing lines up.