THE beach or at work? In aperitif bars or meeting online? When are you with friends or at a parents’ party? Two professors investigated. Find that … The best place to find love might not be Temptation Island, the cult summer TV show (try saying “I love you” with a video camera pointed in your eyes).

But two professors at highly regarded Harvard University, who know if they’re coming back from a divorce, got to work. And they came up with some tips on where love is the easiest to meet. Practical, scientific, efficient: like good Americans, they hate wasting time in the labyrinth of feelings. Let’s try to listen to them? Advance that I have only one doubt, but I will tell you at the end.

The teachers started with a question: what kind of sentimental story do you want to experience? If you’re torn between Prince Charming’s dream and the thrill of a night of passion, the solution is simple: Any hangout is perfect, whether it’s a bar, an office, a wedding. Where people gather, Cupid shoots his arrow. And 6 out of 10 stories, important and not, are born in more or less organized groups.

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Better not to look for a companion in the office, especially if you are over 50. Between a desk and a ringing phone, 77% of erotic relationships born at the coffee machine are quickly exhausted. Only young people under 25 are able to tell at least half of these stories.

Even aperitif bars and clubs aren’t a springboard for long relationships, say the two Harvard professors: you can drink as much Sex on the Beach as you want, but only 10 out of 100 flirtations lead to the thrill of sex. love forever.

What about online dating? It’s good to end up in bed. This can be done faster than with any other approach: 30 out of 100 women already have sex on the first date (because they have already gathered information about their partner by chatting at length on the Internet, say the 2 researchers). But only 17 out of 100 manage to maintain the relationship.

So what is the magical place to fall in love? The cool art of statistics has gotten to work. Calculate and recalculate, it turns out that the best way to hook the partner in life is to have it presented by relatives.

Weddings and birthdays, vacations with uncles and childhood friends, when a relative favors the meeting, we have less desire to stall. It will be that we trust more and indirectly receive good referrals. It will be that we do not want to appear light and create diplomatic incidents. The point is, there’s a good chance you’ll find the right person in my senior dating site and stick together for a long time.

With a side effect: couples who know each other in the family are the ones who take the longest to make love. One in 4 arrives after a month, all the others are on the waiting list.