The Three Wishes
Rank your top three partner traits and make them impossible to ignore
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- 85%
Tashiro's method starts by letting you dream big with a full wishlist, then does the one thing almost nobody does: rank orders it. Because any third trait mathematically cuts your candidate pool to roughly one person in a hundred, you must choose only your top three and hold them constant. You then make those three salient by writing them somewhere you see every day. The mechanism is selective attention: once the priorities are concrete and repeatedly reviewed, your perception and behavior orient toward matching people without conscious effort. It is a low-effort, high-return intervention that also exposes the common failure mode where two of a person's three real wishes quietly go to physical attractiveness and socioeconomic status, neither of which predicts long-term satisfaction.
Origin
Developed by relationship psychologist Ty Tashiro from an exercise he ran hundreds of times teaching an undergraduate psychology of romantic relationships course, and expanded into his book on choosing partners.
Core principles
- 01Fewer traits beat longer wishlists
- 02Rank order forces you to reveal what you actually value
- 03Selective attention pulls you toward what you make salient
- 04Most people squander their wishes on looks and money
How to run it
- 1
Make the list of your dreams
Write down everything you want in an ideal partner, as if a fairy godparent could grant it. Aim for the full 20-25 traits people naturally generate.
Pro tip Do not self-censor here; the editing happens in the ranking step, not the brainstorm.
- 2
Rank order the entire list
Number every trait from most to least important. This is the step almost nobody does, and it is what makes the exercise work.
Watch out Each successive priority slashes your candidate pool; by the third trait you are near one person in a hundred.
- 3
Keep only the top three
Discard everything below the top three. These become your three wishes and the non-negotiable core of what you are looking for.
- 4
Make the three salient
Write or print your top three and put them on your mirror, the back of your phone, or anywhere you will see them constantly so they stay front of mind.
Pro tip Physical, visible reminders beat mental ones; the goal is unavoidable repetition.
- 5
Let selective attention steer you
With the priorities salient, your attention and behavior begin directing you toward people who match, and away from those who do not, without deliberate effort.
- 6
Over-select from the right pools
Deliberately seek out people who carry the good-for-you traits you tend not to gravitate toward naturally, and avoid the pools where your known weak spots live.
Watch out Watch for looks and money quietly capturing two of your three wishes; both have near-zero long-term return on satisfaction.
In the wild
Tashiro would have a lecture hall write their ideal-partner list, then read one volunteer's traits in order while students who did not meet each raised or lowered hands. Wishing for a man six feet or taller dropped 80 of 100 people (only ~20% of US men qualify). A second wish like earning $150k a year cut the remaining twenty to about five. By the third wish, the pool was reliably down to one person in a hundred or a fraction of one.
→ Students viscerally saw that every added priority is expensive, forcing them to rank and protect only their top three.
Common mistakes
Never ranking the list
A flat 20-item wishlist gives no guidance under pressure; without a ranked top three, passionate love decides for you.
Spending wishes on looks and money
Watching real speed-dating and online-dating behavior shows two of three wishes go to attractiveness and status, which barely predict long-term happiness or stability.
Is it for you?
Best for
Single people who want to date deliberately before passionate love shuts off their judgment.
Not ideal for
Someone already in a committed relationship deciding whether to stay.
From the transcript
“What nobody does is rank order those traits then. So what's number one? What's number two? What's number three?”
“The top three traits that you want in a partner, I tell people, write that out, print it out, and put it on your mirror.”
From the episode
How To Find The Love Of Your Life - Ty Tashiro - #926
Ty Tashiro