Reason #125,900 to stay single: people tend to regret romantic endeavors more than any other regret.

Psychologists Mike Morrison and Neal Roese recently published their research about the strange and confusing human feeling of regret. They used random dialing to try and gauge a wide variation of population from all income levels and education to fully grasp what Americans regret most. And what did they come up with? According to their results, regrets about romantic relationships top the list.

Deeper analysis of the data showed an interesting (but not surprising) detail about the results:

Women, who tend to value social relationships more than men, have more regrets of love (romance, family) compared to men. Conversely, men were more likely to have work-related (career, education) regrets. Those who lack either higher education or a romantic relationship hold the most regrets in precisely these areas.

Makes sense that women would probably look back on past relationships with a feeling of regret, while men would pass those off as easier to forget: their education and career hold much more power over their thought processes. If only women were more able to consider relationships as less serious and life-changing, perhaps we’d all be having a lot more booty calls and a lot less regret!

Furthermore, the research showed that “regrets about things you haven’t done were equally as common as regrets about things you have.”

What does that mean for us singletons? Well, if we’re all going to be wracked with guilt and regret about romance and work and family and education and everything, whether or not you take the risk and go for it doesn’t really matter. You’ll probably regret your decision either way. So why not enjoy the moment and GO FOR IT? Go on that trip, jump out of a plane, hook up with that hottie even if you never see them again (as long as you travel safely, wear a parachute, and have safe sex, obviously). We humans are wired to experience regret – might as well have fun on the way!