All three directions have the same count
Across these 18 paired choices, each of the three directions was selected six times. The result does not identify a single leading direction.
Equal counts in all three directions do not mean you are attracted to every age, have no standards or are perfectly balanced. They do not mean the test has stopped working.
Read every tied context
- Older adult partner situations involve receiving prior experience and adapting to arrangements from stages already experienced.
- Similar age and life-stage situations involve comparable starting points and roughly equal experience.
- Younger adult partner situations involve sharing experience and understanding arrangements that are still developing.
- The items place adult age relationships alongside life stage, experience and negotiation. The three directions’ options cover these different situations.
Reading the shared highest count
Each direction appears in 12 comparisons. One selection adds one raw count; all three counts sum to 18. A tie concerns the shared highest count, not equal preference intensity. A reachable example, in older / similar / younger order, is 6 / 6 / 6. These are illustrative counts from the original item bank, not a private person’s answers or a population benchmark. Only the three-way tie has to be 6 / 6 / 6.
Revisit why you chose
- Consider whether age, life stage, amount of experience or a particular interaction affects your choices more. Would they change if age in years were removed?
- Would the result be the same if you chose only by age in years? Would it differ if you chose only by amount of experience or the way decisions are negotiated?
Keep both adults’ choices visible
All three directions concern adult relationships only. No direction automatically confers more decision-making authority. Both people need to be able to express themselves freely, decline and change their mind.
An optional next step
If you wish, group the 18 items again according to the reasons for your choices that you can actually identify. You can also make no record and take no action.
A fictional example, counterexample and private exercise
- Fictional situation: Yuanan values receiving experience, starting together and sharing experience in different items, ending with six choices in each direction. Another person could obtain the same 6/6/6 counts for entirely different details. Totals cannot reconstruct those reasons. The result therefore retains the three-way tie, without labeling it attraction to every age or a perfectly balanced type.
- Counterexample: A 6/6/6 pattern could also arise when every item feels imperfect and you still choose the relatively closer option. The shape does not show that you lack standards or require you to accept three kinds of actual relationship.
- Optional exercise: If you wish, choose three items you remember and note the conditions that actually affected your choice, including what remains uncertain. Do not calculate a new type or retake the test to manufacture a sole leader. You can simply keep the tie and end the reflection.
What these counts cannot establish
- It does not mean attraction to every age.
- It does not mean having no standards.
- It does not mean perfect balance.
- It does not mean all three preferences have exactly equal intensity.
- It does not predict the age of a partner you will actually be with.
- The tie is kept as recorded, without breaking it, assigning a single leading direction or creating a combined type.
- This describes only relative choices among adult relationship situations in this attempt. Psychometric validation has not been completed.
- This original bank has not established reliability, validity, norms or cross-language equivalence. Read the exact situations rather than treating a leading count as a trait.