Which is worse: seeking a mate or finding one?

A couple of items in the news point to the effects of love relationships on our health.

At Harvard, they've decided that competing for mates can shorten a man's life.

A new study by Harvard researchers shows that ratios between males and females affect human longevity.  Men who reach sexual maturity in a context in which they far outnumber women live, on average, three months less than men whosecompetition for a mate isn’t as stiff.  The steeper the gender ratio (alsoknown as the operational sex ratio), the sharper the decline in lifespan.

“At first blush, a quarter of a year may not seem like much, but it is comparable to the effects of, say, taking a daily aspirin, or engaging in moderate exercise,” says Nicholas Christakis, senior author on the study and professor of medicine and medical sociology at Harvard Medical School.

And maybe finding a mate isn't so good after all, as numerous studies showing better health among the married show. There's this:

But while it’s clear that marriage is profoundly connected to health and well-being, new research is increasingly presenting a more nuanced view of the so-called marriage advantage. Several new studies, for instance, show that the marriage advantage doesn’t extend to those in troubled relationships, which can leave a person far less healthy than if he or she had never married at all. One recent study suggests that a stressful marriage can be as bad for the heart as a regular smoking habit. And despite years of research suggesting that single people have poorer health than those who marry, a major study released last year concluded that single people who have never married have better health than those who married and then divorced. 

You just can't win.