Just in time for Valentine’s Day, a dose of unromantic social science: dating sites that promise to help you meet your match may be asking the wrong questions to create lasting pairs.

Social psychologists Eli J. Finkel and Benjamin R. Karney summarized their soon-to-be published findings in Sunday’s New York Times. The gist of their argument is that the factors that help relationships last — “things like communication patterns, problem-solving tendencies and sexual compatibility” — can’t easily be captured in the surveys people take before they couple up.

The take-away:

None of this suggests that online dating is any worse a method of meeting potential romantic partners than meeting in a bar or on the subway. But it’s no better either.