Mr Perfect (or Ms Perfect, wotever suits you)

He's gorgeous, great in bed, has a good career, and you're in love. The only downside: he can never lose an argument.

If that describes your Mr Right look out. A new study says its best to steer clear of people who show signs of being hypercompetitive. If not, you may be headed for rocky-road relationships that are full of conflict and emotional pain.

"People should be alert for signs that the potential partner has qualities that portend a relationship filled with conflict and unhappiness," lead study author Dr. Richard M. Ryckman of the University of Maine in Orono says.

"If the person needs to be right about everything, needs constant reassurance, shows little understanding and appreciation of your needs, and continually tries to regulate your behavior, these would all be signs that he or she is hypercompetitive and not a particularly good candidate for a partner," he added.

Ryckman and his colleagues investigated the romantic relationships of hypercompetitive individuals in a study of 240 heterosexual university students. Nearly two thirds of the students were in serious dating relationships or were married, while the remaining individuals were in somewhat serious relationships or just casually dating.

In general, students with high levels of competitiveness--who more strongly agreed with statements such as "It's a dog-eat-dog world" and "If you don't get the better of others, they will surely get the better of you"--reported experiencing more difficulty in their relationships, the investigators report in a recent issue of the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology.

For example, these students said they were less able to honestly communicate with their partner, admitted to inflicting greater pain on their partner, seemed to have stronger needs to control their partners and reported higher levels of possessiveness, jealousy and mistrust of their partners than did their peers.

They also reported more conflict in their relationships than did the less competitive students, and they said they were less able to empathize with their partner, study findings indicate.
These highly competitive students did not, however, report less commitment to their partner or less satisfaction with their relationship, the researchers note.

Still, prospective lovers should be aware that the signs of hypercompetitiveness in their would-be partners may not be something that the person can easily rid him or herself of. According to Ryckman, such people may even need professional help.

"A hypercompetitive attitude can't be wished away, by promising to be better and to be more sensitive to others' needs," he said. "It is a deeply-rooted attitude that rests on a foundation of feelings of insecurity and powerlessness."

Thus, he added, "it seems clear that such people could benefit from counseling, where they can begin to see the origins of their difficulties, take responsibility for themselves, and start to work on behaving in a more caring and loving way toward others."