If you had to choose, which would it be? Loads of success and validation or lots of challenge? It’s not just on intellectual tasks that people have to make these choices. People also have to decide what kinds of relationships they want: ones that bolster their egos or ones that challenge them to grow? Who is your ideal mate? We put this question to young adults, and here’s what they told us. People with the fixed mindset said the **ideal mate** would: - Put them on a pedestal. - Make them feel perfect. - Worship them. In other words, the perfect mate would enshrine their fixed qualities. My husband says that he used to feel this way, that he wanted to be the god of a one-person (his partner’s) religion. Fortunately, he chucked this idea before he met me. People with the growth mindset hoped for a different kind of partner. They said their ideal mate was someone who would: - See their faults and help them to work on them. - Challenge them to become a better person. - Encourage them to learn new things. Certainly, they didn’t want people who would pick on them or undermine their self-esteem, but they did want people who would foster their development.