Here’s a picture of the first date of Ines and I. As you can see, I was draped in an American flag, like most times I’m trying to impress a girl. However, unlike most days I was carrying a giant club. I knew Ines would need some “convincing”, so I brought a real big stick. At first, she wasn’t so willing, but after awhile I was able to drag her home.

Seriously, though, aren’t relationships strange? Anyone that has ever been in a relationship knows how maddening they can be sometimes. If you spend much time pondering how and why relationships happen and how and why they work, there is a good chance you’ll come up with no good answers, at least that’s my experience. I can’t really explain or predict the way relationships work. While I’ve kinda given up on understanding human coupling, there are quite a lot of academics investigating this stuff. Surprisingly, there are many things that are predictable about relationships, most of which fit well within the context of evolutionary theory. For example, the concept of beauty and attractiveness is more or less universal. Men like curves (no surprises there), which are indicative of the ability to bear children. Women are far more attentive to the face of men, particularly the extent that it is friendly. Women also like rugged features on men’s faces, which is indicative of how much testosterone a man has. Perhaps most interestingly, women are attracted to power and status, even if they themselves are powerful and successful. Dating companies, through experience, know that pairing a woman with a less successful man will almost never lead to a relationship. Further, divorce rates are higher amongst couples in which the woman is more successful than the man (she being the one instigating the divorce usually). There is may be a cost associated with being in a high-profile relationship, however. High status, wealthy, powerful couples are more likely to cheat. At least TV shows seem to reflect that aspect of high society quite well. Besides these more or less tangible aspects of beauty and attractiveness, there are other subconscious signals we use to judge members of the opposite sex. Men rate women that are ovulating as more attractive on the basis of smell alone (i.e. after sniffing a sweaty t-shirt). Conversely, women can judge whether a man’s MHC genes (important in immunology) are a good fit with hers on the basis of his sweat. Wild, huh?

I could go on and on; this is such an interesting field. The evolutionary biologist in me wants to ponder how the listed observations may serve to increase fitness (admittedly, though, it is impossible to do manipulative experiments on humans, so some of the actual fitness consequences of, for example, cheating are ambiguous). Research on relationships has yielded results that aren’t necessarily PC and they may be at odds with many people’s romanticized notions of love. But think of why love has been romanticized by poets, intellectuals, and artists…because it is so amazingly beautiful and complex. Even though anthropology, psychology, and biology are explaining more and more of the concept of love, it is still easy to be mystified by the how and why of it. I know I still am.

Dan