Time for another brief trip down Memory Lane. In 1996 I was a sophomore in high school and was taking the health and sexuality class. One day the teacher told us to pair up and talk with the other person about what you admire or even envy about them. I guess she was going for a self esteem boost or something. Anyway, I got paired with a guy named Mike. He was a nice guy, very well liked and on the short side. I was the quiet wallflower type but was quite a bit taller than he was. He said that he wished he had my height and I asked why. He looked at me and said "You know. Women." I laughed and said that my height hadn't helped me much with women. I told him that I envied his outgoing personality for the same reason. He was doubtful how useful it was.
So goes the human story. None of us are ideal. I guess that's what makes finding a good mate so difficult. We all want the best one possible, but the odds are against us finding a perfect one. I know it was frustrating for Mike and I, trying to "advertise" ourselves to the ladies but on the other hand, it must have been frustrating for the girls, too. They were compiling a check list on us, and we were doing to same to them.
Who the hell has all of those perfect qualities, anyway? That question came to mind as I was looking for new articles to rant about. I'll find one that says "women love men with dominant, testosterone driven features." So I think, "Ok, the chicks like 'alpha male' type." Then I find another one that says "Women prefer relaxed, 'chill' men that handle stress." Cripes, that check list keeps getting longer and longer!
For instance, its not news that women prefer men who are extra masculine when they are most fertile but it is news that the women that consider themselves attractive are more likely to like the manly men. This is the case 15% of the time and also true when they are only looking for short term relationships.
Women that see themselves as less attractive prefer the feminine looking men, possibly to avoid competing with other women for something they think they wont get anyway. Of course, the down side of being paired with a high testosterone man is the greater likely hood that he will cheat on his spouse. Take Mr Schwarzenegger for example. And what do you know, he got the house keeper pregnant, which means she found him attractive at her most fertile. Thank you for helping me make my point, Governator.
So being high testosterone isn't a great thing either. Fhionna Moore, a human behavioral ecologist from the University of Abertay Dundee, instead focused on cortisol, a hormone linked to stress. Stress can lower immunity and weaken the reproductive system. Several dozen male college students gave saliva samples and pictures of themselves to researchers, who tested the saliva for cortisol and showed the pictures to female students from another university. When fertile, the women preferred the men with the low cortisol levels. It is possible that women like these men because they will be more stable husbands and fathers.
Finally, who can keep track of all this stuff? So people are looking for amounts of wealth, good looks, youth, intelligence, traits that suggest both high levels of testosterone and cortisol and so on. No wonder we feel like we are being judged by a date against their check list. We are. I like how Psychology Today stated, "The rational brain is always on the lookout for dangers, for complexities, for reasons to act or not act. If every time man and woman met they immediately considered all the possible risks and vulnerabilities they might face if they mated or had children, they'd run screaming from the room."
When meeting an attractive person, our rational parts of the brain get over ruled by the emotional parts. There is a time to think and a time to feel. As far as the brain is concerned, when sex is at stake, its better to feel.
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