When it comes to the choice of choosing our partner for love and life we look at a lot of options ranging from looks to physique to skills etc. Most people will agree there is not one final formula of attraction and it varies from person to person. Some people want good communication skills in their potential partners while others are just satisfied by the looks. Some like well built and physically sound partners while others would not even look at these factors.
We human beings though a lot different than other species still have the natural forces at work and there is always a lot more to choosing our partners than to what meets the eyes. The theory of natural selection and its supplementary - theory of sexual selection have most of the answers when we research into the issue and these theories have some general criteria like - the partner should be healthy, attractive and dominant in the group. Also, for women the one must quality they look in their potential partners is - caring. When it comes to natural and sexual selection, at the core of all conditions is need for healthy and survival genes. A symmetric face, for example, implies a healthy individual who has better genes. The original motive behind all this is to have offspring that can survive.
Oddly enough but there is a new finding by scientists that says a woman is attracted to those men who resemble her father !!! Same for a man but here mother replaces father. How unbelievable that sounds ! Well, a woman likes someone whose face is similar to that of her father, whose body odor smells like her father's and many more things. This is also probably related to our choice of seeking better genes. For more details about this, visit the following link where you will find full text of the story:
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/903/1
As we humans are different than other species, we have more options that are somewhat different than the purely biological ones. I told about memes in my past post and this has to with it. Yes, being an intelligent species we need to look beyond genes and then memes come into picture. As evolutionary biologists put it memes are the memory elements as genes are genetic elements. So how do they work? Well, when we are impressed with the wit of a person and are attracted, its our memes at work. The recognition of intelligence is a function of memes however, as a matter of fact, the evolution of memes is itself from genes as by the time we evolved into a "thinking" kind of species we are said to have started having memes. Unlike genes, memes don't have a physical presence and are more an intangible aspect of our personality and bio.
Reading this you can ask this question - what if a woman's father has unhealthy body or if he is not intelligent enough to be attractive in consideration by memes? Well, my answer is - again its a battle between various considerations and the one that is stronger should win. For example, such a woman would go for a person who has the best of combination required by both her genes and memes.
If you have your arguments on the topic, kindly leave your comments by clicking on the comments link.
6 comments:
I must say, I'm starting to like your Relationship blog a lot more than your trading blog, Harry! LOL!
I'm supposed to come up with a trading plan and here I am, distracted by your very interesting blog entry...
First, let me disagree with you that women look for caring men. Women say they do, coz that's the logical thing to say. Truth is, women LOVE bad guys! Do a poll if you don't believe me :-)
But I totally agree with you that we unknowingly look for our fathers and mothers in our partners. Considering that they are the very first human being we come into contact with, that shouldn't come as a surprise. But the equation is slightly more complicated than partner = father/mother.
For instance, for me personally, I like a man that smells good (a MUST), is straightforward (not to the point of being blunt and insensitive though), challenges me, and DOESN'T GIVE ME FLOWERS & TEDDY BEARS & check on me a hundred times a day when I'm down with flu (see, told you women don't care about caring men).
The smelling good part - that's me looking for my Dad. Other than that, the others are the opposite of my Dad. He treated my mum like a queen (you get the drift), and he was severely shortchanged.
So, yes, we choose our partners based on a set of characteristics we find in our parents. Those traits that attracted good outcome for them, we look for them in our mates. Those that attract bad karma, we make sure our mates don't have them.
And LOOKS DO MATTER!! I'll be the first to admit I like a handsome man :-)
Thanks Jules,
Well, it is surprising you say girls like bad boys !!! :-)
You may be right but if I do a survey most of the girls would vote for that caring thing, may be they don't want to tel the truth :) you better know that coz u r a girl...
The "opposite sex parents" attraction theory is what scientists have come out with, I never imagined that to be the case, but, then, you gotta believe the scientists... :)
Keep visiting my blogs (read the "s" - the plural, means BOTH blogs) :-)
hahaha....can't miss the 's', Harry! :-D
wow .dint know so many things like gals like boys resembling their father . caring well most of the girls want that .great post.
Thanks Bikran...
Great post. Funny because I (as scary as it is for me) am so much like my partners mum, and in so many ways my man is like my dad.
I always have believed that theory though, still hate the fact Im like HER (you would understand from my blog).
Im still reading your blog so bye!
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