The Perfect Mate: What We Really Want

Meredith F. Small, LiveScience's Human Nature Columnist, LiveScience.com

For years, the evolutionary psychologists have been

saying that men want young pretty women for their mates

and women want older men with money.

This party line was recently underscored when scientists

from the University of Gothenburg and the University of

Oxford analyzed 400 personal ads in newspapers and

Web sites and found that, indeed, men want attractive

young women and women want older men with resources.

But the big news in this study was that women stated in

their ads that they also wanted nice-looking partners.

We eat this stuff up because the biggest mystery in

everyone's life is why in the world we are attracted to

one person and not another.

Is it the face, body, personality or promises? The

evolutionary psychologists claim they have the answer.

It all started with the work of psychologist David Buss of

the University of Texas. In 1985, Buss published an

article based on interviews with more than 10,000 people

from 37 cultures. Subjects were given a list of 18

possible characteristics of a mate and asked to rate

those characteristics. Almost universally, both sexes put

love, dependable character, emotional stability, and

pleasing disposition first, and it wasn't until character 

number 5 that men and women differed. Men said looks 

were more important than women did, and status and 

money were more important to women.

That study and the endless, mind-numbing studies of

mate choice that followed all claimed that it must be in our

genes for men to want young pretty women and women to

want older established men because these result make

"evolutionary sense." Young women are more fertile than

old women and so they would pass on a man's genes,

and men with resources can provide for offspring and

improve a woman's reproductive success.

But all these studies are deeply flawed for the simple

reason that they ask people what they want in their

mates, not what the actually get. And yet evolution only

works on what we do, not on what we desire; from an

evolutionary standpoint, it's not our ideal that counts, but

who we actually make babies with.

For example, George Clooney is my ideal mate. He's rich,

popular, and I bet he'd make a great father. Problem is,

as far as I know, George is not interested in me. Although

 I might pencil him in as my ideal mate, the person I got,

the person I have a child with, is nothing like George.

Instead, he is younger than me, without many resources,

and, well look what he got - an older, less than fertile,

woman.

And I am not alone is not getting my ideal mate. Do most

men end up with young, pretty women? No, people tend

to marry mates close to their same age. That's why those

rich old guy/young buxom babe marriages are always in

the tabloids, because they are so unusual.

And do women always end up with hard working older

men? No. Women marry guys their own age and social

status and end up working just as hard as men to support

a family.

No matter what we might say to researchers, the truth is

we all end up mating with people who are interested in us,

people we run into, people who happen to look our way.

And our "choices," more often than not, make no sense at

all.

But I also know that if George Clooney would just glance

in my direction, I know he'd see that evolution is pushing

him to give me a call.

·           The Sex Quiz 

·           Video - Sex and the Senses 

·           Top 10 Aphrodisiacs 

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