After covering the basics of the evolution of desire, the cross-research on mate selection, pair-bonding, and particularly the term Mate Shopping, left me asking for more. Surely mate selection has changed greatly, just as desire has, but what does it look like today, in the 21st-century where virtually all “mate shopping” happens online? Are there any similarities still to the dating ways of our ancestors? Searching for a mate is definitely more complicated now, and though some things are still the same, our desire and how we bond is based on the context—the stuff each person brings—instead of just good or bad genes.
Similar to desire, mate selection comes with a preconceived binary. On the one hand, there is the ingrained pop culture narrative of women during their estrus period, are desperate for sex that they’ve turned into a Girl Gone Wild. Her standards are infinitely lower than during the other days of her infradian rhythm and the need for sperm drives her wild—again, the hypersexualized woman. On the other hand, however, is the woman with impossibly high standards—the tease, prude, or bitch. For not wanting a mate enough, she is mocked. Both women are criticized, both are considered broken which is completely false.
These mentalities stem from the same outdated narrative as desire: How our ancestors (both animal and human) acted versus how, due to our vastly different brains, act now. Dr. Martie Haselton, an expert in women’s hormonal cycle, discusses mate shopping in her book, Hormonal: The Hidden Intelligence of Hormones. She puts it simply: during the ancestral womens’ estrus period—that five or so days leading up and including ovulation—they “attracted and were attracted to dominant, alpha males who could provide good genes.”
But we already know this, thanks to Darwin and his Theory of Evolution. Females have chosen mates based on their positive traits, indicating better genes, for the last four hundred million years, when the estrogen receptor became sexually dimorphic, or different between males and females according to Haselton. These good genes meant a higher chance of offspring survival, making legacy a key external factor for the woman to consider during her estrus period. However, she wouldn’t always act on every desire brought on by “good genes.”
During this window, Haselton explains, these ancestral women had two ways of acting when their ovulation alarms began ringing. They can either “get up and go with the estrus flow” which includes being active and social with the intent to increase one’s chance of being in situations where they might meet potential mates. Or the woman can “hit the snooze button” on their ovulation alarm, ignore the hormones encouraging social—but potentially dangerous—behavior, and stay safe but with the trade-off being no offspring.
Of course, this isn’t necessarily the case for 21st-century women. Though we do experience a 25% change in our brain chemistry throughout our infradian cycle and though, regardless of relationship status, modern women still feel “high fertility” that “encourages [them] to behave more competitively” as Haselton notes, and seek out the situations to meet mates, the way we “shop” for mates is drastically different.
So what does a good match look like in 2021 when meeting and dating seem to be all virtual now and there isn’t the same pressure of reproduction? One study looked into modern effective mate-matching and set to define the characteristics of an effective match. Their results show a good match means aligning “psychological traits (i.e., extroversion), physical traits (i.e., height), personal choices (i.e., desiring the same relationship type), and shared experience.” The “good genes” our ancestors searched for would have been primarily the physical ones, the positive traits that can and should be passed on.
The same study found that people make their initial selection—to swipe right or left—in no more than 11 seconds and ultimately found that people prefer a partner with similar attributes to them. For nearly all characteristics, the study states, the more similar the individuals were, the “higher the likelihood was of them finding each other desirable and opting to meet in person,” which contradicts the “opposites attract” narrative we’ve been told. The only exception from these characteristics was introversion, where introverts rarely matched with other introverts.
Though the weaponized language of desire and selecting someone worthy to be a mate can still skew towards a negative connotation, it’s clear that our desire and our mate shopping has become a labyrinth of variables. Neither desire nor pair-bonding is as black-and-white as it used to be. Instead of the dangers of everyday life our ancestors faced, our desire and mate selection are far more fluid than it ever was.
by Shelby Lueders