Evolution & The Modern Dating Market - Rob Henderson - #161

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Oh yes, hello friends, welcome back. My guest today is Rob Henderson. He is a PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge and a US Air Force veteran. But we're not talking about the Air Force today. We are talking about dating. Specifically, how evolution relates to dating, how our preferences, why we like what we like, are shaping our behaviors in the modern world. Now, if this sounds to you like the most dry, boring conversation you can think of, you're wrong. This is one of the most interesting and exciting new areas that I've delved into in a very long time. I absolutely adore evolutionary psychology. So get used to it, because you're gonna be hearing a lot more. Today, we talk about how Tinder has ruined the dating market, why 20% of men are having sex with 80% of women, why women are struggling to find appropriate mates as the men going to college or university declines, why weightlifting is embedded evolutionarily as something that we should be attracted to, whether men can judge another man's attractiveness more accurately than women can, why there is an evolutionary justification for gold diggers, and why the withdrawal method is a suboptimal strategy for contraception. So yeah, hitting all the big ones today. We did a relationship series a little while ago, four episodes focusing on mind, journey and usage, thoughts about dating. If you haven't heard those, you should definitely go back and listen to them. And they were just so well received. Obviously, dating and relationships is a universal. It's something that every person on the planet has in common. Everyone is trying to navigate this dating market as best they can. So I'm gonna reopen it. I'm gonna start doing more episodes that relate to intergender dynamics and relationships and all that sort of stuff. If the things that you learn about today resonate with you, if you would agree or disagree, I want to find out. There is a lot of stuff that is super left field, but makes sense if you can get around the fact that emotionally, it can be a little uncomfortable. So yeah, let me know what you think at ChrisWillX, wherever you follow me. And if you are new here, or even if you're a long time listener, make sure that you've hit the subscribe button. I can see on the back end, all the plays coming in are just people browsing the episodes and they haven't hit subscribe. So go and hit the button. It would make me very happy indeed. And it'll just take as long as this music gets to play. But for now, it's time for the wise and wonderful Rob Henderson.
Welcome to the UK, you're in lockdown as well, by the way.

**Rob Henderson** (2:54)
Yeah, yeah, it's great to be here, in the middle of this pandemic.

**Chris Williamson** (3:00)
So what are we going to be talking about today?

**Rob Henderson** (3:03)
Yeah, I thought we'd talk about some evolutionary psychology, some social psychology, and what's going on with modern dating. Modern in the sense of the 2020, but also in the sense of what's gonna happen with this coronavirus and how that might affect the dating scene too.

**Chris Williamson** (3:22)
I can't wait. I love it. So why do we stop?

**Rob Henderson** (3:26)
Yeah, I mean, I suppose we could start with some basic evolutionary psychology. So just right off the top here, I mean, a lot of people have questions about why do we like what we like? How flexible are our preferences? Why does it seem like men seem to be attracted to younger women? Why do women seem to be attracted to exceptionally wealthy men? And of course, there could be some cultural components, but a lot of evolutionary psychology focuses on sort of more innate or more cross-cultural preferences. And they basically are looking at, you know, what is sort of evolutionarily advantageous for human beings to pass on their genes?
And so, evolution operates at the level of the gene, and so sometimes we do things that are advantageous for our genes, but they actually hurt ourselves.

**Chris Williamson** (4:25)
What like?

**Rob Henderson** (4:27)
Something like, for example, for men, we'll sit with men risk-taking. So, on average, women tend to be attracted to men who take risks in intelligent ways. But things like, say, motorcycle riding or bungee jumping or certain kinds of sports, I mean, these are typically more attractive, and they're also extremely risky. And so, things like this can attract partners, female partners, but they can also put your life in danger. But that's one of the interesting things about evolutionary psychology. I mean, what are the principles is that if you have a trait that is reproductively advantageous but harmful to yourself, that trait will still tend to proliferate. Whereas if you have a trait that is advantageous for survival but turns off the opposite sex, then that trait will tend to disappear from the population. So say you have some kind of trait that promotes longevity, but I don't know, it makes you look unusual in some way, or just turns the opposite sex off, and it doesn't matter that it's keeping you alive. If you can't find a partner, that gene is going to, or those genes are going to disappear. So something else that's important to know about evolutionary psychology in men and women, is that women take on a much greater burden with child rearing than men do. So if you think about what does a man have to invest to have a child, well, really not much more than a few minutes of activity, a few minutes maybe being very generous to a couple of men as well, I think. Well, yeah, I'm trying to be nice.