How Physiology Influences Our Dating Habits
If you say that you think being physically attracted to someone is important in order to form a relationship, you might be considered shallow. Although we don’t want to recognize it or don’t realize that it is one of the important factors that can make us desire to start dating someone, looks are important.
While “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” still applies, there are some general physical characteristics that people from all over the world will agree are attractive. But how do physical traits and physiology influence our dating habits? Let’s find out!
Ideas About the Perfect Reproductive Body Structure
According to the dictionary, physiology is the part of biology that deals with living matter’s physical and chemical functions. So, yes, humans too.
Nowadays, many people define themselves as sapiosexuals and say they are attracted to the mind or the soul of another human being and that everyone is “beautiful”, but that’s simply not true.
While intellect, personality, and many other things come into play when choosing someone to date, the first hoop you must jump through is whether or not you like their physique.
Evolutionary speaking, people, like all animals, are “programmed” to look for a suitable mate. This means that they will search for the men or women with whom they have the best chances of producing successful offspring.
So women with a broader pelvis and bigger breasts – so that they have better odds of getting pregnant, keeping the child and seeing it to term and making it through childbirth; and tall and strong men – to provide for and protect the family unit.
Dominant Hereditary Features
Some hereditary features are seen as beautiful, desirable and altogether add up to create a suitable partner. Among these features, we find red hair and blonde hair, interesting eye colors (blue, green, dark brown, purple, etc.), very fair or dark skin, freckles, and others.
For those who think that these things do not matter, the perfect example to showcase how important they are is to look at online dating.
Online dating has replaced traditional offline dating almost entirely. It’s faster, easier, and yields better results as the pool of singles you gain access to is bigger.
The first clear example of how important physical aspects are is proven to be true by the existence of very niche dating websites. You can find a redhead dating site, one for blondes, for fit singles, for curvy women, for interracial relationships, and more.
You can also use filters in order to set your preferences and get matches based on what you crave. You might not think it’s that important to you, but when you’ve signed up for an account and are searching for matches, you will input some physical characteristics that you find attractive.
Even if you do not consciously realize if you look at the selections you’ve made on online dating websites and even think about your ex-lovers, you will see that there are features they share – the things which define your type.
Genetic Conditions
Another important aspect connected to the way physiology will influence your dating life is tied to genetics – to critical, non-critical, and just particular hereditary conditions.
Even if you are not aware of these genetic conditions that exist in your love interest (they might not be aware either), your body is capable of sensing them through feromones and the way their body is built.
Naturally, your body will be searching for the perfect mate, so it will seek a partner that has the traits to complete them and produce the strongest offspring.
This means that the genetic conditions which are “desirable” will be the ones that get more dates, while those which may hinder reproduction or produce a sickly child will automatically be avoided.
Everyone desires a beautiful and healthy partner, and physically, you are not inclined to wish to mate with someone who has degenerative and genetically transmitted diseases.
The Similarity of Gestures and Micro-Expressions
Other than actual physical traits, we are also inclined to be interested in a significant other who is similar in some way to you. While you also need someone to complete you, someone who reduces your flaws and improves your qualities to produce an evolved version of the both of you (a child), you also need someone similar.
This doesn’t just apply to recessive genes, which can only become dominant if you both have that particular gene, but also to gestures and micro-expressions.
People are often attracted to individuals who “mirror” them. This is the reason why you see so many successful couples who have met on online dating websites or traditionally, who seem to not only look alike and pass even as siblings but who are similar in the way they think, talk and act.
While indeed, during the course of a relationship, both parties will change and borrow mannerisms, micro-expressions, gestures, and even ideas from one another, in most cases, these people were similar, to begin with.
Conclusion
Whether you are trying online dating or traditional dating, it’s highly important that you recognize that, like any other human being and animal on this planet, you are going to be influenced in making your choice by physique and physiology. It doesn’t make you shallow, it makes you normal.
Not only will it help make a decision faster and speed up the process of finding a suitable mate, but it will also improve your chances of getting it right.
While some of the potential partners you find might not meet your intellectual, social or personality requirements and thus not give you a suitable long-term mate, it will yield successful physical relationships, which will lead to the strongest offspring.
Of course, in the 21st century, this isn’t the main focus and is not enough to mandate a long-term, serious commitment, but if your goal would be just to reproduce, listening to your body and watching out for physical and physiological cues would be the way to go.
Remember that there are many things one can do, but you cannot fight nature.