Rules Of Attraction: What Men Look For When Dating

[@jeanpicart8441]

I just discovered your channel, and I find the way you approach these topics very interesting. You have a scientific, logical, and informative perspective. A question, maybe for a future video: According to evolutionary psychology, what is the reason why, statistically, women are more often the ones to initiate divorces and breakups? From what I've read, they start around 65 to 70% of divorces in the Western world. Thank you!

[@MrsHHart]

Thank you for your kind words! From what I can see many women tend to take a long time before deciding to file for divorce, often because they don't want to disrupt their children or family life. By the time they decide to move forward, they’ve usually been thinking about it for a while and are carefully waiting for the right moment, which is why we see the stats that they initiate first. On the other hand, even if men are unhappy in their marriage, they might be less motivated to initiate divorce because of the hassle involved. In many cases, they are already being unfaithful but still enjoying the benefits of family life, so divorce would only introduce financial stress without any immediate upside. An exception seems to be when a man already has a new partner who is pressuring him to leave his wife. This is just my guess but I'd be interested to know more on this as well!

[@thorstendecker8394]

This nicely summarizes a lot of things I already knew. However, I find the juxtaposition of what men and women want from each other a little unbalanced. It seems the man in this case is only looking for sex and not a relationship, while the woman is looking for a relationship. Because I think that men also look for more in a woman in a long-term relationship than just youth and fertility. At least he should if he's looking for a lasting relationship.

[@MrsHHart]

@@thorstendecker8394 you’re 100% right. I understand this title might be confusing as what I am talking about is more concerned with what men find attractive/ holds value when assessing a woman as a potential mate. But mate can range from casual to serious and for serious relationships men are absolutely assessing more holistically (looks, brains and personality) and are not just swayed by optimal fertility. Thank you for your comment!

[@NoahLorano]

What about height?

[@MrsHHart]

@@NoahLorano important as well. In general, men prefer women who are shorter than they are, and women prefer men who are taller than they are. However there is no magical height that is considered desirable across all humans. It very much depends on who is asking, just as there is no magical eye colour or skin tone that is preferred by all people.

[@flyrehash5124]

I'd assume from an evolutionary psychology perspective, men were expected to defend women from threats of violence, and usually the first thing you do before fighting is size somebody up right? So physically bigger = more protective I'd imagine (although I'm sure there's a limit to this)

[@MrsHHart]

@@flyrehash5124 You're right. Long limbs generally meant you could run faster and probably meant greater mass in general which = strength. I've also heard theories that taller people could see further as they could peer over long grasses for prey/predators. But importantly there are also some huge advantages to being shorter.... for instance, shorter people could bend down more easily to forage for food. This is probably why there is still enormous variation in height among humans, as being more petite also had its benefits! Thank you for your comment :)