One of the primary tragedies that humanity seems doomed to replay endlessly involves the difference between what attracts a mate and what makes someone a good mate.

Other animal don’t have to worry about that because they are not pair-bonding species. Mate attraction is all the matters because after the sex, the two animals part ways without another thought. So these species are free to develop their sexual attractiveness independent of any other attribute. That’s how we get such absurdly inefficient creatures as the male peacock.

It’s not survival of the fittest and it never has been. It’s survival of the sexiest.

But we naked beach apes are a strange breed in more ways than one. Our reproductive strategy is to have a relatively small number of children and invest very heavily in their upbringing. That means that we have to be a pair bonding species that forms lasting partnerships stable enough to survive for long enough to split the heavy burden of child rearing.

And thus, the problem : our sexual attraction system is still the animal one that operates on sexiness, as defined by our inner gender templates. But our pair-bonding system is only loosely connected to that attractiveness system. Individuals who are terrible candidates for a lasting relationship can nevertheless specialize in attractiveness to the point where their attractiveness signals overwhelm those of non-specialists and therefore they get far more chances to make a baby while remaining extraordinarily bad at caring for or raising one, let alone making for a suitable life companion.

And if we could separate the two systems, it would not be that big of a problem. But sexual attractiveness and romantic attractiveness are irrevocably linked. We fall in love with the people who turn us on, and that often leads to ruin.

Thus, you have the heartbreakers of the world. We have all met them. Those people who are undoubtedly extremely attractive, but who use it irresponsibly and just take people for what they are worth and then move on when the other person dares to have needs of their own.

This all comes to head in those heady years between the ages of 18 and 15. This is when we are primed to go find a mate, get pregnant or get someone pregnant, and settle down to raise the kids.

And that used to be fine. But one of the most consistent trends of modernity is the upward trend in the definition of adulthood. In a relatively small amount of time, we have gone from adulthood and reproductive maturity being virtually identical and people getting married at 12 years of age to a society in which people don’t even consider marriage and family until they are in their late 20’s and where anyone who considers settling down with a life partner before the age of 25 is considered foolhardy and irresponsible.

So now our prime sexual pair-bonding years are off limits. But our instincts haven’t changed one bit. We are still driven to mate and pair-bond with the sexiest creatures around, in other words, the ones who put out the strongest sexual signals around.

This creates many problems. The first and most obvious is unwanted pregnancies. These happen far too often, especially in areas where information and education about how to avoid pregnancy is scarce.

This leads to far worse than abortions and awkward family discussions. It leads to children raising children, and often by only a single parent. This is not the best thing for children. The best thing for kids is two stable and loving parents. But too often, men get women pregnant and then leave them behind, and single motherhood is thrust upon women whose only mistake was doing what their biology told them to do.

When the father does stay around, there are still a lot of problems because neither parent is mature enough to handle taking care of a baby. So the child’s upbringing starts off bad and doesn’t get much worse.

But everybody knows about the problems with unwanted pregnancies. There’s another consequence of the biology and society being out of sync, and that’s Friend Zoners.

There are a lot of people in this world who are smitten by very attractive people and who would make excellent mates, but they can’t get their foot in the door because they don’t give off nearly as strong sexual signals as the object of their infatuation.

Unfortunately, sexuality is the gatekeeper to romance in the human species. Pair bonds don’t form without that initial impetus. So while the person in the Friend Zone has both sexual and romantic attraction to the object of their affections, said object has at best only the compatibility half of the equation for the person in the Zone, and when you are a compatible companion to someone but not sexually attracted, you end up as friends, not lovers.

But remember, both the heartbreaker and the Zoner are operating by the same criterion : be attracted to the sexiest person around. In that sense, it is perfectly fair.

Compounding the issue is that the Zoner, sensing that they are not the sexiest person in the heartbreaker’s life, try to compensate by demonstrating what a good mate they would make. They listen, they help out, they are supportive, and they are there when the heartbreaker needs them.

This should work, but it does not. What they are doing demonstrates their value as a mate, but without the sexual spark to set things in motion, there is no chance of true pair-bonding. They think they are demonstrating their value as a mate, but all they are really doing is demonstrating their value as a friend.

So the person in the Zone, because they don’t know that sex is, sadly, the gatekeeper, feels ripped off. They are demonstrating all the qualities that people say they want in a mate but it is not getting them anywhere close to actual mating.

And the heartbreaker can be the nicest person in the world, but they are still going to attract far more people than they can possibly be with, and so they will break hearts whether they want to or not.

This is one of the many tragedies of the human condition.

The final problem is one of role switching. Specifically, knowing when to switch off your sexual attraction mode and switch to companionship and partnership mode.

Many of the behaviours and attitudes which make a person sexy are extremely wrong in the context of a relationship, and it’s hard to know when to make the switch.

People get an idea of what attracts people to them, and if they want to keep that person in their life, they think they have to keep doing that thing, even when there are very clear signals that it’s not working any more and is, in fact, threatening the relationship.

And all because people don’t understand that this transition exists and must happen.

I guess that’s all for tonight. I really seem to be writing about gender lately, don’t I?

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.