I am currently reading The Evolution of Desire by David Buss.

I don’t really know why I hadn’t read this book earlier. Perhaps the omnipresence of screen media explains it.

“Pain, betrayal, and loss contrast sharply with the usual romantic notions of love.”

Good Reasons for Bad Feelings by Randolph Nesse comes to mind here.

“Conflict in mating is the norm and not the exception.”

In other words, tension between male and female reproductive interests is a baseline feature of mating, not a pathological deviation.

“We never choose mates at random. We do not attract mates indiscriminately. We do not derogate our competitors out of boredom.”

This implies the existence of a scale of desirability.

“Taste buds sensitive to fat and sugar solve the problem of what to put into our mouths—nuts and berries, not dirt and gravel.”

Just as taste buds sensitive to fat and sugar evolved to solve the problem of what to ingest, mating preferences evolved to solve the problem of whom to choose.

“Nowhere do people have an equal desire for all members of the opposite sex. Everywhere some potential mates are preferred, others shunned. Our sexual desires have come into being in the same way as have other kinds of desires.”

Mating desires in a nutshell.

“Over thousands of generations, a preference for men who showed signs of being willing and able to commit to them evolved in women, just as preferences for mates with adequate nests evolved in weaverbirds.”

In short, women have evolved a taste for male commitment.

“People who possess desirable characteristics are in great demand. Appreciating their traits is not enough for successful mating, just as spying a ripe berry bush down a steep ravine is not enough for successful eating.”

So how does one acquire and keep such a highly desired mate?

“Keeping a mate is another important adaptive problem; mates may continue to be desirable to rivals, who may poach, thereby undoing all the effort devoted to attracting, courting, and committing to the mate. Furthermore, one mate may defect because of the failure of the other to fulfill his or her needs and wants or upon the arrival of someone fresher, more compelling, or more beautiful. Mates, once gained, must be retained.”

And this brings us straight to the topic of “divorce”:

“Not all mates can be retained, nor should they be. Sometimes there are compelling reasons to get rid of a mate, such as when a mate stops providing support, withdraws sex, or starts inflicting physical abuse. Those who remain with a mate through economic hardship, sexual infidelity, and cruelty may win admiration for their loyalty. But staying with a bad mate does not help a person successfully pass on genes. We are the descendants of those who knew when to cut their losses. … Just as we have evolved sexual strategies to select, attract, and keep a good mate, we have also evolved strategies for jettisoning a bad mate. Divorce is a human universal that occurs in all known cultures. Our separation strategies involve a variety of psychological mechanisms. We have ways to assess whether the costs inflicted by a mate outweigh the benefits provided. … Breaking up is a solution to the problem of a bad mate, but it opens up the new problem of replacing that mate. … But starting over after a breakup poses its own unique set of problems. People reenter the mating market at a different age and with different assets and liabilities.”

This was a brief review of the first chapter. Other chapters will be reviewed here soon.