Saturday 20 August 2011

Love, Beauty and the Caveman inside our Heads

This is going to be extremely brief because if I got into it deeply I would need a rope to pull myself out.
Love is a hot and sticky subject to us as humans, but that is because it fucks with our minds.
For this purpose let's pretend we're not human. We are an incredibly intelligent species of butterfly, who have evolved the ability to analyse and hold clipboards and poke fun of this ape-like human race.

From a butterfly's perspective
Right, Say you are making a creature, doesn't matter how why or who you are, just let's say we are designing a mammal. It will die, it has to for the sake of evolution and resources and also because sooner or later something will come along and kill it. For this creature to NOT become extinct, it has to multiply, right? Also, the offspring of this creature will be vulnerable. It needs to take care of this offspring too right? and while it's taking care of the offspring, won't it's mother be vulnerable too? Perhaps. This isn't the case in all animals (cougars, for example.) but in humans the mother must feed the baby her attention at all times or else the neglected baby will die. Human babies are incredibly needful of attention because they have these huuuuge brains that need feeding all the time. This means the mother simply cannot leave it's side to go look for food.
So it's the father's turn to bring home the bacon. But will he? Pretty much any mother can look after a baby if she's got the body for it (hips that can carry a child for nine months then let it out easily, breasts that can feed it properly, sound familiar? yes it's the hourglass figure cliché. not so cliché now is it?...) However, a mother has to choose carefully. Sure a big muscular aggressive guy is useful in protecting the baby, but what researchers have found is that to the mother's instinct it's more important that the man won't abandon the mother and child, and that he is willing to sacrifice whatever to bring food for the family and also take part in caring for the child allowing the mother to take a break.Because this is all part of the human subconscious, the old part of the brain, the lymbic system, we have little to no control over it. the funny thing is, we think  that we (we being the rational thinking side of the brain, the neo cortex that has thoughts and a sense of self) are in control of our emotions, our instincts and urges. The truth is it's the other way round. If it wasn't, we would have no fear of the dark, quitting smoking would be as easy as not being bothered to buy another packet (which it is for a few people) and you would never cry over a hopeless relationship. But because it controls us, this is why we can guess more or less what a person will go for.

Love itself
So love, what exactly is it?
Now you understand (or don't) the basics of what the subconscious mind looks for in both sexes and how it impacts on our rational thinking, let's see how this ties in with love.

Like I said before, humans are unique in that a human baby needs constant attention. This means the mother cannot protect it all on her own and feed it at the same time, so it is in the interests of the male she mated with to protect them both and bring food to the family. Yes, this is all very macho-chauvinistic and old fashioned, but let's forget norms concepts and all the other peculiarities of modern society and return to a time when there simply was no other way it would work. Because that's the time from which our brains come.
We have caveman brains, we live in a modern society but our brains are still  the same as they were 300,000 years ago. Sure, we understand things differently and we can think a lot better, but the internal workings are the same. Take a caveman baby, let him grow up with a normal family and nobody will know the difference. Want proof? There were tribes that have been living isolated as hunter gatherers minding their own business all over the world. When western barbarians stole them and sold them into slavery, it was literally like coming from the age of stone into what was then known as the "modern" world. Nonetheless, when these tribesmen were eventually released to be free (and got their rights after a few hundred years) they integrated with society and proved to be just as intelligent as any westerner, becoming governors and professors all over the place. The point is, our brains haven't changed that much because of what we like to call "modern society".
For this reason, you always feel like you can't explain why you are in love with a particular person.
Love is when that bond is made, the subconscious unspoken agreement between two misty pairs of eyes across a crowded room that goes something like this:
"I want your babies..."
"you sure have the body for it, ok..."
"you'll never leave me right? because if you will I will have to find someone else"
"I won't, your smile tells me you won't be a pain in the ass in 20 years"
and then you pretend to "get to know each other". The truth is you've already made the contract, but this is still a trial period. Over the next month or two you will both learn the ins and outs of your partner. The woman will do crazy things she can't explain and the man won't understand, but these are tests. She is compelled to do them by her subconscious to determine what the man will do given this or that situation. If the man is patient and passes the test, the woman will trust him. Trust is easier to gain from a man than from a woman because the primordial tradition is that the woman is left with the baby. If the man leaves and the woman doesn't find another, she would have to choose between her life or the child's, she cannot sustain both. Yes, it doesn't make sense in the modern world, a woman is just fine bringing her children up herself, but remember that such a society where this is possible has only been around for 200 years or so. Probably less, depending on where you come from. nonetheless, a man only loses a good mate since he has no bond with his future child yet. Still, a good man will form an incredibly strong bond with his partner, and if the partner for some reason changes her mind the bond will still be there. Once it is made, a man's bond of love can last for months without the sustenance of it being returned. Women move on quick however, because they have to. In this world, it is the woman who makes the choice. This is why a woman will take so long to figure out if she likes a man or not once she has made the initial bond with him. However, a woman will make several initial bonds with different men, and can have many of them on "trial" before deciding which one suits her and her child the best. This is why affairs happen, because the bond had been made while the man and woman were still on their "trial period".

Friendzoned
Friendzoning is when a girl or a boy decide that somebody is their best friend and therefore cannot be a partner because they're more like a brother/sister.
This is bullshit. The truth is that it doesn't matter if you are best friends or not, what is really happening is that whoever it was that is the friend was on trial and simply failed, but for the purposes of pack mentality they are still considered a good companion in life, just not the one to make a family with.
Once a man fails a woman's trial period, they are forever remembered as being flawed. However, it is possible that once whatever flaw it was that led to failure is fixed, the woman may reconsider. For example, if a man failed because he was a pleya and had many hoes on the go, but hasn't flirted with a woman for the sake of chastity and a woman who rejected him notices this, she may put him on trial again. remember, these are subconscious trials so she may not even speak to the man in this period, but if he passes the trial period (usually around a month... regulated by a woman's cycle) then it is incredibly likely that the woman will fall for him.

Beauty
They say that there's no scientific way of determining looks, this of course, is bullshit.
Good looking people are people who have the most average features. Yes, average.
I don't mean average as in they don't look that great but they aren't monging, I mean mathematically average.
The brain does an incredibly complex thing. It analyses every face it has ever seen and judges a new one against it. It takes factors such as distance between eyes, size of nose, anything that can be measured, and judges how well the new face fits in with the average (mean if you wanna be pedantic) of all those measurements it made hundreds of times before. Sure, you can only remember up to 200 faces, but the model of the ideal face remains unchanged even with every forgotten face and is updated with every new one. Yes, your brain is amazing and you don't even realize you're doing it. Bare in mind that this is being done by the most ancient part of the brain too.
But why?
Why do this? well the truth is, it's all about genetic diversity. A human that has a much more diverse gene pool of past genetic material is more likely to survive various diseases and such. This is the reason why people tend to find (good looking) foreign-looking mates more attractive, because this is the fastest way of getting a whole new packet of useful genes to add to your family material. The more mixed up the genes are, the more mixed up the genetic information is and this shows on the face.

Summary
let's sum it up in bullet points because that is a lot of crap to go over.

  • Love is subconscious, don't think you can control it
  • Women go for a man who will protect them, remain faithful and support her while she raises a kid
  • men go for women with a body that will help the kid survive, they also go for a woman they won't feel annoyed with after twenty years (someone like a best mate)
  • love happens instantaneously, but has a 1-2 month trial period.
  • During this time a woman can have multiple number of potential mates.
  • If trial periods for 2 mates overlap, they both take on the length of the latest one.
  • males have trial periods too, but they are much shorter because there isn't the same pressure to find a perfect mate
  • If you fail a trial period, move on to someone else but remember that though some women are easier than others, in reality they all have the same standards and if you don't match them you'll still get your ass dumped later
  • If your guy has many women on his mind, don't worry, it's completely natural. Just be the best of them and remember: guys like women who are like a best mate; somebody who won't get on their nerves in twenty years. (see 3)
  • The more mathematically average a face is regarding individual measurements, the more attractive it is.
  • foreign looking people are attractive because they have a whole new packet of different genetic material to boost your family DNA.

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