Dr. Pincus agrees. “Your first move might be to be in the physical proximity of the guy you’re interested in,” but men miss most of those cues. “We [men] are a jumbo jet, and you’re the landing person with the flashlights down on the ground. You’re trying to steer us in, but we can’t maneuver very well and we can’t see those flashlights very well at first.” Turning our body toward a man we’re interested in may seem like a blatant invitation, but believe it or not, we might have to add a smile for a guy to catch on. And don’t be afraid to initiate conversation if he’s not picking up on your body language cues.
Wait a minute, wait a minute! What about biology and the survival of the fittest? Do nice guys even deserve to date you if they can’t make eye contact with us? What about the excitement of being pursued by a guy who sweeps us off our feet?
Beware Prince Charming, cautions Dr. Pincus. “Who shows up in shining armor on a white horse? It’s a jerk, because jerks buy flashy white horses. The nice guys are attending their regular horses in the stables.”
Dr. Pincus explains about how courtship has changed over the course of history: in the past, an aggressive man may have made a better mate. In times when physical power was more important, it was in a woman’s best interests—in the interest of her survival—to mate with someone who could protect and provide for her and her children. Genghis Khan would have fit the bill, and niceness wasn’t a top concern. Nowadays, though, survival has less to do with fitness; in fact, men who make good financial providers may be far from fit, and even being a good financial provider may not make a man a good mate. When someone pursues us aggressively, it’s no longer a good indicator of their desirability as a mate.
At some point, we have all overheard a man say, “I’m built to have sex with lots of women! I can’t tie myself down—it’s my destiny to spread my seed across the earth. I evolved this way!”
Biology isn’t destiny, Dr. Pincus rebuts. “That’s a ridiculous, self-serving cop-out and it’s a distortion of the research. If you want to go quid pro quo with a guy like that, you can tell him that [by the same logic] his wife should have the right to dump him for a man with more resources, because women have a biological investment in their mates, too.”
So, if it is niceness, kindness, and caring we’re yearning for in a man, Dr.
