Bad males give up at some random time if the female has not by then mated with them, but good males are more persistent and do not give up.
A study published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology and conducted by researchers at UCL (University College London), University of Warwick and LSE (London School of Economics and Political Science) looked at males and females in a courtship encounter of unspecified duration, with the game ending when one or other party quits or the female accepts the male as a mate.
Results showed that extended courtship can take place, with a good male being willing to court for longer than a bad male and the female delaying mating. In this way the duration of a male’s courtship effort carries information about his type. By delaying mating, the female is able to make some use of this information to achieve a degree of screening. Because bad males have a greater tendency to quit the courtship game early, as time goes on and the male has not quit it becomes increasingly probable that he is a “good” male.
It shows Professor Robert Seymour, UCL Mathematics, says: “Courtship in a number of animal species occurs over an extended period of time. Human courtship, for example, can involve a sequence of dinners, theatre trips and other outings lasting months or even years. One partner – often the male – may pay the greater part of the financial cost, but to both sexes there is a significant cost of time which could be spent on other productive activities. Why don’t people and other animals speed things up to reduce these costs? The answer seems to be that longer courtship is a way for the female to acquire information about the male.
“By delaying mating, the female is able to reduce the chance that she will mate with a bad male. A male’s willingness to court for a long time is a signal that he is likely to be a good male. Long courtship is a price paid for increasing the chance that mating, if it occurs, will be a harmonious match which benefits both sexes. This may help to explain the commonly held belief that a woman is best advised not to sleep with a man on a first date.”
Dr Peter Sozou, Warwick Medical School and LSE Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science, says: “From a female’s point of view, males are not all equal. A female would like to mate with a good male, but cannot tell a male’s type from his appearance alone. The strategic problem the female faces is how to screen out bad males, and this is where long courtship comes into play. A male is assumed to always want to mate with a female, but a good male is more willing to pay the cost of a long courtship in order to claim the prize of mating. This leads to an outcome in which the female is not willing to mate immediately, but instead requires the male to wait for an indeterminate time before she agrees to mate with him. During this time, the male may give up on courting the female.
“Bad males give up at some random time if the female has not by then mated with them, but good males are more persistent and do not give up. The female’s strategy is a compromise – a trade-off between on the one hand the greater risk of mating with a bad male if she mates too quickly, and on the other hand the time cost of delay. Under this compromise there remains some risk that she will mate with the wrong type of male. She cannot eliminate this risk completely unless she decides never to mate.”
My Notes: This is all good, but knowing when to give up and being able to let go when it’s time to let go is probably one of the most important relationship skills any man or woman will ever need.
So you admit that there are women that are jealous, secretive, self absorbed and irrational. That women also cheat and lie? Do you admit it?
Yes. There are SOME women who are jealous, secretive, self absorbed, irrational, cheat and lie. This is not like some kind of earth shattering revelation. At a certain age, this is so common knowledge to most men (and women).
What I object to is the generalization based on one’s personal experience.
I’m glad you said “most girls”. There is a lot of truth to what you say. All one has to do is visit the “girls” sites or blogs. It’s comic in a sad way.
Most WOMEN (keep in mind some women are really still “girls”) don’t have the time or desire for childish head games. They’d rather be with someone who knows what he wants and goes for it. That’s very attractive.
I know you are not going to like this… but many men are still “boys” too. They either don’t know what they want, want anything and everything, or are too afraid to go for what they want.
Women scare them, so they go for “girls” and then turn around and whine. There is nothing more unattractive than a guy whining about girls preferring the “other” guy.
Like all articles written by women, this one also neglects the fact that women are jealous, secretive, self absorbed and irrational. I’ve been on the receiving end of this behavior with 2 women who both cheated and lied. I was always treated with the darkest suspicion and accused of cheating when all the time they were the ones cheating. From a man’s point of view, women and relationships in general is asking for trouble. I don’t recommend it.
I wish I had written the article but to my shame, I didn’t. I merely cited research findings.
I’m usually very weary of other-gender bashing rants – whether it’s men bashing women or women bashing men. “We” against “them” adds nothing to a mature discussion. But this one rant deserved a response.
It’s unfortunate that you have had one bad experience after another, but instead of putting all of us women in one basket and blaming all of us for your failures and unhappiness, look for the common denominator in all of your relationship.
If ‘failure” follows you everywhere you go, the ‘failure’ must be coming from you. Start taking responsibility for making your own bad decisions regarding the women you choose to be with.
You CHOOSE them, YOU own your experiences!
This is flawed though. What constitutes a ‘good male’?
A man who is willing to wait for sex with one woman because he is seeing other women he has sex with?
This may be ‘good’ from a darwinian point of view but what female wants this? There may well be an instinctive appeal about a man in high demand but in reality the man rarely stops seeing the other women, even once children are born. This rarely works well nowadays.
A good man is different from one woman to the other as is a good relationship.
This study oversimplifies things with this idea of a ‘good man’ being a man who will stick it out and sacrifice his time and energy for a ‘good woman’. As a man I may be comfortable doing this but only if I was seeing other women and keeping my options open. My experience is that only insecure and damaged women will accept this. They call it love but it’s not. How can a man respect that?
A man may bail on a woman because he fears she is manipulating him/ playing games. Does this make him a ‘bad male’?
These scientific studies and the debates they create always seem to be massively flawed.
I’m one of those good guys who chased around this woman for years. We never mated.
If she didn’t let herself be caught, then she either wasn’t interested in the first place or was just playing cat and mouse mind games. Mind games only work up to a certain point before they become counterproductive to an actual relationship.
Another way to look at is, she didn’t know how to get caught. Some interested people take the “mystery” thing too far and end up turning off someone they’re into.