How Humans Select & Keep Romantic Partners in Short & Long Term | Dr. David Buss

KEYPOINTS

• 01

  Long-term and short-term mating follow different rules

  Buss's starting point is that what people seek in a marriage or committed partner differs from what they seek in a hookup or brief affair. He grounds this in Darwin's sexual selection: one sex's preferences set the terms of competition in the other. For example, if women prefer men able and willing to invest resources, men compete to acquire and display them. Long-term pair bonding is rare, found in only about 3–5% of mammals and absent in chimpanzees.

• 02

  The 37-culture study found universal desires

  Buss's large cross-cultural study found qualities both sexes want everywhere: intelligence, kindness, mutual attraction and love, good health, dependability and emotional stability (women prioritize stability slightly more). 'No one wants a stupid, mean, ugly, disease-ridden mate,' he says, but this wasn't established before the study. He notes that love isn't a Western invention. The !Kung San of Botswana describe the same infatuation phase, which lasts weeks to perhaps six months before shifting into attachment.

• 03

  Reliable sex differences in long-term preferences

  Women more than men prioritize earning capacity, status, ambition and a strong 'long-term resource trajectory,' along with a slightly older age. Men more than women prioritize physical attractiveness and relative youth. Women aren't indifferent to looks, and Buss notes men overestimate how muscular women want them to be. These differences have held in roughly two dozen replications and in follow-ups in China, Brazil and India, even as traits like valuing virginity shifted over time.

• 04

  Age gaps widen as men age

  In Buss's data, men preferred women about 3–4 years younger, and women preferred men about 3.5–4.5 years older. US marriage statistics converge with this: the average gap is about three years at first marriage, five at second and eight at third. Buss notes that very large gaps create practical problems because partners grew up in 'different cultures.'

• 05

  Deception is built into courtship

  Both sexes deceive. Men commonly exaggerate the depth of their feelings and how similar their values are in order to signal long-term interest, because open bids for casual sex are ineffective. Buss cites unconfirmed reports, denied by Tinder, that about 30% of men on the app are married or partnered. He encourages people to skip endless texting and meet in person. Women have the more acute sense of smell, and a man who 'doesn't smell right' can be a deal breaker regardless of his other qualities.

• 06

  Short-term preferences shift toward looks and risk

  In short-term contexts, women weight physical appearance more heavily and favor 'bad boy' traits such as confidence, a little arrogance, risk-taking and defying conventions. In long-term contexts they look for 'good dad' traits. Men are willing to lower their standards for low-commitment sex. Women also use mate copying, finding a man more attractive when many other women want him (the rock-star groupie effect). Buss argues that women's attraction is more context-dependent than men's.

• 07

  Women's affairs look more like 'mate switching' than seeking good genes

  Kinsey estimated that about 26% of married women and 50% of men commit infidelity, and other studies report lower figures. Buss once backed the dual-mating hypothesis (resources from one man, genes from another) but now favors mate switching: leaving a relationship, trading up, testing one's desirability, or keeping 'mate insurance.' Key evidence is that about 70% of women who have affairs fall in love with the affair partner. Early findings that ovulation shifts women toward masculine, symmetrical men proved much weaker, and some large studies failed to replicate them.

• 08

  Infidelity has sexual, emotional and financial forms

  Women tend to define infidelity more broadly, while men focus on sex. Women are more upset by emotional infidelity (a cue that the partner's investment may leave), and men by sexual infidelity. Financial infidelity, meaning secret spending or hidden pooled resources, is less studied, but 30–60% of people keep some financial information from their spouse.

• 09

  Mate-value gaps trigger jealousy, ranging from vigilance to violence

  People tend to pair with partners of similar mate value, within about a point. If one partner's value rises, for example through a career taking off, jealousy can activate even without any rival, because the higher-value partner is statistically more likely to stray or trade up. A half-point gap rarely ends relationships, but larger ones do. Buss catalogs 19 tactics, from monitoring phones and partners' eye contact to intimate partner violence. He describes the violence as sometimes functioning to reduce a perceived gap, while stressing he doesn't endorse it.