- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
I actually WAS writing tongue in cheek because (A) I don't believe we are chimps; and (B) I think this ongoing Broadsheet argument is mostly BS anyway.
First of all, by age 30, the vast majority of Americans are settled down with someone who holds roughly the same level of attractiveness, education, intelligence, age, and income-producing potential. So all this crap about women going for old guys with money and men for hot bimbos is mostly not true. Those are outliers. I work with a bunch of rich old guys and not one of them has a hot, young girlfriend or wife. They have women their age. And the vast majority of men are not in fact angry at women or bewildered by dating. And the vast majority of people are not engaging in some kind of deliberate, ruthless, "Darwinian" dating game.
In fact, I don't know any people like that in real life. I just read them posting on the internet. So it clearly isn't that common. It's just common among the type of people who like to post things online.
In other words, we're all arguing about a false phenomenon. I don't even believe that most people end up "with the best mate they can acquire." Because I know tons of people who could get someone much better-looking/rich/intelligent than who they're with. But people fall in love with other people for dumb reasons all the time. And THAT's why I told everyone to relax. Yes there is an avoidable social hierarchy, but we also have the ability (unlike animals) to both change ourselves for the better and to treat others in better ways than a purely self-interested animal might.
