Hey Women! New Study Confirms the More He Spends on You, the Better a Mate He Will Be!
by www.SixWise.com
By developing a literal mating game, researchers from University
College London (UCL) answered a question that men in the dating
world have been asking for centuries: Does wining and dining
a girl pay off in the end?
The answer is yes indeed -- but only if it is the right type
of gift. When a woman receives an expensive gift from a man,
it's a sign that he's interested in a more long-term commitment
(since most men wouldn't invest much if they weren't). However,
this puts the man at a disadvantage, since the woman could
simply be after the extravagant gifts and not the relationship.
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Wining and dining appears to be a good tactic in the
dating game.
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To rule out these "gold-digging" women, researchers
say men must give a gift that is costly to them but of little
monetary worth to the woman (thus eliminating the women who
are only interested in the gifts).
Says Dr. Peter Sozou of UCL's Centre for Mathematics and
Physics in the Life Sciences and Experimental Biology:
"Guys are less likely to offer expensive gifts to
females they don't have a long-term interest in. And girls
won't be impressed by cheap gifts. By offering expensive
but worthless gifts, such as dinners and theatre trips,
the male pays no cost if the invitation isn't accepted.
Girls that don't find a guy attractive are less likely to
take up the invitation because it would mean spending time
with a person they aren't interested in."
The researchers made two versions of a game with different
biological assumptions based on whether the male is involved
with parental care and gave different scores to factors like
attractiveness and fitness.
Based on the model, "Our analysis shows that there is
evolutionary logic in men 'burning money' to impress the girl,"
said UCL Professor Robert Seymour.
Singles in America Increasing
This could be good news for the 40 percent of Americans who
are single (up from 28 percent about 30 years ago, according
to U.S. Census statistics).
"With the increase in the divorce rate, the increase
in the age at which people first get married, and with our
increasing longevity, the experience of being single is now
one of the most widely shared experiences of adulthood,"
says Bella DePaulo, a visiting professor of psychology at
the University of California-Santa Barbara.
In fact, while there were 38 million singles in the United
States in 1970, in 2000 that number had soared to 82 million.
It seems men may share a similar notion to the researchers
when it comes to giving actual gifts (rather than dinners,
etc.). As it says in "10 Love Tactics for New Relationships"
on Askmen.com, "Showering a woman with gifts in the first
stages of a relationship will not make her like you more or
motivate her to keep you around. If anything, spoiling her
too soon will show you have little else to offer and that
you essentially need to buy her attention."
That said, assuming you did want to splurge on a gift for
your mate (male or female), what are the best gifts to give?
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Jewelry is a top gift choice to make women feel special.
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"Our favorite gifts are the ones that allow us to express
emotion and make us feel special," said noted gift expert
and author of "The Perfect Present," Robyn Spizman.
"They are personal expressions of our feelings for each
other."
According to a survey by the International Communications
Research for the Society of American Florists, the following
gifts top the list:
To Say "I Love You"
Flowers/houseplants: 37%
Jewelry: 34%
Perfume/Cologne: 5%
To Make You Feel Special
Jewelry: 33%
Flowers/houseplants: 24%
Clothing: 10%
Given Most Often
Clothing: 38%
Flowers/houseplants: 12%
Food: 10%
To Make You Smile
Jewelry: 26%
Flowers/houseplants: 23%
Tickets to a sporting/entertainment event: 12%
What's the bottom line? In the mating game, everything goes
back to survival of the fittest, and Dr. Sozou sums it up
quite bluntly: "In humans, a girl wants a guy who is
attractive to her and will help raise their children. The
worst pay-off, reproductively, is if she hooks up with an
unattractive male who, literary, leaves her holding the baby."
Recommended Reading
The
Top Six Signs that Someone is Physically Attracted to You
How
to Make All Your Relationships Work
Sources
Health
Orbit July 27, 2005
AskMen.com:
Relationship Mistakes
82
Million Singles, You're Not Alone
America:
Unwrapped Nationwide Survey Uncovers Americans' 21st Century
Gift Giving Attitudes and Desires