Finding Mr. Right

Let's start with a scenario. Picture this. You're a young man dating a young woman. You've been dating for a few months now and things are getting pretty serious. She asks you to join her family for dinner one evening. Of course, you smile and say you'd love that.

The big day comes. You got your haircut just so the day before. You even went to the expensive barber who makes you wait for like two hours just to make sure that you look your sharpest. Your wear your brand new button-up shirt and your nicest slacks that you haven't worn in weeks.

You bring your car to the carwash before heading to her parents' house. When you arrive, you've got a nice bouquet of flowers in hand, ready to present to her mother. And when Mom answers the door and smiles at the bouquet, you shrug as if it's nothing—as if you always bring bouquets everywhere to give to people as gifts.

You find Dad in the driveway unpacking some groceries from the car. You immediately smile, shake his hand, and introduce yourself. And, of course, you immediately start grabbing grocery bags, as if it's your life's dream to do so.

Your bae shows up at the door next. She's beaming and you beam right back at her. You gently touch her arm as you greet her in full view of her folks.

Her teenage brother shows up next. You give him the old soft shoulder punch and tell him that you've heard great things about him.

Bae's labrador retriever shows up next. Quite exuberantly, Bucky bounces right into you, shedding a bucket of fur on your fancy slacks. You smile directly in his face, pet him under his ears, and look at him as if he's the greatest dog that ever graced the Earth. And as for the fur on the slacks? No problem, of course!

... and so it goes ...

Why We Are on Our Best Behavior During Courtship

If we really want to understand why we are wise to be on our best behavior during courtship, we need to apply an evolutionary lens. From the perspective of evolutionary psychology (for a brief summary, see my book, Evolutionary Psychology 101), behaviors that we find in the human mating process can be understood as shaped by evolutionary processes so as to optimize one's ability to effectively reproduce. To understand the elaborate nature of courtship in humans from this perspective, there are several relevant evolutionary concepts that need to be considered.

Importantly, courtship relates to the issue of differential parental investment across the sexes (see Trivers, 1972). The energy and time-related costs of having and raising offspring is very lopsided across the sexes. In short, due to differentiated reproductive systems, women are required to invest much more time and energy into having and raising offspring (think breastfeeding) compared with men. Further, humans are an altricial species, meaning that our offspring are extremely helpless at birth. And child development in humans is an extremely slow and gradual process.

For these reasons, it makes sense that women would be particularly discriminating in the mate-selection process. Their required investment can be seen as a critical and valuable evolutionary resource. And if you have a valuable resource, it makes sense to be highly discriminating when it comes to choosing someone to share it with.

Courtship in humans is a result of all this. Courtship emerged in the human mating process so that people could test potential mates to see if they are truly good long-term prospects. After all, you don't get a lot of chances to find a life partner. As such, for both men and women (and across any sexual orientations), choosing the right partner matters quite a bit. As such, courtship is hardly exclusively about the mating psychology of women only; courtship matters for men too.

This said, per the reasoning described above, finding Mr. Right can be seen as particularly important for women given their relatively high parental investment costs.

What Features Matter During Courtship?

In taking an evolutionary perspective, it makes sense that people focus on certain traits and attributes in the courtship process over others. In looking for a life partner, someone's capacity to love you matters more than, for instance, his or her favorite college baseball team.

While many attributes matter in the mate-selection process, evolutionary psychologists who have studied this topic have isolated several critical traits that are central in the process. Based on some of the key publications on this topic (e.g., Buss et al., 1990; Miller, 2000; Geher & Kaufman, 2013), below is a brief list of some of the top traits.

Kindness. Let's face it, if you're planning to be with someone for up to 60 or so years, you probably will have a better time of it if that person is kind rather than cruel. According to Buss et al.'s (1990) research on this topic, across the entire globe, kindness is a top priority of both men and women in the courtship process. Having a kind partner will not only benefit you, but it will also benefit any shared offspring that you have along the way. The long-term benefits of kindness cannot be overstated, in fact.

Mutual Love. Along with kindness, Buss et al.'s (1990) renowned cross-cultural research on qualities sought in mates found that men and women everywhere care about mutual love. And this makes sense. Love is a unique emotional experience. And it has the capacity to get someone to care about the welfare of another as a top priority for oneself. If you end up with someone and you are both truly in love, you will both experience enormous benefits from the selflessness and care that follow from true love.

Creativity. Creativity and intelligence have the capacity to help us solve all kinds of problems. And creative others have the capacity to delight us and to keep us entertained (see Miller, 2000). For a broad array of reasons, we are attracted to creative others. Assessing one's creative capacities during courtship, then, is a standard part of the process.

Resource Acquisition. Most of us would rather have a partner who is wealthy rather than dirt-poor. And this fact is particularly true for women (see Buss et al., 1990), a fact that makes sense in light of the extremely high required parental investment that characterizes a woman's reproductive system and the resultant importance of securing a mate with access to resources. This is why flashing signals of money on the part of men is often part of the game.

Reliability. Flaking out on a date early on in the process may well be a terminal problem for a relationship. If you're going to secure a life partner, you and your offspring will benefit greatly if that partner is highly reliable. On the other hand, you may well suffer in many ways if your partner is highly unreliable and cannot be counted upon. During courtship, we take note of markers of reliability.

Faithfulness. Being unfaithful during courtship is generally not considered a great idea. This is because being unfaithful during courtship may well foreshadow future infidelities—acts that could lead to trauma and catastrophic outcomes for one's entire family at a future point. Assessing one's levels of faithfulness during courtship, thus, is an important part of the process.

Honesty. Generally speaking, we humans are not huge fans of liars. From an evolutionary perspective, being unable to detect lies would have had adverse consequences for our ancestors (see Cosmides & Tooby, 1992). And if you can't trust your life partner to be honest, to put it simply, you've got a problem on your hands.

Honesty and Deception in the Courtship Process

I'd love to be able to say that we could always take other humans at their word. But, alas, no dice ... Even in the modern, civilized world, lies, deceit, and treachery abound.

If we could trust all others at their word, courtship would be simple, right? We could just ask a potential mate if he is kind, loving, reliable, wealthy, creative, faithful, and honest. But, alas, that's not how it works. In fact, people deceive in the mating domain all the time (see Geher & Kaufman, 2013).

And it is for this reason that courtship is such a substantial process in the sphere of human mating. Further, the fact that people often deceive in the mating domain helps us understand why courtship often takes an extensive amount of time.

Let's think back to the scenario that started this piece. Sure, the guy may have been able to pull off seeming like a super nice guy the first time that he met his bae's family, but can he pull that off a second time? A third time? How about six months into it? How about over a one-week vacation with the family at the Outer Banks?

Courtship as Behavioral Science

In a sense, the courtship process is a lot like behavioral science. The main research question is this: Is this person a good long-term prospect for me? With this question in mind, you set up various tests, which can be thought of as tests of that particular research question. This is exactly how behavioral science proceeds.

Is he kind? Is he creative? Is he reliable? Is he faithful? Is he Mr. Right?

And in the behavioral sciences, there is a general rule about data. The more data you have, the more confident you can be that you've answered your research question.

The same is true in courtship: The more data you have, the better able you are to address whether your bae is a good long-term prospect. Or not.

In effect, the courtship process makes a behavioral scientist out of just about everyone.

Bottom Line

Choosing a long-term partner is as important a decision as any that you'll make in life. Human courtship is an evolutionarily shaped process that helps people assess if potential mates are good long-term prospects. In many ways, this process, largely driven by the fact that our slowly developing offspring benefit from multi-parental care, largely serves women in their efforts to find Mr. Right.

If you're in the throes of looking for the perfect life partner right now, I say good luck. Hopefully, the evolutionarily informed angle presented here is helpful in the process. And remember, don't be afraid to be highly discriminating in selecting a life partner. Ideally, you've only got one shot at this. Make sure to get it right.

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