Dating plays an essential role in our life. It’s a proven fact that being intimately involved with someone releases positive, feel-good hormones like dopamine, norepinephrine and oxytocin that are good for our overall mental and physical well-being when secreted in a limit. Although it sounds simple, dating involves a complex amalgamation of many factors ranging from compatibility, physical attractiveness and bonding.
When it comes to dating across genders and orientations, some significant patterns are evolutionarily picked up by men and women to select the best mating prospect. For example, women subconsciously tend to look for partners who’re trustworthy, nurturing and physically attractive. In some parts of the world, there are other factors like location, societal and religious predispositions that, to an extent, play a role in romantic relationships.
Desirability is another significant factor that comes into play in dating. And desirability can be categorized on many metrics from physical attractiveness to subconscious body language. In the course of shifting dating dynamics, some men who’re perceived as desirable and irresistible depict certain traits that would effectively make them a “hot commodity” in the “dating market.”
I’m sure you have asked the following questions or a variation of them when you come across some couples:
“What did she see in him?”
“Why do girls fall for emotionally unavailable jerks?”
Being attracted to people who’re charming and eccentric from the moment you meet them. But turn out to be absolutely manipulative and narcissistic makes you wonder, what is it that’s mysteriously different in them?
And one possible answer could be “psychopathy.”
Men who showed psychopathic traits are more inclined to have success in dating than their counterparts. In research conducted by Kristopher J. Brazil and Adelle E. Forth, they found that young men who have scored higher on psychopathic tests were highly desirable to women. Psychopathic individuals have some common traits, which include and are not limited to lack of empathy, manipulativeness, deceitfulness, shameless grandiose self-image, boldness and abrasive sly confidence.
The lack of empathy and the inability to care makes them much more transparent and emotionally detached from their partners. When combined with intentionally ignoring their partners, this detachment gives them an edge over the rest of the guys. Additionally, psychopathic individuals are masters when it comes to mirroring and deception in interpersonal interactions. The more you interact with them, the charming and alluring they seem like a fun, exciting ride.
The researchers in their study try to formulate a function called the “sexual exploitation hypothesis,” which advocates that:
To test the above hypothesis, two studies were conducted. In study 1, heterosexual young men (17–25 y/o) in a dating scenario were recorded for approximately 2 mins. The initial scripted questions to get the interactions on the date started were — “What do you like to do on a first date?” or “What do you think is most important in a relationship?” and then there was no additional script giving space for conversations to flow and take its natural course. This was then followed by taking waist-up pictures of the participants’ neutral facial expressions and a transparent white background.
The pictures were used to independently rate the participants on their attractiveness. The final phase of study 1 was to assess the participants on psychopathy (SRP4), social intelligence (TSIS), sociosexuality (SOI–R)and general demographics like ethnicity and etc. The study results supported the hypothesis wherein the higher the psychopathic tendencies, the more the sociosexuality, and the same is true for social intelligence.
The above study suggests that social skills are the central element for psychopathic individuals to hook a prospective partner. These skills help them to effectively manipulate. The emotional detachment helps them not come off as needy and desperate.
In study 2, the recorded videos from study 1 were shown to young women. The “dating desirability” was calculated for each subject in the previous experiment using three questions: attractiveness, sexual attractiveness, and confidence. Each trait was recorded on a scale of 1 to 7, with 7 being the maximum score. Once the rating was done, participants were then asked to send a voicemail for each man they have seen in the recording with the given the following scenario:
“Imagine the guy in this video has indicated that he is interested in meeting up with you. You just saw his dating video and decide to call him, but he’s not home. Read the text below to leave a voicemail.”
They were asked to read the following text:
“Hi there, I saw your dating video. I’m just calling to see if you want to meet up sometime. Call me back.”
While they were sending the voicemail, their tonality and pitch were recorded. Raised voice pitch was considered as higher levels of interest towards a man and vice-versa. The mean of the recorded pitches was also taken into consideration while calculating the relative desirability ratings.
The photographs of men from the previous study were then shown to 11 participants unaware of the experiment. They were asked to rate on a scale of 1 to 7, with 7 being the most attractive. The results were analyzed and then categorized into 3 bins:
- significantly below average attractiveness
- somewhat below average attractiveness
- average attractiveness
The final result was psychopathy predicted higher average desirability ratings from women who viewed their dating videos after accounting for men’s physical attractiveness scores. Thereby suggesting that social skills and overall body language are subconsciously processed first, followed by conscious physical attractiveness judgments. It also indicates that those with more psychopathic traits generate higher ratings from women. Men similar in psychopathic traits, however, generate similar ratings from women.
Therefore, one can possibly and vaguely conclude that psychopathic individuals short-circuit dating dynamics.
Now, the next question would be —
How to avoid manipulative and psychopathic individuals and look out for healthy and genuine relationships?
Attraction works weirdly. There are certain aspects of a person that would “woo” you but would repel others. Here are some ways that would help out in filtering toxic individuals:
- The first and foremost thing to do for not ending up with an idiot is to look inside and assess oneself. More often than not, issues related to childhood abandonment and lack of love, care, and support through friends or parents would lead to developing toxic patterns wherein you subconsciously always end up in the same situation of being disappointed in romantic relationships. This step can be hard to identify, and once placed, it would be harder to work on it. But, once you’re aware of it and are careful about your choices, you will start witnessing changes in your personal, romantic relationships.
- Next would be by going beyond the charming and eccentric personality and knowing the real person behind the facade. This can be simply done by going beyond the random flirty and exciting chitchats to having more in-depth conversations. The inconsistency in their responses and the inability to be emotionally intimate would give away.
- Finally, getting acquainted with their previous relationships. Although it’s one’s choice to have multiple casual flings and FWB relationships, a lack of stable and emotionally intimate relationship is generally not a good indicator of stability.
The more rational you are, the better you can filter out toxic narcissists. Trusting emotions is a mistake that many of us are guilty of. Emotions cannot be “completely” trusted because emotions are dynamic and heighten our romantic encounter experiences. They are always in motion (e-motion) and not “e-standing still” or “e-forever the same,” but rationality would help in reasoning and questioning the things as is.
Link to the research paper: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40806-019-00213-0
Note: The complete research is intellectual property of the authors and this article utilizes some of the findings from it.
