So this week i've been sitting down to watch this tv series on BBC iplayer called 'the year of making love'. It's basically following the people that put themselves in for an experiment to try and prove that compatibility and attraction between two people can be determined through a scientific process. This process consists of filling out an in depth psychological questionnaire and adhering the results to a formula that has been designed to match people with whom they would be most compatible. When i first started watching this my thoughts were 'what is the world coming to', and going back to what i said in an earlier post about how cynical the world is becoming i think this partly proves my point. People have been falling in love for hundreds if not thousands of years, and it makes you wonder, if there is really a scientific formula to falling in love how the hell have we been managing it for so long.
For me, finding someone i'm attracted to often seems like trying to shoot a very small target, with a very old gun, in a room with all the lights turned off. Difficult, if not impossible. So i'm watching this show, kind of smirking to myself at the thought that this formula could possibly work, and then you start watching the 'ideal matches' come together. It's interesting watching two people who obviously have the belief that they are made for one another come together, firstly you have the two people whose eyes meet across the stage and they are instantly hooked. You then have the couples that aren't wowed but are willing to give each other a chance, thinking, 'well maybe he/she has a really great personality'. The third type of couple I observed walking across the stage was also the most hilarious to watch: It's the two people who take one look at each other and automatically think 'oh Jesus' and want to run in the opposite direction. It's interesting to see how much stock we as human beings put in physical appearance, but a staggering 80% of the women paired with men shorter than them didn't call for a second date. This figure was much higher than in the other couples where the man was taller. A part of you then starts to think, 'Woah hang on there!', the reason that women want a guy who's taller than them is because they are attracted to mates that they believe will be able to protect them, and one day their young. It is important to note here, I think, the role of evolution in matchmaking. The fact that women want big strong men to take care of them and men want women with curvy childbearing hips. Or do they? Could it be that over time these preconceptions about what makes a good partner have changed, I mean it's all very well a guy being built like a truck and all, but if he lacks intellectual gifts then how the hell are you going to pay your bills when he fails to hold down a job? Watching these couples judging each other straight away made me doubt whether or not we are all still just cavemen fumbling about in the dark, trying to create the first fire.
I can almost hear the true romantics crying at the nature of my cynical approach to this subject, so lets look at the other way of finding your partner, leaving it up to fate. We are all so emmersed in this idea of 'the one'. Why we have this crazy notion of only one person I couldn't tell you, could it be the magic of the Walt Disney company once again weaving its way into our childhoods with it's happily ever afters and handsome princes and leaving a model for how our lives should go? Or could it be that religion has a part to play in the belief that there is only one perfect person out there for each of us. According to studies, the actual figure is something like 1 in every 100,000 people are 'perfect' for us. So if you think of it in terms of the population being approximately 7 billion, there are quite a few 'the ones' out there. This of course is what people are telling themselves these days, is it because we have simply lost the faith in that one special person ever finding us? Is it a way to beat the overwhelming loneliness at the idea that if there is only one person that is right for you they could be on the other side of the globe? It's a staggering notion that only one person in the world can make us ever truly complete and I personally don't like to believe it.
What do you think about science helping us find 'the one?', would you ever consider being matched with someone through scientific means?
Drop me a comment, I'm always curious to know what y'all are thinking!
Atargatis, over and out xxx
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