Public Displays of Affection.

Credits: The Selby

"I would oogle at the couples out in public, the ones that couldn't get enough of each other, the ones that didn't care what other people though, the ones who were just mad about each other and i'd compare it to our meaningless love."

It’s rather easy to lose your mind when you lose your heart.

As we sat at Mcd's having conversations til 4am in the morning, a particular colloquy about love that was uttered by R that ceases my attention.

"As much of cynic I can be, I do love the idea of falling in love."

Knowing her penchant for pessimism, I've always in ways hard headed in persisting her to see the light at the end of the tunnel. So when I hear her utter those words, a sudden glee overwhelms me. Despite the annihilist she perceives to be, it's such a light hearted to know she still believes in old blind faith. I reckon it was her environment that she grew up in which made her fear and doubt of the possibilities of ever possessing this utterly divine sensation.

Also to much coincidence, I stumble across this amazingly written passage that's somehow relatable to this gray matter.

"I have never tasted love.

I have never been blessed with the true feeling of love. I've always felt like an outcast in that way. Placed beside the world of loving individuals. Like it's not meant for me. You see, I'm a dreamer. And in my dreams I'm head over hills in love and it's mutual. Unfortunately, this makes me an observer. I observe everything and everyone around me, and the importance of my own actions fails. It's like I'm trapped inside my brain and completely unable to... do life. I think I'm in love with the thought of being in love, how cliché it may sound. And I don't want to wait forever. Maybe I'm just gonna have to accept it. Maybe there is this insignificant number of all the billion people on earth, who just aren't supposed to fall in love..."

Dedicated to R.

Chivalry.

There's something about 'em effortless style that never fails to enlighten me. They make aging look utterly charming with spunky robust.

credits : Sartorialist.

;D

HAPPEH! ;)

Perhaps it's a blessing in disguise aye. My last few days of 2009 seems to be scintillatingly warm & vibrant. I have a bunch of amazing friends larh! Love them to bits. Hehehe. ;3

At the end of the day, it's about the quality, not the quantity. <3

Two Oh Oh Nine.

2009 have left me many bittersweet moments. A lot of grieve, and yet at somewhat throughout all the calamities - a lot of joy. I suppose with empathy you learn to appreciate pure delight more. In proceedings of the year, I made a bunch of new friends. Some that left, and some that stick, and some who were just down right impossible and obnoxious. Whoever and whatever they're made of, imma hear to tell you that you all have made that perhaps minimal but eloquent impact in my hell heck of a year. Be it good or bad, you guys have been a blessing in disguise. Parts and parcels of life, I always say. You guys each have taught me a lesson that I won't be able to benefit from without meeting the either brilliant or dim witted minds of youse.

Within this year, I've gotten closer to people whom accept me for who I am. I also learnt not to be as naive as always like to think that just cause people are nice to yr face doesn't mean their intentions are sincerely genuine. Yeah, life's a bitch like that sometimes.

Oh, I do once again stand by my theory that everyone do have skeletons in their closets. I have unveiled quite a bunch of 'em. However dark or mystifying these untold actuality can be, I find a certain engaging beauty out of these silent conundrum. I believe all those forbidden truth in some ways make you and break you, mold you into the person you are today when you look yourself into the mirror and see your own vividly enthralled reflection. Sure, to a stranger or an estranged friend, it may look just like any other reflection. But if you stare a little longer and if someone sees you profoundly enough, you'd find that there're set of secrets lurking at every corner, hanging around to be liberated, perhaps at your most vulnerable moments or the day you choose to trust someone, both quite a beautiful scene to forbear if I must say.

That being said, I've met an equal amount of people who are downright ignorant and are still as immature as hell albeit their non existant intellectuality. So content at where they're at they refuse to bulge. What happened to nothing is permanent but change? I used to think change was an atrocious evil thing, but after much comprehension and what nots - isn't it with change only that we evolve, we become ze better nobler person of sorts? Or is that a rather too philosophical for us to fathom?

Whatever tragedies that strike me this year, karma somehow counterbalance it by letting me meet these few truly fresh unconventionally bizarre yet interesting people that I thought would be extinct by now considering how some can be obscurely contrasting to the cynical stereotype I have implanted upon the community. Who knew aye. Haha. Perhaps there's still some essence of unadulterated sincerity left in mankind. Perhaps humanity is not entirely a lost cause. Just maybe only larh.

I grew up the most this year. I learnt to be more grateful towards people I love and respect, to trust when it seems beyond ridiculous to, to enjoy the simple smaller yet equally sentimental things. The crisp smell of morning fresh air, chilling with the lovelies to mid morning. Obscene amount of lip-smacking, artery-clogging chow, countless chocolate lounge session with different individuals with each their own distinct lucid stories to tell. The pure unadulterated, unpretentious laughter among people that who never cease to amaze me.

Wherever life takes me, Imma grateful that I can look back at 2009 and smile because it happened. I did not just a waste a year full of nonsensical binge drinking and aimless partying. I met people who had vivid stories, made me learn from their virtues, ditch a few of 'em preposterous, ludicrous one that I concluded are too shallow for my keepsake.

I suppose Imma writing this to myself considering the meager to none fellow readers I've got, I wonder who would actually tolerate my insane amount of long-winded jibberish that came out from my complicated entangled thoughts. It's been a helluva of an emotional whirlwind filled with unscripted escapades this year. I wonder what's in stored for me in 2010? ;3

Nah nah nah,

Everly annoying and stubborn,

Mandy, x.

Killing me softly.

We help people when big things happen to them, when you see them getting hit by a car, when a brother or a sister or a father or a mother dies, we're there for them because we can see that death kills more than the person it takes. And yet, the people around us who die a little all the time, moment by moment, who require the least help, the smallest sacrifice, are the ones we ignore completely.

Peter vs. Wendy.

Women are always complaining that the men in their lives suffer from “Peter Pan Syndrome.” It’s a standard, catchall criticism that chicks levy willy-nilly on dudes for any number of relationship misdemeanors or faux pas. It refers to the title character in J.M. Barrie’s classic, turn-of-last-century play and novel about a precocious young boy who refuses to grow up. And modern ladies love to slap this armchair diagnosis on any male behavior that is inconvenient to their self-interest.

If a guy chooses to play Assassin’s Creed II on his day off instead of strolling through the farmers’ market with his sustainable-food activist girlfriend and molesting squash, is he suffering from “Peter Pan Syndrome”? That same dude could have dreams, but they’re probably dismissed as a symptom of “Peter Pan Syndrome.” Real dreams, like being a parapsychologist, or a shark hunter, or a strip club DJ. Whatever, mock away. It’s not like “locavore” is ever going to be an actual word that normal people use. And personally, I think it’s very mature for a grown man to note that having a child can totally harsh a buzz. I’d like to add that not folding one’s clothes is an aesthetic choice. Same with dishes.

It is a very modern point of contention between the genders that men aren’t growing up, or at least, growing up according to the standards and expectations of the women in their lives, that men are lazy, hairy toddlers who want to retreat to their man caves, drink beer, and watch “Iron Man” Blu-ray extras. This is an unfair stereotype. There are plenty of men out there who make a living, dote on their families, and shoulder more than their share of responsibility, while at the same time being lazy, hairy toddlers who want to retreat to their man caves, drink beer, and watch “Iron Man” Blu-ray extras. It’s called “complexity.” Men have more layers than you suspect. We’re like pancakes that way.

I don’t think men with so-called “Peter Pan Syndrome” are the problem. I think many women, especially those who use the term “Peter Pan Syndrome” and pronounce the word “mature” as “matoooor,” suffer from “Wendy Syndrome.” That’s right. I’m referring to the girl who accompanies Peter Pan to Never-Never Land, or even my older sister, Wendy. In the famous story, Wendy and her brothers join Peter Pan and his Lost Boys in their epic fight against Captain Hook. At the end of the story, Wendy chooses to return to England, and to grow up. Pan refuses. A woman who suffers from “Wendy Syndrome” has aged prematurely and acts more grown up than is justified by her experience. She’s fussy, clucking, and obsessed with appearances.

Why would Wendy want to leave Never-Never Land? I mean, Peter has a great job—fighting pirates. Adoring co-workers. A nice tribe of natives as neighbors. The real estate is fantastic: There are beaches, mountains, tree houses. And the commute isn’t bad, just the second star to the left and on till morning. Peter Pan is free, passionate, and just wants to have fun, like ‘90s-era Sheryl Crow. Why would Wendy give that up? Seriously. Why would she want to return to nasty old Victorian London? The city that gave us Mary Poppins, the barren, black-magic nanny with the chimney sweep boyfriend who eventually dies of emphysema? Or Oliver Twist, an orphan who barely escapes the white slave trade? What is so special about that industrial soot-choked metropolis of misery? What’s the downside to an enchanted island, besides the fairy infestation?

If Wendy wanted children, she couldn’t have done better than staying in Never-Never Land. It’s. An. Island. Of. Little. Kids. Wendy returns because she’s not comfortable with the abandon Peter Pan offers. She prefers the comforting shackles of social norms. To Wendy, exchanging soaring through the clouds for croquet with The Joneses is a fair trade. Clearly, she settled for settling down. It’s an ageless place – she could have grown up any time. But Wendy set a limit to the adventures she allowed herself. Wendy broke Peter’s heart, because she wouldn’t fly with him one more time. Wendy put her foot down and grew up, leaving Peter with Tinker Bell, a thimble-sized badass who never shirked a pirate hunt. Poor Tink, if only Peter loved her back.

Next time you bemoan men behaving like Peter Pans, desperately holding on to an idealized, recent youth, take a moment for self-reflection. It won’t hurt. Could it be that you’re suffering from a mild case of “Wendy Syndrome”? Should you be in a hell-bent rush to act a certain way? Is it possible to have adventures and still be responsible? To waste time giggling and playing video games one night, and the next night engaging in captivating dinner conversation with people who keep back issues of The New Yorker by the toilet? According to some versions of Barrie’s story, Peter returns every spring until Wendy grows up, and then Peter starts sprinkling his dust on her daughter. At the very least, Wendy recognizes that Peter Pan can teach some important and enduring life lessons. The airborne imp isn’t so bad.

By: John Devore.

Ignite.

So yes, we could kiss. I could kiss you and you could kiss me.

There's no science, plane ticket or clock stopping us.

But if we kiss, it will end the world. And I've ended the world before.

No one survived. Least of all me.

I was so busy missing you, I missed someone else standing right in front of me.

Now I’m missing them instead.

The Blackened Sky.

You could ink yourself until everyone knows all the things you love. You could wear uniforms that gave you all the authority in the world. Lose weight until there was nothing left. Paint the face. Suck in your gut.

But in the dark, stripped down to your bones, all that remains is you.

Wonka Nerds.

So imma still wide awake at 4.15am layaning my friends who's hooked on Wii at mah crib. Suppose to meet J tomorrow at Bangsar for yet another moolah burning sesh yet imma not getting proper beauty sleep. Not that imma complaining about the good company that is. ;)

Blaming vs. Understanding.

We do way too much of the former and not enough of the latter, and this is what keeps us from taking responsibility for our thoughts, feelings and actions.

Love & Other Disasters.

K: Stop living your life like youre in some kind of movie.

A: Excuse me?

K: Stop trying to cast your love instead of just meeting him.

A: When I meet him, I'll know.

K: Im not so sure. Love isnt always a lightning bolt, you know? Maybe sometimes its just a choice.

A: Well, thats easy for you to say! You're flying to Argentina to meet the love of your life!

A: Thats just it. I dont know that Paolos the love of my life, but I've decided to give him the chance to be. Maybe true love is a decision. You know, a decision to take a chance with somebody, to give to somebody. Without worrying whether they'll give anything back. Or if they're gonna hurt you, Or if they really are the one. Maybe love isn't something that happens to you. Maybe it's something you have to choose.

K: So what do I do?

A: Well, you could start by putting all of those fantasies of true love where they belong, into your work of fiction.

So whatcha peeps waiting for? Make a choice already. ;D

Setiment.

It as if I heard myself for the very first time, the sounds I always somehow knew I had it in me tucked away somewhere yet never could pinpoint meticulously enough to comprehend. The echoes of unadulterated pain. Usually I'd be too consumed in bearing the mask of social repertoire to acknowledge my underlying emotions. So when you're pushed to a confined space and you can't possibly run from the situation no more, you'd counterattack. And it's when you finally let those words pelt down, flow out from that locked up metal box of that we once called heart, you ultimately let out what you thoroughly feel in a blunt i-don't-give-no-two-fucks-no-more temperament.

There's oddly another silence that occurs after. As if all those once bottled up and concealed emotions now are surfaced and bare, you finally struck by a sudden rude awakening of reality.

Also, a rapid comprehension that I'd be fighting this battle alone.

Operator! Gimme the number of 911!

All the hardest, coldest people you meet were once as soft as ice cream on a sunny afternoon.
And that's the tragedy of living.

The Google Frenzy.

"...the most-searched U.S. song lyrics of the year - Lady Gaga’s 'Poker Face',and of all the things Americans want to learn how to do, it’s “how to kiss.”

Guess what's the overall top search among the top 3 search engines...

Michael Jackson! Woots.

Ask.com’s Top Overall Questions of 2009

1. How much should I weigh?
2. who knew people were that weigh conscious aye.
3. How do I get out of debt fast?
4. this makes sense, recession.
5. How do I get pregnant?
6. ...
7. What is Twitter?
8. noob.
9. What is Miley Cyrus’ phone number?
10. lmao. obsess much. what for anyway. hmmm, i wonder.
11. What is the meaning of life?
12. deep, but don't you think it takes more than some website to get this answer?
13. When will the world end?
14. the 2012 hype, kiasi doh.
15. How long does marijuana stay in your system?
16. HAHAHA.
17. What are the symptoms of Swine Flu?
18. fear exploits, 'nuff said.
19. What time is it?
20. Um, what happened to a good old fashion watch?! -,-

"If our search engine queries are, on some level, a reflection of who we are as a people, then we are a sorry, sorry lot indeed. Google, Microsoft and Yahoo all released their lists of the top search queries for 2009 today and they reveal us to be a nation of Twittering, celebrity-obsessed, swine flu-suffering, vampire-loving, Megan Fox-ogling, Lady Gaga-humming, World Wrestling Entertainment-patronizing, Windows-using Nascar fans."

Permanent imprints.

It's when you hold eye contact for that second too long

or maybe the way you laugh.

It sets off a flash and our memories take a picture of who we are at that point

when we first know "This is love."

And we clutch that picture to our hearts

because we expect each other

to always be the people in that picture.

But people change.

People aren't pictures.

And you can either take a new picture

or throw the old one away.

The Fire Within.

And I sit here in ponder

after all this while still in search for someone who would see through me.

For the very being I truly am.

And I'm still waiting,

someday you'd turn up,

whoever you are.

The best things are hard to come by.

It does not count if you believe in yourself when it's easy to believe in yourself. It does not count if you believe the world can be a better place when the future looks bright. It does not count if you think you're going to make it when the finish line is right in front of you.

It counts when it's hard to believe in yourself, when it looks like the world's going to end and you've still got a long way to go.

That's when it counts. That's when it matters the most.

Fall.

"You are not there. Somewhere in the future, suffering for something that hasn't happened yet. You are not there, in a place where all your worries manifest.

You are not there. Somewhere in the past, reliving your old mistakes and regrets. You are not there, in a place where memories resurrect.

You are here. Right here."

L.O.V.E.

"It is two people full of doubts, shortcomings, and love holding hands and jumping together. It’s a risk, fraught with the potential to fail. Three-legged races, where two people hop, stumble, get back up, and maybe hit a stride until they fall again. It’s funny yet frustrating, and I suppose that's what makes it beautiful."

-stolen from an article, the wordplay is brilliant stuff.

30 things you should have before you turn 30.

1. Clothes that fit the size she is now, not the size she was five years ago

2. A weekly income that covers the rent (or mortgage payment)

3. An orgasm

4. Always enough toilet paper

5. A hair stylist she trusts

6. A favorite song, porn site, image, movie or fantasy that always gets her in the mood

7. Health insurance

8. A signature drink

9. A healthy relationship with her parents

10. Bras in the correct size

11. Enough alcohol in her home to offer drop-by guests a cocktail

12. An emergency hangover remedy

13. A voter registration card

14. A wardrobe that includes the perfectly flattering little black dress, a great pair of heels, jeans that make her ass look great, and a cute hat that hides a bad hair day

15. A yearly appointment with her gynecologist

16. The name of reliable movers to give her friends when they ask for help relocating

17. The gumption to ask a man out

18. A group of girlfriends who get it

19. A set of tools (and the ability to use them ... even if it’s just to hang a piece of art)

20. A balanced checkbook

21. No interest in men who just aren’t that into her

22. A vacation to look forward to at least once a year

23. A good bulls**t detector

24. The courage to stand up for herself and her beliefs

25. A favorite sex position

26. A set of hand towels so guests don’t have dry their hands on her bath towel (gross!)

27. Enough self-love to avoid and break off unhealthy friendships and relationships

28. A commitment to exercise

29. A retirement fund

30. A great vibrator

You Are The Moon.

You don't see what you possess,
a beauty calm and clear.




So precise and so pristine,
a perfect pane of glass.




The shattered surface,
so imperfect, is all that you believe.

11:11pm.

Perhaps the truth is...

We hide because we want to be found.
We walk away to see who will follow.
We cry to see who will wipe our tears away.
We let our hearts get broken to see who cares enough to fix them.

And i think I have found my answer.

Imma tired of people leaving without consent and taking me for granted.

Imma gonna stop chasing after the impossibles and ungratefuls.

Focus on the one who's been there and the ones who actually want me there.

/

/

/

Moroever, I want the hypocrites outta my life.

Yes, you.

Don't think I can't see through you and what you're up to.

Pretending to care but don't give no two cents

yet spread exaggerrating rumors, disses and laughs about me.

Stop yr conniving please.

Save the fake smiles and concerns for someone else

cause I ain't need to be wasting time on people like you.

Rot in hell, cause karma's a bitch.

/

/

/

As for the ones who's been there thick and thin,

Imma truly grateful.

I couldn't be more thankful to have you bunch of monkeys in my life.

Be it rant, laugh, cry

thanks for accepting me regardlessly.

you know who you are. <3

Bumps.

'I think everyone has a movie that they love so much, it actually becomes stressful to watch it with other people. I'll end up wasting 90 minutes shiftily glancing around to confirm that everyone's laughing at the right parts, then making sure I laugh just a little bit harder (and a millisecond earlier) to prove that I'm still the only one who really, really gets it.'


'Have you ever been walking down the street and realized that you're going in the complete opposite direction of where you are supposed to be going? But instead of just turning a 180 and walking back in the direction from which you came, you have to first do something like check your watch or phone or make a grand arm gesture and mutter to yourself to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you're crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk.'

Cuckoo.

"In Italy for 30 years under the Borgais, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed but they produced brilliant minds like Michelangelo, Leonardo de Vinci adn the Renaissance.

In Switzerland, they had brotherly love; they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce - the cuckoo clock. "
-Orson Welles.

The Dainty.

I've got mixed emotions. Too many jumbled up thoughts running so swiftly in my mind that I can't quite possibly capture the true essence of these envisages. Perhaps it's better not to grasp these thoughts in such thoroughness. We all can do with much simplicity to our already complicated world. The more I ponder, the more I concluded there's really no such bollocks as an absolute truth. For really, we're all living in a grey area where the frail fine line between right and wrong is held together in such ways frivolous and feeble.

Vous avez bien sûr attrapé mon attention,

mais pourriez-vous attraper mon coeur ?

10 Politically Incorrect Truths About Human Nature.

Human nature is one of those things that everybody talks about but no one can define precisely. Every time we fall in love, fight with our spouse, get upset about the influx of immigrants into our country, or go to church, we are, in part, behaving as a human animal with our own unique evolved nature—human nature.

This means two things. First, our thoughts, feelings, and behavior are produced not only by our individual experiences and environment in our own lifetime but also by what happened to our ancestors millions of years ago. Second, our thoughts, feelings, and behavior are shared, to a large extent, by all men or women, despite seemingly large cultural differences.

Human behavior is a product both of our innate human nature and of our individual experience and environment. In this article, however, we emphasize biological influences on human behavior, because most social scientists explain human behavior as if evolution stops at the neck and as if our behavior is a product almost entirely of environment and socialization. In contrast, evolutionary psychologists see human nature as a collection of psychological adaptations that often operate beneath conscious thinking to solve problems of survival and reproduction by predisposing us to think or feel in certain ways. Our preference for sweets and fats is an evolved psychological mechanism. We do not consciously choose to like sweets and fats; they just taste good to us.



The implications of some of the ideas in this article may seem immoral, contrary to our ideals, or offensive. We state them because they are true, supported by documented scientific evidence. Like it or not, human nature is simply not politically correct.



Adapted from Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters, by Alan S. Miller and Satoshi Kanazawa, to be published by Perigee in September 2007.



Men Like Blonde Bombshells (and Women Want To Look Like Them)

Long before TV—in 15th- and 16th- century Italy, and possibly two millennia ago—women were dying their hair blond. A recent study shows that in Iran, where exposure to Western media and culture is limited, women are actually more concerned with their body image, and want to lose more weight, than their American counterparts. It is difficult to ascribe the preferences and desires of women in 15th-century Italy and 21st-century Iran to socialization by media.

Women's desire to look like Barbie—young with small waist, large breasts, long blond hair, and blue eyes—is a direct, realistic, and sensible response to the desire of men to mate with women who look like her. There is evolutionary logic behind each of these features.

Men prefer young women in part because they tend to be healthier than older women. One accurate indicator of health is physical attractiveness; another is hair. Healthy women have lustrous, shiny hair, whereas the hair of sickly people loses its luster. Because hair grows slowly, shoulder-length hair reveals several years of a woman's health status.

Men also have a universal preference for women with a low waist-to-hip ratio. They are healthier and more fertile than other women; they have an easier time conceiving a child and do so at earlier ages because they have larger amounts of essential reproductive hormones. Thus men are unconsciously seeking healthier and more fertile women when they seek women with small waists.

Until very recently, it was a mystery to evolutionary psychology why men prefer women with large breasts, since the size of a woman's breasts has no relationship to her ability to lactate. But Harvard anthropologist Frank Marlowe contends that larger, and hence heavier, breasts sag more conspicuously with age than do smaller breasts. Thus they make it easier for men to judge a woman's age (and her reproductive value) by sight—suggesting why men find women with large breasts more attractive.

Alternatively, men may prefer women with large breasts for the same reason they prefer women with small waists. A new study of Polish women shows that women with large breasts and tight waists have the greatest fecundity, indicated by their levels of two reproductive hormones (estradiol and progesterone).

Blond hair is unique in that it changes dramatically with age. Typically, young girls with light blond hair become women with brown hair. Thus, men who prefer to mate with blond women are unconsciously attempting to mate with younger (and hence, on average, healthier and more fecund) women. It is no coincidence that blond hair evolved in Scandinavia and northern Europe, probably as an alternative means for women to advertise their youth, as their bodies were concealed under heavy clothing.

Women with blue eyes should not be any different from those with green or brown eyes. Yet preference for blue eyes seems both universal and undeniable—in males as well as females. One explanation is that the human pupil dilates when an individual is exposed to something that she likes. For instance, the pupils of women and infants (but not men) spontaneously dilate when they see babies. Pupil dilation is an honest indicator of interest and attraction. And the size of the pupil is easiest to determine in blue eyes. Blue-eyed people are considered attractive as potential mates because it is easiest to determine whether they are interested in us or not.


The irony is that none of the above is true any longer. Through face-lifts, wigs, liposuction, surgical breast augmentation, hair dye, and color contact lenses, any woman, regardless of age, can have many of the key features that define ideal female beauty. And men fall for them. Men can cognitively understand that many blond women with firm, large breasts are not actually 15 years old, but they still find them attractive because their evolved psychological mechanisms are fooled by modern inventions that did not exist in the ancestral environment.



Humans Are Naturally Polygamous

The history of western civilization aside, humans are naturally polygamous. Polyandry (a marriage of one woman to many men) is very rare, but polygyny (the marriage of one man to many women) is widely practiced in human societies, even though Judeo-Christian traditions hold that monogamy is the only natural form of marriage. We know that humans have been polygynous throughout most of history because men are taller than women.

Among primate and nonprimate species, the degree of polygyny highly correlates with the degree to which males of a species are larger than females. The more polygynous the species, the greater the size disparity between the sexes. Typically, human males are 10 percent taller and 20 percent heavier than females. This suggests that, throughout history, humans have been mildly polygynous.

Relative to monogamy, polygyny creates greater fitness variance (the distance between the "winners" and the "losers" in the reproductive game) among males than among females because it allows a few males to monopolize all the females in the group. The greater fitness variance among males creates greater pressure for men to compete with each other for mates. Only big and tall males can win mating opportunities. Among pair-bonding species like humans, in which males and females stay together to raise their children, females also prefer to mate with big and tall males because they can provide better physical protection against predators and other males.

In societies where rich men are much richer than poor men, women (and their children) are better off sharing the few wealthy men; one-half, one-quarter, or even one-tenth of a wealthy man is still better than an entire poor man. As George Bernard Shaw puts it, "The maternal instinct leads a woman to prefer a tenth share in a first-rate man to the exclusive possession of a third-rate one." Despite the fact that humans are naturally polygynous, most industrial societies are monogamous because men tend to be more or less equal in their resources compared with their ancestors in medieval times. (Inequality tends to increase as society advances in complexity from hunter-gatherer to advanced agrarian societies. Industrialization tends to decrease the level of inequality.)



Most Women Benefit From Polygyny, While Most Men Benefit From Monogamy

When there is resource inequality among men—the case in every human society—most women benefit from polygyny: women can share a wealthy man. Under monogamy, they are stuck with marrying a poorer man.

The only exceptions are extremely desirable women. Under monogamy, they can monopolize the wealthiest men; under polygyny, they must share the men with other, less desirable women. However, the situation is exactly opposite for men. Monogamy guarantees that every man can find a wife. True, less desirable men can marry only less desirable women, but that's much better than not marrying anyone at all.

Men in monogamous societies imagine they would be better off under polygyny. What they don't realize is that, for most men who are not extremely desirable, polygyny means no wife at all, or, if they are lucky, a wife who is much less desirable than one they could get under monogamy.



Most Suicide Bombers Are Muslims

According to the Oxford University sociologist Diego Gambetta, editor of Making Sense of Suicide Missions, a comprehensive history of this troubling yet topical phenomenon, while suicide missions are not always religiously motivated, when religion is involved, it is always Muslim. Why is this? Why is Islam the only religion that motivates its followers to commit suicide missions?

The surprising answer from the evolutionary psychological perspective is that Muslim suicide bombing may have nothing to do with Islam or the Koran (except for two lines in it). It may have nothing to do with the religion, politics, the culture, the race, the ethnicity, the language, or the region. As with everything else from this perspective, it may have a lot to do with sex, or, in this case, the absence of sex.

What distinguishes Islam from other major religions is that it tolerates polygyny. By allowing some men to monopolize all women and altogether excluding many men from reproductive opportunities, polygyny creates shortages of available women. If 50 percent of men have two wives each, then the other 50 percent don't get any wives at all.

So polygyny increases competitive pressure on men, especially young men of low status. It therefore increases the likelihood that young men resort to violent means to gain access to mates. By doing so, they have little to lose and much to gain compared with men who already have wives. Across all societies, polygyny makes men violent, increasing crimes such as murder and rape, even after controlling for such obvious factors as economic development, economic inequality, population density, the level of democracy, and political factors in the region.


However, polygyny itself is not a sufficient cause of suicide bombing. Societies in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean are much more polygynous than the Muslim nations in the Middle East and North Africa. And they do have very high levels of violence. Sub-Saharan Africa suffers from a long history of continuous civil wars—but not suicide bombings.

The other key ingredient is the promise of 72 virgins waiting in heaven for any martyr in Islam. The prospect of exclusive access to virgins may not be so appealing to anyone who has even one mate on earth, which strict monogamy virtually guarantees. However, the prospect is quite appealing to anyone who faces the bleak reality on earth of being a complete reproductive loser.

It is the combination of polygyny and the promise of a large harem of virgins in heaven that motivates many young Muslim men to commit suicide bombings. Consistent with this explanation, all studies of suicide bombers indicate that they are significantly younger than not only the Muslim population in general but other (nonsuicidal) members of their own extreme political organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah. And nearly all suicide bombers are single.



Having Sons Reduces The Likehood Of Divorce

Sociologists and demographers have discovered that couples who have at least one son face significantly less risk of divorce than couples who have only daughters. Why is this?
Since a man's mate value is largely determined by his wealth, status, and power—whereas a woman's is largely determined by her youth and physical attractiveness—the father has to make sure that his son will inherit his wealth, status, and power, regardless of how much or how little of these resources he has. In contrast, there is relatively little that a father (or mother) can do to keep a daughter youthful or make her more physically attractive.

The continued presence of (and investment by) the father is therefore important for the son, but not as crucial for the daughter. The presence of sons thus deters divorce and departure of the father from the family more than the presence of daughters, and this effect tends to be stronger among wealthy families.



Beautiful People Have More Daughters

It is commonly believed that whether parents conceive a boy or a girl is up to random chance. Close, but not quite; it is largely up to chance. The normal sex ratio at birth is 105 boys for every 100 girls. But the sex ratio varies slightly in different circumstances and for different families. There are factors that subtly influence the sex of an offspring.

One of the most celebrated principles in evolutionary biology, the Trivers-Willard hypothesis, states that wealthy parents of high status have more sons, while poor parents of low status have more daughters. This is because children generally inherit the wealth and social status of their parents. Throughout history, sons from wealthy families who would themselves become wealthy could expect to have a large number of wives, mistresses and concubines, and produce dozens or hundreds of children, whereas their equally wealthy sisters can have only so many children. So natural selection designs parents to have biased sex ratio at birth depending upon their economic circumstances—more boys if they are wealthy, more girls if they are poor. (The biological mechanism by which this occurs is not yet understood.)

This hypothesis has been documented around the globe. American presidents, vice presidents, and cabinet secretaries have more sons than daughters. Poor Mukogodo herders in East Africa have more daughters than sons. Church parish records from the 17th and 18th centuries show that wealthy landowners in Leezen, Germany, had more sons than daughters, while farm laborers and tradesmen without property had more daughters than sons. In a survey of respondents from 46 nations, wealthy individuals are more likely to indicate a preference for sons if they could only have one child, whereas less wealthy individuals are more likely to indicate a preference for daughters.

The generalized Trivers-Willard hypothesis goes beyond a family's wealth and status: If parents have any traits that they can pass on to their children and that are better for sons than for daughters, then they will have more boys. Conversely, if parents have any traits that they can pass on to their children and that are better for daughters, they will have more girls.
Physical attractiveness, while a universally positive quality, contributes even more to women's reproductive success than to men's. The generalized hypothesis would therefore predict that physically attractive parents should have more daughters than sons. Once again, this is the case. Americans who are rated "very attractive" have a 56 percent chance of having a daughter for their first child, compared with 48 percent for everyone else.



What Bill Gates And Paul McCartney Have In Common With Criminals

For nearly a quarter of a century, criminologists have known about the "age-crime curve." In every society at all historical times, the tendency to commit crimes and other risk-taking behavior rapidly increases in early adolescence, peaks in late adolescence and early adulthood, rapidly decreases throughout the 20s and 30s, and levels off in middle age.


This curve is not limited to crime. The same age profile characterizes every quantifiable human behavior that is public (i.e., perceived by many potential mates) and costly (i.e., not affordable by all sexual competitors). The relationship between age and productivity among male jazz musicians, male painters, male writers, and male scientists—which might be called the "age-genius curve"—is essentially the same as the age-crime curve. Their productivity—the expressions of their genius—quickly peaks in early adulthood, and then equally quickly declines throughout adulthood. The age-genius curve among their female counterparts is much less pronounced; it does not peak or vary as much as a function of age.

Paul McCartney has not written a hit song in years, and now spends much of his time painting. Bill Gates is now a respectable businessman and philanthropist, and is no longer a computer whiz kid. J.D. Salinger now lives as a total recluse and has not published anything in more than three decades. Orson Welles was a mere 26 when he wrote, produced, directed, and starred in Citizen Kane.

A single theory can explain the productivity of both creative geniuses and criminals over the life course: Both crime and genius are expressions of young men's competitive desires, whose ultimate function in the ancestral environment would have been to increase reproductive success.

In the physical competition for mates, those who are competitive may act violently toward their male rivals. Men who are less inclined toward crime and violence may express their competitiveness through their creative activities.

The cost of competition, however, rises dramatically when a man has children, when his energies and resources are put to better use protecting and investing in them. The birth of the first child usually occurs several years after puberty because men need some time to accumulate sufficient resources and attain sufficient status to attract their first mate. There is therefore a gap of several years between the rapid rise in the benefits of competition and similarly rapid rise in its costs. Productivity rapidly declines in late adulthood as the costs of competition rise and cancel its benefits.

These calculations have been performed by natural and sexual selection, so to speak, which then equips male brains with a psychological mechanism to incline them to be increasingly competitive immediately after puberty and make them less competitive right after the birth of their first child. Men simply do not feel like acting violently, stealing, or conducting additional scientific experiments, or they just want to settle down after the birth of their child but they do not know exactly why.

The similarity between Bill Gates, Paul McCartney, and criminals—in fact, among all men throughout evolutionary history—points to an important concept in evolutionary biology: female choice.

Women often say no to men. Men have had to conquer foreign lands, win battles and wars, compose symphonies, author books, write sonnets, paint cathedral ceilings, make scientific discoveries, play in rock bands, and write new computer software in order to impress women so that they will agree to have sex with them. Men have built (and destroyed) civilization in order to impress women, so that they might say yes.



The Midlife Crisis is A Myth, Sort Of

Many believe that men go through a midlife crisis when they are in middle age. Not quite. Many middle-aged men do go through midlife crises, but it's not because they are middle-aged. It's because their wives are. From the evolutionary psychological perspective, a man's midlife crisis is precipitated by his wife's imminent menopause and end of her reproductive career, and thus his renewed need to attract younger women. Accordingly, a 50-year-old man married to a 25-year-old woman would not go through a midlife crisis, while a 25-year-old man married to a 50-year-old woman would, just like a more typical 50-year-old man married to a 50-year-old woman. It's not his midlife that matters; it's hers. When he buys a shiny-red sports car, he's not trying to regain his youth; he's trying to attract young women to replace his menopausal wife by trumpeting his flash and cash.



It's Natural For Politicians To Risk Everything For An Affair (But Only If They're Male)

On the morning of January 21, 1998, as Americans woke up to the stunning allegation that President Bill Clinton had had an affair with a 24-year-old White House intern, Darwinian historian Laura L. Betzig thought, "I told you so." Betzig points out that while powerful men throughout Western history have married monogamously (only one legal wife at a time), they have always mated polygynously (they had lovers, concubines, and female slaves). With their wives, they produced legitimate heirs; with the others, they produced bastards. Genes make no distinction between the two categories of children.

As a result, powerful men of high status throughout human history attained very high reproductive success, leaving a large number of offspring (legitimate and otherwise), while countless poor men died mateless and childless. Moulay Ismail the Bloodthirsty, the last Sharifian emperor of Morocco, stands out quantitatively, having left more offspring—1,042—than anyone else on record, but he was by no means qualitatively different from other powerful men, like Bill Clinton.


The question many asked in 1998—"Why on earth would the most powerful man in the world jeopardize his job for an affair with a young woman?"—is, from a Darwinian perspective, a silly one. Betzig's answer would be: "Why not?" Men strive to attain political power, consciously or unconsciously, in order to have reproductive access to a larger number of women. Reproductive access to women is the goal, political office but one means. To ask why the President of the United States would have a sexual encounter with a young woman is like asking why someone who worked very hard to earn a large sum of money would then spend it.

What distinguishes Bill Clinton is not that he had extramarital affairs while in office—others have, more will; it would be a Darwinian puzzle if they did not—what distinguishes him is the fact that he got caught.



Men Sexually Harass Women Because They Are Not Sexist

An unfortunate consequence of the ever-growing number of women joining the labor force and working side by side with men is the increasing number of sexual harassment cases. Why must sexual harassment be a necessary consequence of the sexual integration of the workplace?

Psychologist Kingsley R. Browne identifies two types of sexual harassment cases: the quid pro quo ("You must sleep with me if you want to keep your job or be promoted") and the "hostile environment" (the workplace is deemed too sexualized for workers to feel safe and comfortable). While feminists and social scientists tend to explain sexual harassment in terms of "patriarchy" and other ideologies, Browne locates the ultimate cause of both types of sexual harassment in sex differences in mating strategies.

Studies demonstrate unequivocally that men are far more interested in short-term casual sex than women. In one now-classic study, 75 percent of undergraduate men approached by an attractive female stranger agreed to have sex with her; none of the women approached by an attractive male stranger did. Many men who would not date the stranger nonetheless agreed to have sex with her.

The quid pro quo types of harassment are manifestations of men's greater desire for short-term casual sex and their willingness to use any available means to achieve that goal. Feminists often claim that sexual harassment is "not about sex but about power;" Browne contends it is both—men using power to get sex. "To say that it is only about power makes no more sense than saying that bank robbery is only about guns, not about money."

Sexual harassment cases of the hostile-environment variety result from sex differences in what men and women perceive as "overly sexual" or "hostile" behavior. Many women legitimately complain that they have been subjected to abusive, intimidating, and degrading treatment by their male coworkers. Browne points out that long before women entered the labor force, men subjected each other to such abusive, intimidating, and degrading treatment.

Abuse, intimidation, and degradation are all part of men's repertoire of tactics employed in competitive situations. In other words, men are not treating women differently from men—the definition of discrimination, under which sexual harassment legally falls—but the opposite: Men harass women precisely because they are not discriminating between men and women.

credits to : Psychology Today.