5/26/2007 Love And The Intuition

5/26/2007 Love And The Intuition

"That all our knowledge begins with experience there can be no doubt... But... it by no means follows that all arises out of experience." -Immanuel Kant

In the movie “Hitch”, the lead character says something at the climax of the movie that I found rather disturbing. It went thusly:

Sara: “You're a scam artist. You trick women into getting...”

Hitch: “Into getting out of their own way

so great guys like Albert Brennaman have

a fighting chance.”

Is that true? Do women have to be tricked into getting out of their own way? I hated hearing that, but it's easy to believe after joining match.com and sending out 30 emails and getting zero responses. Getting advice from others, including the therapy group I was in at the time, definitely felt like trying to fool them. And much of that was coming from women. And it makes sense, doesn't it? Men like pretty young women, so older women put on the makeup and try to look young. Men are judged by a different standard, so we try to fake confidence and act like it doesn't mean that much to us. Then we try to impress her without letting her know that's what we are doing.

So, women's intuition. What does it mean? Do I have to fool a women to get her to go out with me? How am I going to find my soul mate if I have to act like someone else? I am not a misogynist (famous last words) but I would much rather have to pull on a tight pair of jeans and a halter top than have to act like someone I'm not.

So why? There is no question that when it comes to choosing a mate, women are the more intuitive of the species. Intuition is difficult to define. Roughly it means sudden knowledge. But many people will take it to mean knowledge obtained without reasoning. This is contrary to the context that the quote by Kant was assuming. Intuition was that which is not obtained by the senses.

So what we mean by saying women use their intuition, we mean that they make up their mind before they wait to see the whole picture. Women are attracted to a man's looks, but there are other things that flip their switches. So they decide who you are to them, with or without reasoning, in the first minutes they know you. Do they get it right? The “nice guys finish last” theory is at once inviting and yet tremendously condescending. I have heard women ask, “don't you think women want to be treated nice?” Of course they do. Yet, women all talk about the hurt they suffer at the hands of their past mates, while lots of nice guys sit at home. I am not going to play “games” with anyone, I wouldn't know how. Yet I got no responses, and you bet guys who are playing games have plenty of women to play them on. What does this say about women's intuition?

Here's a link. http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn9135

The link goes to a site that tells of a study of women. In the study, women are shown pictures of men. The majority of women (20 of 29) were able to identify the men with high testosterone levels by pictures of their faces. The majority of women were also able to tell which of the men had an affinity for children. (Note that this research is far from establishing anything factual.)

Is some knowledge, then, genetic, or at least built into the “machine”? Yes, we are talking evolutionary psychology now. But are we also talking soul mates? If a women could sense these things, couldn't we be genetically inclined to sense our soul mates? And for that matter, what is the soul? Is it our genes? Is the genes we have a reflection of the soul? That would be a romantic view of assortative mating, which indicated that humans choose a mate based on genes. That's more than just an evolutionary sense, but also an attempt to find a mate that has the same genetic virtue as you, in an attempt to pass that virtue to the young. Like when stupid people marry each other so that their child will experience bliss.

I've got a long way to go on this one and I am tired and my back is sore. I need some sleep. I'll continue tomorrow. Please return as I will continue to speculate about love at first site, then tell the story of my latest love interest, get a little more into evolutionary psychology, and finally segue into rape fantasies. See ya...