Justin Garcia

So all of that to say, I know this isn't really a helpful answer in some ways because what the literature tells us is that there are all these different factors and they can be prioritized differently depending on where we are in the world, our cultural context, but also where we are in our own individual life course and what's important to us.

That said, there are a handful that we know are pretty important.

Yes, physical interaction, but someone you can trust and confide in.

Intelligence and humor are also often high up there in the scale.

Nice, someone who's nice.

And I think that that's such an important one because all of these big studies that have been done on attraction, looking at different countries, different ages, niceness always pops up at the top.

And I think people are sometimes surprised.

They say, no, you sure it's not someone's hair or their eyes or their facial symmetry?

And the reason I think niceness is so important, and the reason it's important for both men and women, there's no sex difference in the studies, is that it's such a critical factor to really thinking of, okay, am I just attracted to this person or could I imagine being with this person?

Do I want to stick around?

Do I want to spend the night?

Do I want to see you again later?

So if we're looking at relationships, we're focused a lot on could this person not just be someone who...

I have a flame of chemistry for them, but I want to be around them in a week, a month, a year, a decade.

Yeah, so research sometimes looks at, it used to be called cads and dads in the evolutionary literature.

And that's that sometimes we have interests in short-term partners and long-term partners.

And you're exactly right.

So for the long-term partners, we focus on trust and niceness and someone we can be around, build a life with.

But sometimes we're also attracted to these shorter terms, and that's where we focus a lot more on physical attraction.

On short term, we focus more on people who are physically attractive, who engage in risk-taking behavior, what are called CADs for men.