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I usually assume people, when selecting mates, have a calibration thing in their heads that evaluates the pool of mate choices "in their league", and then experiences attraction to a top narrow percent of them. I also assume this percentage remains stable; as in, if you-

Aella

@Aella_Girl

Apr 11, 2020

shake up the mate pool, or change what "in their league" means, that the person's attraction will naturally revert to being triggered by the same top narrow percent. This feels true because everyone I know seems to be attracted to roughly the same amount of people.

Aella

@Aella_Girl

This is different for men and women ofc, but when adjusting for that, these "attraction pools" seem roughly the same size. Is this a thing? Have people studied this? I want to know the size and variance of this "top narrow percent" is. I'll accept anything even slightly related.

5:32 AM · Apr 11, 2020

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See my late 90s papers on mate choice heuristics, at

primalpoly.com

Geoffrey Miller, Ph.D.

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Don't know of any research but evolutionarily how else could it work. Your genes don't pre-know their own relative hotness so they must come with a calibration mechanism or we would risk Giant Panda-ing ourselves. Or, conversely end our line by making relatively unfit matches.

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Thanks! I know I said anything slightly related, but this feels like a miss to me - iirc this was just rating photos, whereas when I'm talking about attractiveness I'm referring to a much more holistic thing.

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people.duke.edu/~dandan/webfil might be too image-focused but there are some useful citations in the intro

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I def read stuff about this, not entirely sure where. You will find some things there: theatlantic.com/magazine/archi In particular on statistics eg: "daters of both genders tend to pursue prospective mates who are on average 25 percent more desirable than they are" (ur "top percent")

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Different for men and women how?

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I think

has done some studies on related topics

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This isn't an answer, because I don't know. But maybe a slight twist where it's not a % of people in your league but just of people available? Not in terms of marriage I mean in your vicinity. I for one am attracted out of my league.

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It seems to be a thing. Buss’s Evolution of Desire talks about how we see ourselves amongst the pool of the potential mates, i.e. I am an X, I should date an X. I do find that so much of my experience is deeply relative but nevertheless feels nontrivially objective.