I think DNA determines what we find attractive in a mate. Young women are looking for the outstanding studs of the herd to sire kids (yes, they are just dating, but that is the primordial dynamic). So she goes for the bad guys, the aggressive, sleep with them all, tru players...but once that urge is taken care of, she wants to live with the nice guy, especially the nice guy who will raise her bad-boy children.
The rub is the bad boy is exactly what she wants when she is of childbearing age, but it is the good guy she wants afterwards because the bad boy won't or can't change and she needs a good guy more than a bad boy for the rest of her life.
And this is one reason why women dating younger men is odd and of some concern..she hasn't outgrown her bad boy stage.
I am of the anti-feminist view that what we find attractive in a potential mate is genetically determined, and that we can't change that anymore than we can change our eye color.
So, can we "see" someone and instantly know that one is right? Sure, our DNA is screaming "that one, that one over there." So once the DNA is happy the rest of us goes over and finds out if the remainder potentially matches too: Personality, beliefs, sexual tastes, et cetera.
That said, there is an interesting study out of England. They had women take baths with non-scented soap. Then they wore their own new T-shirt for 24 hours. They put the once-worn T-shirts in separate plastic bags. Now, here is where it gets interesting. In general terms, science can now tell if two peoples' genetic compliments will likely produce healthy children or unhealthy children. Now, back to the T-shirts. The man then smells each T-shirt and picks out the one that he likes the most, or said another way, the one that offends him the least, either way will do. Invariably he picks the one wore by the woman whose genes will complement his genes the best and has the greatest potential for producing healthy children. They've done the test several times with men doing the sniffing and it works 100 percent of the time. They are now running the test with women doing the sniffing. So, is it lust, is it love, or is it really the nose and basic chemistry?
If our mate selection is really based on genetics and potential healthy children, that would explain a lot of things in our lives, like how she can be in love with such a crude bad boy and spit on the niceguys. Well, his genes are a good match for hers. His crudness is really a social issue not a reproductive healthy-child issue. ...and perhaps divorces, too...our DNA gets us married and we have healthy kids but then the rest of us can't live with our spouse because all we had in common was good genes.
Sometimes I think we are more animal and instincts than we like to admit.
