Are You Looking for Casual Sex, a Long-Term Relationship, or Something In-Between?
What we desire depends on what we're looking for
Something I struggled with for most of my life was a terrible fluctuation between looking for a total keeper to settle down with and enjoying the single life. If you’re anything like me, you feel two constant invisible forces pulling you in opposite directions.
Do I roll the dice and take a chance on the precious wonders of romance and long-lasting love? Or do I keep it casual and enjoy my independence?
This perpetual tug-of-war inside of me led to a lot of bad decisions and broken hearts.
I learned the hard way.
Throughout that time, I developed immense respect for the awe-inspiring process of human sexuality. It’s so incredibly complex. So many factors weigh on us. And if we don’t learn to understand them better, it can lead to a lot of pain.
It’s like money. It’s complicated, but if you don’t learn it, there will likely be serious consequences later in life.
Fortunately, sex is a lot more fun to learn about than money.
To be human is to have conflicting desires. We desire social acceptance and the comfort of others, but we strive to be unique individuals. We want certainty and security, but also adventure and novelty at the same time.
Ever go to a club to socialize and find yourself standing around the whole time wondering, “Why on earth am I even here?”
I’ve done that a few times.
It happens when your desire to socialize conflicts with your desire not to feel pressured to socialize. Crazy, I know. It’s a weird combination of feelings we rarely stop and reflect on.
And we have a lot of these contradictions living inside of us.
Sex & Relationships
In 1993, Professor David Buss came up with Sexual Strategies Theory.
According to SST, humans have evolved different sexual strategies to maximize their reproductive success. These strategies can be divided into short-term and long-term mating strategies.
Short-term mating strategies involve casual sex and are typically used by men. These strategies are designed to increase the chances of impregnating as many women as possible.
On the other hand, long-term mating strategies are used by women to try and secure a long-term mate willing to stick around and help out any kids who might come along.
It’s pretty basic, I know. It makes you cringe. But the theory was a solid foundation. It was brilliant for its day.
Since the nineties, it’s come a long way. We’ve learned a lot about sexual behavior since then, and, in turn, we’ve learned a lot about our own sexual desires.
SST was rightly criticized for depicting women as passive recipients of men’s sexual desires and men as pure aggressors. Later research would strip SST of its sexism and demonstrate that people are much more complex than we think—in ways we can understand and predict.
Fortunately for us, this research can also help us understand our internal conflicts and resolve them.