The Science of hookups

It’s the new year. I see a lot of y’all pouring your hearts out on various platforms about your desire to extricate yourself from Covid-induced self-gratification. Not to worry; I have the two-step solution right here:

• If you’re a woman, you need to signal availability
• If you’re a man, you need to signal commitment

That's it.

Now you would have to be freakin' insane to believe some random twaddle from a sexagenarian scribe on the Internet, but you can trust me because this is science.[1] It comes from a paper published April 2021 titled " Want to Hookup?: Sex Differences in Short-term Mate Attraction Tactics".

The executive summary: 

While a great deal of psychological research has been conducted on sex-specific mate choice preferences, relatively little attention has been directed toward how heterosexual men and women solicit short-term sexual partners, and which acts are perceived to be the most effective. 

The present research relied on an act nomination methodology with the goal of determining which actions are used by men and women to solicit a short-term “hook-up” partner and then determine which of these actions are perceived as most effective by men and women.

These findings are discussed in the context of both short- and long-term mating strategies and mate solicitation. The relationship between motivation, sexual strategies, and sexual behavior are examined…

I like to break things down into listicles. So here, in descending order, are the top five successful hookup strategies for men and women.

Women	Men
She goes home with him	He asks her out to dinner or a movie
She kisses him	He converses with her
She flirts with him	He flirts with her
She dances with him	He asks her to dance or kiss
She gets a drink with him	He asks to walk her home

(My South African and Los Angeles readers are asking: "Walk her home? What's that?")

The top unsuccessful strategies in order.

Women	Men
She dances near him	He gets drunk
She gets drunk	He tries to impress her
She smiles at him	He buys her a drink
She has a friend introduce her to him	He makes body contact with her
She makes eye contact with him	He texts her
She drunk texts him	He dances with her
She laughs at his jokes
She dresses revealingly
She chats with him
She texts him
She exchanges numbers with him
She touches him in general
She teases and jokes around with him

 

("But wait!" you say. "I’m gay" or "I’m lesbian" or "I'm asexual". Sorry guys, I'm cis-hetero and speak from that perspective. But the authors do talk about "the need for research on the hookup tactics and motivations of self-identifying gay, lesbian, and bisexual individuals". Maybe send them some money to do the research?)