Sorry, I’m still dropping science on your bastard asses. Genes, germs, and environment. Who you are is very likely beyond your control.
Fucking fascinating.
Science has also provided a little comfort as to why your amorous advances are sometimes spurned. A famous study had women sniffing the underarms of T-shirts worn by men and then ranking the odor. The more similar the men’s and women’s immune system genes were, the worse the T-shirt stank to the women. There is a sound evolutionary explanation for this: If parental immune genes are too similar, the offspring will not be as well equipped to fight pathogens. In this case, genes used odor receptors as a proxy to size up whether a potential mate’s DNA is a good match. Studies like this affirm that chemistry between people really is a thing. Perhaps we should not take another’s romantic disinterest personally but view it more like organ rejection.
Full article aqui.
Does that mean that since Mrs Droogie and Mrs Makerbot are sisters, we should be sniffing each others dirty t shirts? Cuz if you want I’ll mail you a nasty smelling t shirt…
Just the Radiohead ones.
We are DEFINITELY meat robots under the influence of unseen forces. The research is fun, and I like the curiosity driving the immune haplotype line of thinking. The original research was reported twenty years ago by Swiss scientists, and also included the finding that women at their most fertile preferred the smell of more symmetrically-featured men.
There was no shortage of criticism, including one scientist who said that “I think mate choice is probably a lot more complicated, particularly in humans.”
Are Lyle Lovett and Julia Roberts still together?
Yes! I prefer to think of us as bags of skin filled with chemicals that tell us when to eat, sleep, shit and fuck. Very humbling.
And almost every day, I look at my kids and realize how subtly genetics influence behavior.