The Handbook of Relationship Initiation (2008) reviews the empirical literature on the dynamics that govern the beginning stages of relationships.

Exec Summary

• Relationships make people happier and healthier
• Self-monitors, or people who care about self-presentation, are most successful in socialization (albeit sometimes at the cost of genuineness)
• Gender roles and expectations in dating are still the same, despite all the cultural changes

FULL SUMMARY

About the Author:
Various authors and the editors are Susan Sprecher, Amy Wenzel, and John Harvey.

The formula that tells you when men will approach

The equation is:

V = f ( A × P)

V or “motivation to approach” depends on two main factors:

• A (Attraction): the individual’s level of interest or attraction toward the other person.
• P (Probability of Acceptance): the person’s estimate of how likely the other individual is to reciprocate positively (accept rather than reject the overture).

Other personality traits such as self-esteem moderates the odds of approaching

People who have a secure attachment style are likely to read cues of acceptance or rejection accurately and to calibrate their interest according to the prospect of success (Hazan & Shaver, 1987).
In contrast, people who are fearful (Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991), those who have low self-esteem (Baldwin & Keelan, 1999; Leary, 2004), and those who are particularly sensitive to rejection (Downey, Freitas, Michaelis, & Khouri, 1998) are less likely to make an overture because they are slow to entertain the hypothesis that others are interested in having a relationship with them. Such people read ambiguous cues negatively.
People with a “dismissing” or “avoidant” attachment style also often appear to give up hope of attracting another’s interest.

Conversely, men who are (or think themselves) as high value are more likely to go after attractive partners.

This confirms that the more calculative social exchange model also apply to dating dynamics.

Men don’t go for the most beautiful women

The two-factor model of affiliation listed above explains why men don’t go for the most beautiful women since these women are more likely to reject them.

This was the study that first showed it in a more naturalistic context, with higher ecological validity:

The two-factor model of affiliation was first tested by Huston (1973), who asked men interested in dating to choose a date from an array of six women varying in physical attractiveness from beautiful to above average in looks. In one condition, the men were led to believe all six of the women had expressed an interest in dating them; in a second condition, the women’s interest was left to the men’s imagination. When men believed that all of the women wanted to date them, nearly all of them picked either a beautiful (78%) or a highly attractive (19%) woman, whereas when the men were not provided any information about whether any of the women would accept them, most chose one of the less attractive women.

Attraction also increases partner’s attraction

As per above, knowing that the approach is well received increases the odds of being approached.
But attraction also increases attraction:

A study conducted by Curtis and Miller (1986) complements Snyder and colleagues’ (1977) findings and provides further support for the notion that attraction begets attraction.

This is one of the reasons why I’ve never been into paid sex.
I just didn’t find it exciting to know that someone is there for a payday.

Self-disclosure & interest work to build rapport

There have been many studies on what builds rapport, and for both initial and long-term relationships:

Among the most effective of these strategies are self-disclosure (particularly emotional disclosure), attentiveness, and clearly expressing interest in the other (Clark et al., 1999; Hess, Fannin, & Pollom, 2007; Kenny & La Voie, 1984).

However, as usual, it’s not that simple.
One study found that self-disclosure had the opposite effect with women:

For the women, interestingly, there was a negative correlation between their attraction for the male partner and how much they disclosed to him, but there was no correlation between their attraction and disclosure when no future interaction was anticipated.
Shaffer and Ogden (1986) speculated that the women who expected future interaction may have been more concerned than the men about maintaining a “professional relationship” during the acquaintance exercise and in the follow-up study in which they were both participating. The women, compared to the men, may have reduced self-disclosure during the acquaintance exercise to maintain an emotional distance with a future work partner.

I agree with the author’s speculation.
Women who shared too much felt their partner knew too much, had taken too much from them.
And so they ended up disliking him as a taker of personal information.

But they wouldn’t have disliked him if, say, they ended up romantically involved soon after the disclosure.

Indeed, when a woman self-disclosed too much but we didn’t get intimate, I consider the interaction ended.

Men Brag, But It’s Not Very Effective

Men “embellish” their quality when they’re interested, but are unsure she’s interested in them.

However these “ingratiation tactics” aren’t effective:

In situations where a strong incentive to engage in strategic self-presentation exists, to be successful, would-be ingratiators must cultivate the other’s interest in them while appearing to be genuine.
This may be more easily said than done.
Gordon’s (1996) meta-analysis of ingratiation found that the more obvious the stake a person has in attracting a prospect’s favor, the less effective an ingratiation tactic is in securing the other’s interest.
(…)
he found evidence that obvious self-promotion, in the service of whatever positive impression, generally boomerangs.

People brag on dates when they’re unsure they’re attractive

Figley (1974, 1979) demonstrated that when people are highly attracted to a prospect, but are provided with only moderate assurance of the other’s interest, they are likely to embellish their positive qualities and minimize their shortcomings.
This tendency to enhance one’s image was not found in situations where individuals were not attracted to the potential partner or when they were informed that there was no chance of acceptance by the other.

Indeed, bragging is a skill that must be learned.
And, as usually, socially and power-aware men have the edge.
See:

• How to brag

Self-esteem is an important indicator of value

Men higher in self-esteem had more mating opportunities and more partners:

Another potential indicator of mate value is the social barometer of self-esteem (Kirkpatrick, Waugh, Valencia, & Webster, 2002). Similar to the results with mating opportunities, men who score higher on self-esteem scales tend to choose and to successfully engage in more short-term mating relationships (Baumeister & Tice, 2001; Walsh, 1991)

But the opposite is true for women:

The same relationship was usually not evident, and was often reversed, among women in modern nations.
That is, women with high self-esteem were more likely to pursue monogamous, long-term mating strategies.

Also see:

• Signs of low-value women

Self-Monitors: social chamelons, without darker intent

The parts on self-monitors were the most interesting to me in the whole handbook.

It even inspired me to write an article (coming soon).

My only main doubt is that, to me, self-monitor basically ended up being more a trait of Machiavellianism than its own category.

Here are some key passages.
On chameleon-like qualities:

(…) high self-monitors behave in a chameleon-like fashion during dating initiation, strategically changing their self-presentation in an attempt to appear more desirable to the person they wish to date.

On better approaches and initiations:

Given the highly scripted nature of relationship initiation and the normative expectations regarding positive and negative emotion displays, it is not surprising that high self-monitors are skilled initiators.
(…)
This may explain their ability to initiate romantic relationships more readily than low self-monitors. Thus, the difference between high and low self-monitors’ ability to regulate emotional expression by attending to appropriate social and emotional scripts may account for their success or failure at initiating relationships.
(…)
date almost double the amount of low self-monitors

Also better initiators because they present themselves better (more positively, in this case):

In a study examining the relationship between self-presentational goals (ingratiation and self-promotion) and the expression of emotions during social interactions for individuals high and low in self-monitoring needs, Levine and Feldman (1997) found that across goal type, high self-monitors displayed less negative emotion (i.e., fear, anger, and disgust) and more happiness than low self-monitors and were rated by judges as more competent and likeable.

However, the authors posit that their appeal may set the stage for a future “fatal attraction”.

They’re also better manipulators:

Leck and Simpson (1999) studied the phenomenon of “feigning romantic interest” in a potential romantic partner, defined as the ability to “send more convincing and believ-able messages expressing their ‘intentions,’ even when their intentions do not reflect their underlying attitudes and feelings” (p. 72). Results indicated that high self-monitors successfully conveyed their feigned interest through verbal and nonverbal channels significantly more than did low self-monitors. In addition, high self-monitors believed they would be better at, and derive more enjoyment from, feigning romantic interest than low self-monitors.

Of course, as we know here, manipulation comes at a cost.
In relationship, that makes for less genuine and more toxic relationships:

Although high self-monitors are charming when charm is required (…) their relationships lack the trust and intimacy seen in those of low self-monitors (Snyder & Simpson, 1984).

At this point, it’s unsurprising they’re more player types, and more calculative:

They have an uncommitted orientation toward relationships (Snyder, Berscheid, & Glick, 1985) and have a higher desire than low self-monitors to “trade in” their current partner in favor of another (Snyder & Simpson, 1984).

Due to their ability to adapt to different situations, high self-monitors prefer “segmented” and “non-exclusive” social networks, including romantic partners (Leone & Hawkins, 2006, p. 741). This allows self-monitors to choose partners who are appropriate for a given situation. Often, this choice is dependent on situational or extrinsic factors such as physical appearance (Snyder et al., 1985), social status, and approval from others (Jones, 1993).

By contrast, low self-monitors pick partners more based on character than beauty and go for quality of relationship over quality.

The earlier it is, the more indirect communication is

Few people have the skills and assertiveness to speak straight:

Planalp and colleagues’ investigation of responses to uncertainty-increasing events in close relationships also shows a preference for indirectness (…) Events such as an unexplained loss of contact, the discovery of a competing relationship, or a change in personality were typically followed by efforts to seek information by “talking over” or “talking around” the issue, hardly direct strategies.

And it seems to be the case especially among younger folks:

Bell and Buerkel-Rothfuss (1990) supported and extended this work. Their study of 226 college students in romantic relationships showed that this population frequently engages in secret tests (participants averaged 4.5 secret tests in their current relationship) and confirmed Baxter and Wilmot’s (1984) finding that the number of secret tests generally decreases over the stages of courtship.

And early on:

(…) direct and nonsecretive information-seeking strategy, increased across courtship stages for both males and females. In other words, we become increasingly direct in our information-seeking efforts as we move from initial to late stages of relational development.

Men’s dominance increases their attractiveness

Something here at TPM we made clear from our very first articles:

from an evolutionary psychology perspective, men gain their attractiveness to women through their social status and resources, and dominance is a contributor to both. Dominance is expressed behaviorally, and such behavior presumably reflects an underlying disposition.

As expected, a set of four studies by Sadalla et al. showed that dominance makes men more attractive, but not women.

As we also always highlighted here, it’s dominance, NOT aggressive, domineering, or “as*hole types“:

The effect was specific to dominance as an independent variable and did not occur for related constructs (aggressive or domineering). This study also found that manipulated dominance enhanced only a male’s sexual attractiveness and not his general likeability.

And even more specifically, studies showed that our concept of high power and high warmth maximizes attraction:

Jensen-Campbell et al. (1995) experimentally manipulated behavioral expressions of both male dominance and prosocial orientation.
Conceptually, the design was a 2 × 2 matrix of male behavior, crossing factorially dominance (high versus low) with prosocial tendencies and agreeableness (high versus low). Female college students evaluated the men for overall attractiveness, subjective physical attractiveness, sexual attractiveness, and dating desirability. The researchers also manipulated male physical attractiveness and the target of dominance—another man or a woman. Results showed that in each case, low-agreeable men were not attractive sexually, physically, or as dating partners. Adding or subtracting dominance did not alter that outcome. For men who were high in agreeableness, however, dominance enhanced their attractiveness significantly. Of the four male personae generated by the 2 × 2 design, the high-agreeable, high-dominant man was the most attractive to women.

See more here:

• Dominance in dating
• Dominance in socialization
• High power, high warmth

Another study showed that pro-social accounted for more than dominance:

In another paper, Graziano, Jensen-Campbell, Todd, and Finch (1997) replicated and extended Jensen-Campbell et al.’s work. They explored the phenomenology of both men’s and women’s attraction to persons of the other sex using 372 college men and women. Both men and women reported that high-agreeable targets of the other sex were more physically attractive. When considered as a direct effect on attraction, agreeableness had almost six times the impact of dominance in predicting women’s attraction to men. Mediation analyses showed that dominance had less direct (and indirect) impact on women’s attraction to men when they expected a long-term relationship than when they expected a short-term relationship (see also Miller, Niehuis, & Huston, 2006).

⚠️ Author’s note: all studies based on paper evaluations
Unluckily, all these studies are based on paper evaluations.
I’d personally guess that women’s responses on paper over-estimate the importance of agreeablness and underestimate the importance of dominance.

Exchange VS communal relationships: differences

The Clark and Mills team proposed that distinctly different norms apply to communal relationships, which are concerned with feelings of responsibility for another’s well-being.
(Exchange relationship) benefits are provided to others in return for benefits received (e.g., Walster, Walster, & Berscheid, 1978). Exchange relationships are more common among strangers and among persons anticipating short-term relationships.

For example, people expect to be repaid in exchange relationships, but do NOT want to be repaid in communal ones:

Clark, Mills, and colleagues found that in the exchange condition, the men liked the woman more when she repaid him for helping her. In the communal condition, the men liked the confederate more when she did not repay him.

Fatal attraction: why we hate those we loved

Fatal attraction refers to the phenomenon of disliking someone for the exact same qualities that attracted us:

The qualities that individuals come to dislike in their partners can be an exaggerated version, or a negative interpretation, of those that first drew them to their partner in the first place. A confident partner, for instance, may eventually be seen as “too confident,” or arrogant. This process is referred to as “fatal attraction” (Felmlee, 1995).

This phenomenon is relatively common, with studies placing its occurrence at between 30% and 67% of couples.
And it’s more common when people are attracted to dissimilar or extreme traits:

fatal attractions are significantly more frequent when individuals are attracted to extreme partner qualities (Felmlee, 2001; Felmlee et al., 2006), or those described in an exaggerated manner (e.g., unusually confident).
They also occur more often when individuals report being drawn to partner qualities that are dissimilar or different from their own (e.g., unique; Felmlee, 1998a, 2001) and are less frequent when similarities, or common interests, are the source of attraction (Felmlee, 1998a; Felmlee et al., 2006). These findings underscore the argument that although dissimilarity between partners may be initially alluring, it also is liable to serve as a source of subsequent relationship discontent.

Romantic love is universal

Romantic love is a universal or nearly universal phenomenon, appearing in every culture for which data are available (Jankowiak & Fischer, 1992), in every historical era (Hatfield & Rapson, 2002), and in every age group (Tennov, 1979).

Interesting related findings:

• Romantic love is distinct from attraction or sexuality, albeit sexual attraction plays a role
• Preoccupied attachment styles fall in love most often and most intensely (Hazan & Shaver, 1987)
• Low self-esteem people fall in love harder (Dion and Dion, 1975)
• The gender difference is small, but men are more variable and are more romantic and passionate on average
• Culture mediates how love is enacted within a cultural context
• Romeo and Juliet effect is bogus. Despite what Greene suggests in The Art of Seduction, most studies find parental approval to be a positive factor (Sprecher, Felmlee, Orbuch, & Willetts, 2002).
• Men said “I love you” first in 70% of Booth-Butterfield and Trotta (1994) analysis <— But it didn’t share the sample size :S

Satisfaction in marriages tend to decrease over time

In summarizing research on marital relationship satisfaction in both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies, Berscheid and Regan (2005) noted that newlywed couples are typically very satisfied with their relationship. This satisfaction decreases during the first year of marriage but is still solid. Satisfaction continues to decline, albeit more gradually, for another couple of years and then levels out for a few years, at which time it may begin declining more. Yet absolute levels of satisfaction remain in the “satisfied” range. Wives and husbands seem to have similar satisfaction trajectories. Finally, satisfaction levels decrease more rapidly for people who are less satisfied at the beginning of their marriage (see Berscheid & Regan, 2005, for a review).

Crucially, passionate love may lessen over time in a relationship, but a variety of research has shown that it’s not inevitable.

These were the most reliable:

The best predictors of relationship satisfaction were ultimately positive love (a combination of passionate, altruistic, and friendship love) felt for the partner, the absence of game-playing love, the perception that one did not use aggressive conflict tactics in the relationship, and the perception that the partner was able to take one’s perspective.

Gender role expectations in dating are immutable

The authors first note the typical gebder-based expectations in dating.
And then comment:

Despite what we might assume to be a lessening of rigid sex-role scripts in romantic relationships, the expectations noted above for men and women on a first date appear to be relatively unchanging. For example, the male role as initiator and the female role as recipient and sexual gatekeeper reported in 2000 were similar to those reported in 1993 (Laner & Ventrone, 2000), and those reported in 1993 were similar to those reported in the 1950s (Rose & Frieze, 1993). In fact, these scripts are apparently so prescriptive that men and women find it difficult to deviate from them even when instructed to do so.

Crazier still, men and women found it challenging to let the woman initiate a first date even after being instructed to do so:

Gilbert, Walker, McKinney, and Snell (1999) instructed college student (stranger) dyads to enact the initiation of a first date and then suggest a move to greater sexual intimacy.
In those dyads where assigned gender roles were reversed, 31% of the men initiated the date even when his female partner was assigned the initiator role. Likewise, only about half of the women were able to initiate moves toward sexual intimacy.

Successful male daters use the “seductive voice”

Contrary to what most men think, the seductive voice isn’t all lower pitch.
Instead, it varies from higher pitch, to lower pitch, to higher again:

Of interest for our purposes here is Anolli and Ciceri’s (2002) interpretation of the vocal variations during the course of the seductive sequence.
The beginning of the sequence is marked by higher pitch, elevated intensity, and faster rate of articulation. The middle phase shifts gradually to a lower, weaker, and warmer voice, which the authors referred to as the “self-disclosure voice.” The third phase moves back to a higher pitch, higher intensity, and accelerated rate when actually making the request for the woman to meet him again.

Then the researches hypothesizes why that work, but ultimately they didn’t know for sure.

People differ in their level of romanticism

“Romanticism” wasa a new trait of people’s psychology that this book introduced me to:

Those high in romanticism believe that love is possible at first sight ( love at first sight), each of us has only one true love ( one and only), true love will find a way to overcome any obstacle ( love finds a way), and true loves are perfect ( idealization).

And, unsruprisingly, people high in romanticism also fall in love more and more often:

higher romanticism scores, both in general and for specific facets (except love at first sight), were concurrently related to greater reports of love, satisfaction, and commitment for both men and women (Sprecher & Metts, 1999).

In dating, people rate other on 3 main categories

dimensions: (a) warmth and trustworthiness, (b) attractiveness and vitality, and (c) status and resources (see Fletcher et al., 1999). Each dimension may reflect a different route—focusing on good investment or on “good genes”—to obtain a mate and, ultimately, to promote one’s reproductive fitness (cf. Buss & Schmitt, 1993).

At least on paper, people say they prefer warmth over status:

when warmth and trustworthiness were pitted against status and resources, gender differences virtually disappeared, with most men and women preferring partners who were poor and warm to those who were cold and rich.

And when it came to attractiveness:

In contrast, when warmth and trustworthiness were pitted against attractiveness and vitality, partner preferences were strongly affected by long-term versus short-term relationship goals. For instance, when selecting a partner for a “permanent” relationship, nearly everyone chose a warm and homely person over a cold and attractive person.
When choosing a partner for a short-term fling, however, virtually everyone chose a cold and attractive person over a warm and homely one.

Expectations impacts relatioship satisfaction

People tend to have ideal standards for partners and relationships.

And the flexibility of those standards and how their current partner and relationshpis match them determines their satisfaction with the relationhip.

However, lack of flexibility is not necessarily bad, as long as the partner matches them:

individuals who report having less flexible ideal standards typically report the highest relationship quality when their partners match their ideals. Relationship quality is lowest, on the other hand, when individuals are less flexible and partner discrepancies are large. Thus, less flexible ideal standards can either enhance or diminish perceptions of relationship quality, depending on ideal partner–current partner discrepancies.

Narratives of relationships reveal couples’ insights

For example:

• Couples who coordinate their story have better relationships

research suggests that those couples who are able to smoothly coordinate their stories show better relationship well-being.

• Couples who agree with the story their partner shares have better relationships

Women who disconfirmed their partner’s view of events during the joint narrative showed lower DAS scores, and both men and women who disconfirmed their partner’s views scored higher on a 45-item measure of perceived relational instability.

• Conflict during storytelling predicted relationship happiness 2 years later

newly married couples who were coded as displaying some conflict while telling their courtship story had lower marital happiness 2 years later (controlling for Time 1 marital happiness), compared to those who were coded as telling their courtship story without conflict.

Socially anxious individuals create their reality

Socially anxious people tend to think lowly of themselves, and especially of their social skills.

They expect not to be liked, and to do poorly with others.
When they approach others, they approach them defensively, as if they have to make up for a personal lack:

As a coping mechanism, those who are fearful tend to use affinity-seeking strategies that are self-deprecating, assuming that others will provide reassurances and show positive feelings toward them (Vorauer, Cameron, Holmes, & Pearce, 2003). Unfortunately, such self-deprecating messages during a first meeting are less likely to evoke positive regard from others than are self-positive or other-positive strategies.

These issues are particularly problematic in relationship initiations, either social or romantic, and especially so for men:

shyness in men appears to be more problematic during initial interactions than is shyness in women (Crozier, 2001). This differential effect is no doubt linked to the nature of the initiation script, which prescribes more assertive moves for men and more reactive moves for women.

People who believe they’re not likable set off a self-fulfilling prophecy

When people believe that others in general (Downey et al., 1998), or a particular other (Curtis & Miller, 1986), will not like them, they tend to behave cautiously and defensively. They are also less forthcoming and more disagreeable than individuals who believe that they are likable. Accordingly, these initial expectations set up an interpersonal dynamic that is self-fulfilling, leading them to behave in ways that actually induce the awkward social situations and rejection that they fear.

And it’s also challenging to then change people’s opinions because, yes, first impressions are sticky:

First impression are indeed lasting impressions

Research has shown that first impressions tend to be lasting impressions.
That is, it is rather difficult to get past our first impressions (e.g., Fiske & Taylor, 1991) because people tend to selectively focus on information that confirms rather than disconfirms their initial judgment when they interact with these same people again (e.g., Higgins & Bargh, 1987).

Hookup culture can be costly to youth

The handbook had an interesting chapter on hookups and hookup culture

One man said he grew disillusioned with relationship after his hookups -talking about a guy with naive/”blue pill” expectations :)-.

Some youth may also get mired into a string of hookups, chasing their next “fix” in the next hookup:

there is other evidence that casual sexual experience begets more—and riskier—casual sexual experience. For example, Lindblade, Foxman, and Koopman (1994) found that successive sexual partnerships were more likely to occur in an informal setting with an unknown partner, had a briefer presexual phase, and were less likely to involve condom use. Thus, once embedded in a repeat pattern of hookups, it may be difficult for youth to extract themselves and move toward more emotionally intimate relating.

And it can be even more a risk for depression:

Moreover, Grello, Welsh, Harper, and Dixon (2003), in a study of the mental health correlates of sexual and relationship trajectories of non-dating-experienced virgin adolescents, found that transition to casual sex (quite pervasive in their sample) was associated with greater depressive symptoms and problem behaviors. Transition to dating or sexual intercourse in the context of a romantic relationship was not associated with negative psychological or behavioral outcomes.

The line between stalking and pursuing can blurry

First off, it depends on who is pursuing:

Third, a person’s persistence threshold can differ across relationship pursuers, such that more persistent pursuit is accepted from one pursuer whereas less persistence is tolerated from another pursuer.

And there is also some ambivalence in the victims:

some research indicates that victims of unwanted relationship pursuit often view the experience with considerable ambivalence, perceiving it as simultaneously threatening and romantic, aversive and positive, and frustrating and flattering (e.g., Dunn, 1999, 2002; Haugaard & Seri, 2003, 2004).

And the fact that some stalking case “end” with the couple rejoining does suggest that this dynamic is not always what it’s taken to be.

Stalking can be driven by revenge-seeking & power

When rejection leads an obsessive pursuer to abandon pursuit of intimacy, the desire for revenge can perpetuate stalking activity.
Cupach and Spitzberg (2004a) explained, In these cases, the underlying motivation for stalking transforms from seeking a relationship to salving the wounds of humiliation. Such transformations may be gradual or sudden, and it is not uncommon for desperate relationship pursuers to intersperse messages of both affinity and venge-fulness as manifestations of their own dialectical struggle with the competing motives of rage and romance.

This is one of the reasons why on this website we sometiems caution for a strategic approach when rejecting people or offers.
See:

• How to reject a date invite
• How to postpone intimacy
• How to say no
• How to manipulate a manipulator

And, in general, how to power protect and save face.

The feminist relationship perspective is about power

Something we often mentioned here, that feminism and “reactionary patriarchy” are about power:

The feminist perspective is important because it directs us to attend to how power and authority are distributed in new relationships

Interestingly, the authors suggest that women start lower power in early relationship but demand/get more power in successive ones as they learn:

there is reason to believe that power is distributed more equitably in subsequent committed romantic relationships than it is in earlier ones.

MORE WISDOM

Younger women are more obvious, older women more subtle

In a study of 100 females ages 13 to 16 in a mixed sex setting, Moore (1995) reported that the younger girls used many of the same solicitation signals commonly exhibited by women. But, girls made more frequent use of play and teasing behavior, and displayed an exaggerated form of many signals. No doubt, the girls learned subtlety with time

Also see:

• Signs that she likes you

Dating follows market-like dynamics

Something we showed plenty here at TPM:

Why don’t people pursue the perfect mates (…)?
To begin with, there are very few people who fit such a description.
Second, most individuals would not be able to attract such a person(…).
Third, (…) would be quite difficult to retain him or her (…)
In short, people are often forced to form realistic standards and make trade-offs (Regan, 1998).

Also see our article on mate value:

• Sexual market value

Short-term dating is more deceitful

Cunningham and Barbee (this volume) found that individuals who are seeking short-term relationships are particularly likely to be disingenuous—if need be—in order to attract another’s interest.
In contrast, individuals who have a long-term orientation are more likely to try to attract a partner through supportive ingratiating behaviors, such as helping a potential partner accomplish something, being honest, and providing sincere compliments. Such partner-oriented individuals typically eschew the use of deceptive, manipulative ingratiation tactics, seeing them as illegitimate ways to elicit the other’s attraction.

Women in relatioships are interested in powerful men, rather than attractive ones

Kenrick and his colleagues (1994), for example, demonstrated using the “contrast effect” that experimental exposure to physically attractive women tended to lessen a man’s commitment to his current relationship partner.
However, exposure to physically attractive men had no effect on women’s commitment to their current partners. Conversely, when women were exposed to targets who had high status- and resource-related attributes, this lessened women’s (but not men’s) commitment to their current romantic partners.

Also see:

• Female hypergamy

Women who care more about looks are more promiscuous

In numerous studies, Gangestad and his colleagues have shown that women who seek short-term mates place special importance on the physical attractiveness of their partners, and that physically attractive men are more likely to pursue short-term

Women are more influenced by peer choice

Females were more influenced than males by levels of peer attention, especially by negative information, supporting the social attributes hypothesis.
Thus, peer esteem can be a personal asset that is as desirable as physical attractiveness or wealth, a result that we call the celebrity effect.

Conservative whites prefer white women

White conservative participants experienced more romantic desire for White speed-daters compared to racial minority speed-daters, whereas White liberal participants (i.e., those low in conservatism) experienced more romantic desire for other-race speed-daters compared to White speed-daters.

In online dating looks matter most

users of dating sites routinely select potential interaction partners to contact based on the pictures in their profiles: If the picture passes muster, they then look at the other attributes listed in the profile (e.g., Hitsch, Hortaçsu, & Ariely, 2006; Whitty & Carr, 2006). That is, physical attractiveness is the first and most important factor in their selection of potential partners.

Waist to hip ration is not straightforward and includese other variables

WHRs is related to evaluations of attractiveness, but the mechanism is not yet clear:

Tassinary and Hansen (1998) noted that Singh portrayed WHRs with line drawings. Singh’s stimulus material had a built-in bias in that WHRs were confounded with perceived weight. That is, differences in attraction that Singh attributed to WHRs could be as plausibly attributed to the well-established negative evaluation of overweight women (e.g., Crandall, 1994; Graziano et al., 2007). Tassinary and Hansen constructed stimuli that systematically and independently varied weight, waist size, and hip size (WHR). College students individually ranked drawings of women, once for attractiveness and once for capability of bearing children. Results show that judgments of attractiveness and fecundity can be either unrelated or related, positively or negatively, to the WHR depending on waist size, hip size, and weight. Tassinary and Hansen concluded that WHRs are inconsistent with the evolutionary argument that human physical attractiveness is fundamentally a sign of mate value.

The book then mentions Swami & Tovee, 2005 casting doubts over the evolutionary link between WHR and evolution.
I’ve noticed Swami was generally critical of some evolutionary claims, but I disagree here. Of course you never jump to conclusion, but the evolutionary logic in explaining several attraction cues, including WHR, seems pretty solid to me.

White women with children are more likely to remarry

And that may suggest that children is not such a huge handicap in the sexual market place.
However, it doesn’t say of course anything about the quality and value of the next partner:

for White but not African American partners, having children following divorce increases the likelihood that one will remarry, as single women who give birth to children after divorce are almost twice as likely to remarry as are divorced women who bear no children (Suchindran, Koo, & Griffith, 1985).

High socio-economic status women also have higher odds of remarriage, and women in women from nonmetropolitan areas have a 48% higher probability of remarriage (National Center for Health Statistics, 2002).

Practical Applications

Be expressive because it’s more attractive

A long time ago I wrote a post about low-expressivity men, saying that their low expressivity made them less attractive to women.
And I hypothesized that Mediterreanean men in Europe tended to have a reputation for attractiveness also because of their higher expressiveness.

In our product we also recommend and provide examples on how to use more nonverbal body language to communicate.
So I’m glad that scientific evidence backs it up:

Empirical and theoretical scholarship suggests that emotional expressivity contributes to interpersonal attraction.

However, it’s important to keep it positive and balanced, without overdoing it in either extremes:

The attractiveness of the emotionally expressive person that Boone and Buck (2003) identified arises from a moderate or socially appropriate level of expressivity, in terms of both frequency and intensity.

As we also wrote here: balance is a law of the universe.

Avoid pick-up lines

But in general, research shows, appear to be those that are not seen as “lines” by women: Confident, direct, or innocuous overtures are more likely to get a conversation off to a good start than are indirect, cute, or clever gambits (Clark et al., 1999; Cunningham, 1989; Kleinke & Dean, 1990).

Also see here:

• Best pick up lines (and which ones to avoid)

Reciprocate self-disclosure

it is also important for disclosures to be reciprocal. If Person A reveals something intimate about herself, Person B needs to reciprocate with an equally intimate disclosure.
Reciprocity is considered important in establishing trust in a relationship (Altman, 1973).

Early conversation and information follows social exchange dynamics. If you only ask and never share, it feels like you’re a taker.

On the otherh hand, you don’t need to keep reciprocating once the relationship is more well-established.

Don’t over-share too much, too soon

Reciprocal and gradual self-disclosure increases intimacy and is associated with closeness and liking.

But over-sharing too much too soon does the opposite:

there is evidence that disclosures that are too intimate—revealing “too much too soon”—are not likely to be reciprocated and can result in dislike for the discloser (e.g., Archer & Berg, 1978; Archer & Burleson, 1980; Cozby, 1972; Rubin, 1975; Wortman, Adesman, Herman, & Greenberg, 1976).

Have people introduce you

If you’re unsure how to meet women, consider having someone introduce to you:

Research suggests that two individuals are more likely to pursue a dating relationship when third parties bring them together than without third-party intervention (Parks, 2007).

QUOTES

Even researchers know that dating is a game :) :

to be successful, would-be ingratiators must cultivate the other’s interest in them while appearing to be genuine.

On monogamy being best for lower-status men:

Among the more important sex-specific features that affect mating strategies are men’s overall mate value and women’s ovulatory status.
(…)
Given an equal sex ratio of men and women in a given culture, this results in other men—namely, those with low status and prestige—being limited to monogamy in the form of one wife.

And on mate value being a crucial factor:

Whether a man follows a more short-term- or long-term-oriented mating strategy depends on other factors as well, many of which relate to the man’s overall value in the mating marketplace (Gangestad & Simpson, 2000).

On researchers speaking their language (and the argument itself is a great point):

In sum, the unidimensional conceptualizations of attraction raised fundamental questions about discriminant validity and, ultimately, the construct validity of attraction itself

On the “curse of the successful player” being awaken from his previous naive ideals:

Consider the following concern, echoed by many youth, expressed by a 20-year-old young man: My hookups have made me concerned about future long-term love relationships and whether I can trust anyone. Several girls that I’ve hooked up with, even had sex with, have had boyfriends.
Knowing this will most likely make me very jealous throughout a long-term relationship.

Good to know I wasn’t the only one using Sex and The City as example of dating dynamics :D :

In an episode of Sex in the City, the four main protagonists (i.e., attractive professional women in their 30s) sit in a bar in New York bemoaning the lack of available men in New York. In fact, the establishment is stacked with young, reasonably attractive men—busboys, doormen, barmen, water waiters, and so forth. These men, however, are not mateworthy (and are almost invisible to the four women) because they fall well below the minimum criteria of status and resources that such women will normally possess

🙋🏼‍♂️ Lucio’s Analysis

None of these take anything away from this book, and they’re also common notes of mine for most handbooks.

So take them as “Lucio’s notes as he read through”:

• Still too many studies based on paper evaluations

For example, when reviewing the studies on dominance I grew suspicious when agreeablness accounted for “6 times more than dominance in women’s attraction”.

As I suspected, it was based on paper evaluations, not interactions.

And I’m skeptical about it.
Bring me a super nice guy who’s low in dominance and leadership, and I’ll show you a guy who’s not maximizing his dating potential.

• Ovulatory shift is far from consensus

When this book was written several successive studies seemed to confirm the “ovulatory shift” and increased attraction for more masculine men during the fertile window.

There is more mixed evidence now.

• Sometimes tautological

The Italians say that one “discovered” warm water to to poke fun at common sense “discoveries”.
Science sometimes is like that, and this made me smile:

Skills at initiating interactions (e.g., introducing yourself) were most important in the early stages.
In the words of Buhrmester et al. (1988), “[I]nitiation competence may be important in the beginning of relationships, but may lessen in impact once a relationship is well-established;

Ie.: skills at initiating interactions are more important during the early stages that include initiation.
Yeah, surprising :).
And, I’d bet, skills at maintaining interactions are more important during the maintenance phase :).

• Some cultural determinism

For example:

Because men and women are socialized to see one another as potential romantic partners rather than friends, cross-sex friends may be confused by their feelings of intimacy and closeness.

I wouldn’t necessarily say that’s because of socialization.

And:

This reinforces the importance, however, of articulating “definite” messages of disinterest or obvious messages of disaffinity, and these are tactics that interactants often shy away from because of the cultural imperatives of politeness (Brown & Levinson, 1987).

I wouldn’t call that a “cultural imperative” either.
I wouldn’t be surprised if people who cushioned their rejections with some politeness simple fared better in life (and survived and reproduced more).

• Would modern men be interested in non-fertile women?

Write the author:

Parenthetically, it could be argued that the opposite would be plausible, namely, that modern men in industrialized societies would be interested in cues showing that a woman was not fertile. For now, we follow the evolutionary logic

It may be an interesting take on possible new directions of evolution, but put it like that it misses the whole point of how evolution works -and on what timescales it operates on-.

• Should share the sample size more often

This is a complaint I often have and wished authors shared the sample size more often.

Instead, they seldom do, and I’m often left wondering how generalizable a single study may be (and I often ask AI for more info and similar studies).

For example, in this case:

Booth-Butterfield and Trotta (1994) analyzed dating couples’ written descriptions of the circumstances surrounding the first expression of love (…) 70% of the sample reported that men said, “I love you,” first.

Interesting.
And exactly because it’s interesting I wanted to know how many couples were in that study.

REVIEW

The Handbook of Relationship Initiation (2008) is a valuable resource for anyone interested in socialization, relationships, and dating.

I took away many new insights.
It allowed me to improve and strengthen with empirical evidence several articles for our website. And it gave me the idea and resources to write new ones.

Strengthening TPM with empirical evidence is very important to our approach and mission.
And hence I’m very grateful to the authors for their work.

Check the best books to read or get this book on Amazon.