Reducing today’s dating landscape to “natural selection” is both scientifically inaccurate and intellectually lazy. True natural selection rewards traits that ensure survival strength, intelligence, resourcefulness not just raw physical appearance. In prehistory, men who could hunt, protect, and provide earned reproductive success because those traits had direct survival value.

Modern dating is different. What dominates now is sexual selection, divorced from function a Fisherian runaway where superficial preferences spiral unchecked. Algorithms, dating apps, and social media create an illusion of infinite choice, where even average women can access the attention of top-tier men. This doesn’t select for competence or stability; it selects for aesthetics and status. A six-foot-two man with perfect jaw symmetry and no ambition will often outcompete a normal accountant who contributes more to society.

The popular claim that “it’s always been this way” misreads evolutionary history. While some men historically had more mates, they weren’t chosen for their bone structure; they were chosen for their ability to lead, protect, and provide. Today, those functional trade-offs have vanished, replaced by superficial visual criteria that have no link to survival or social stability.

Worse, this runaway selection mirrors biological cautionary tales like the Irish elk, whose antlers grew so massive from female preference that the species ultimately suffered. Likewise, our obsession with hyper-aesthetic traits fuels loneliness, declining birth rates, and widespread romantic instability.

Appealing to “nature” to justify this system is hypocritical. We intervene in natural processes all the time through medicine, agriculture, and technology because “natural” is not always good. Modern dating is not Darwin’s hand guiding society toward fitter outcomes; it’s an algorithm amplifying shallow instincts. Calling it “natural selection” isn’t an explanation it’s an excuse.