Sex and the Dimple: Jealous by Nature
Tanya Kollar '08
Issue date: 2/6/08 Section: Features
Although I'm currently single, my first three years at Wheaton were spent in a long-distance relationship. Despite warnings from my friends about the dangers of heading off to school with a boyfriend, I decided to go for it and see how things panned out. Luckily we both dealt with the situation quite well - except when it came to jealousy. I was always worried he would take a liking to some creative, cultured, artsy fartsy chick from his art school. He, on the other hand, always jokingly warned me not to "make out with boys" whenever I was heading out to a party. Although he'd rather joke about the issue of cheating, my past lapses in judgment caused him to be seriously concerned that I'd hook up with a fellow Wheatie.
So both of us were jealous, but for different reasons. I dreaded the thought of him straying emotionally, and he was worried I would stray physically. Why the disparity? In reading about evolutionarily based mating strategies, I came upon a theory claiming that men and women are evolutionarily predisposed to think differently about infidelity. When you think about it in terms of Darwin's "survival of the fittest," this makes a ton of sense. Men are more concerned with acts of sexual infidelity because they want to pass on their own genes to the woman. For females, on the other hand, it's more biologically beneficial to be concerned with whether the male will continue to support her children after conception.
So the next time your special someone gets jealous, you can say, "Oh honey, that's just evolution playing mind games with you." Unless he/she is a creationist…in that case I'd suggest a good old fashioned "Don't worry, I love you."
So both of us were jealous, but for different reasons. I dreaded the thought of him straying emotionally, and he was worried I would stray physically. Why the disparity? In reading about evolutionarily based mating strategies, I came upon a theory claiming that men and women are evolutionarily predisposed to think differently about infidelity. When you think about it in terms of Darwin's "survival of the fittest," this makes a ton of sense. Men are more concerned with acts of sexual infidelity because they want to pass on their own genes to the woman. For females, on the other hand, it's more biologically beneficial to be concerned with whether the male will continue to support her children after conception.
So the next time your special someone gets jealous, you can say, "Oh honey, that's just evolution playing mind games with you." Unless he/she is a creationist…in that case I'd suggest a good old fashioned "Don't worry, I love you."
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