A spring in your step

Spring, as they say, has most definitely sprung. As the daffodils sway gently in the breeze and lambs skip youthfully in the lush fields, Nature turns her mind to all things sexual.

What better time then, to present the Science Lite guide to dating? Who the hell are we to hand down such advice?…you might reasonably ask. It’s true we are no one’s romantic ideal – too many double chins by far – but a few pieces of research have come to our attention which have emboldened us.

Now, we should clarify at this point our guide is aimed at all on the sexual panoply aiming to impress a female. And, in fact, is less a guide, more a simple bit of advice. So, here it is; if you want to drive the girls wild with spring-time amour, grow a beard and compose music… the more complex the better. One of these on their own might work, but if you manage both then, well, the dating world will be your oyster.

Unsurprisingly, the reason for all this comes down to evolution. A study from the University of Sussex suggests that during the most fertile phase of their menstrual cycle, women prefer sexual mates who are able to produce more complex music. The paper’s author, Dr Benjamin Charlton, says: “The findings of this study provide the first support for Darwin’s original contention that music evolved via sexual selection.”

Charlton took 1500 women and asked them to choose which of four similar piano compositions – as played by a music software application – was the most complex. They then had to judge whether they would prefer the composer of simple or complex melody either as a short-term sexual partner, or a longer-term partner in a committed relationship. It turns out woman preferred composers of more complex music as short-term sexual partners when the likelihood of conception was highest. “The ability to create complex music could be indicative of advanced cognitive abilities,” says Charlton. “Consequently, women may acquire genetic benefits for offspring by selecting musicians able to create more complex music as sexual partners.” When it comes to tweaking the evolutionary heart strings, it seems the syncopation of jazz and the complexity of classical music have one over on the ‘bland-but-pretty’ popsters.

And so to our bearded lotharios. What can a hirsute chin possibly offer other than chafing? Well, according to a study published in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters, it’s because they are rare. Professor Rob Brooks, an evolutionary biologist, decided to test whether there was an evolutionary influence behind the cyclical nature of beard-trends. And yes, apparently such a thing does exist. “In the 1970s it was handlebar moustaches. In the 80s it was Magnum PI moustaches. In the 90s we saw a lot of clean shaven men, and now big bushy beards are back,” says Brooks.

In his study, women and men were asked to rate different faces with four ‘standard levels of beardedness’. Both beards and clean-shaven faces became more appealing when they were rare. This led Brooks to suggest that something called negative frequency-dependent sexual selection plays a role in the culture of face-fluff. Or to put it more simply, if it’s rare – it could be sexy. However you gotta be quick. If we reach the delightfully named ‘peak-beard’ situation – the point where more and more people get onto the bandwagon and the value of being on the bandwagon diminishes – all your hard grown mutton-choppage will put you at a disadvantage. Hipsters of the world take note.

So, if spring has gotten you all hot under the collar, then maybe it is time to put down the razor and pick up an instrument. Not bass guitar though… nobody wants that.