Men and Women Fixing Relationship Problems Is What Drove Us to Build Cities — Here is How
The crazy story of how men and women evolving to desire to fix ever more relationship problems is what drove us to build our cities
If I said that fixing relationship problems was what drove the human race to build cities, most would think I was mad. However, fixing relationship problems is what inspired the human race to build cities.
This is because at the heart of relationship problems is the desire to create a better world, or more specifically, a safer world.
We all want to be safe
It is well documented that one of the primary factors that fuel women’s desire to have sex is feeling safe, obviously, as a man, I cannot say whether this is entirely accurate or not, but I can say that every woman I have ever dated has said that it is the primary factor, and every female I’ve ever heard talk about sex has put feeling safe with their partner as the primary factor, so I think it’s a fair bet that the literature on this subject is most likely accurate.
That means when it comes to interesting a woman — and this is a great dating tip guys — it’s all about proving to her that you are a safe zone and that you can create a safe zone for the both of you. If you do it well, women typically do the same in return. That means yep, the latter is also a great dating tip for women, prove yourself a safe zone and you will attract a man.
The reasons for this are obvious, we want to know we are not going to die as a result of you being in our life. But how do you prove yourself to be a safe zone?
On a superficial level, one way is that men tell jokes, and women laugh at them. Yep, men are not all great comedians despite so many women finding their husband’s jokes funny, what is most likely happening is when a man tells a joke, on a subliminal level, he is saying “I’m a safe zone”, which is exactly what the woman is most likely saying when she laughs.
This is the most probable reason women laugh at terrible jokes told by their partners, and why their partners tell terrible jokes, it’s not because of what is being said, it is because of the message that is being relayed on a subliminal level.
So, men telling jokes and women laughing is most likely a form of human mating ritual — a bit like a songbird singing to attract a mate, except the male human song is attempted humour, and the female human response is laughter.
But the question is how do you get a man to tell you bad jokes and how do you get a woman to laugh at your bad jokes, and more importantly than that, how do you get men to keep telling you the bad jokes and women to keep laughing at them?
The answer is that a male needs to form the intelligence to know when and under what circumstances a female will give consent, and a female needs to form the intelligence to know when to give consent.
This reality is true in every species, even in tarantulas where the female will eat the male if the opportunity presents itself after they have mated — before mating, both the male and female tarantula will prove themselves safe zones, all bets may be off afterwards, but prior to and during, it’s all about safety.
However, the difference between tarantulas and humans is that tarantulas only have to prove themselves safe zones briefly, in humans, because we evolved to form sexual connections, we have to prove it constantly.
Sex drives gain superpowers when sexual connections are formed
The happier our sex drives, the more terrible jokes a male will tell and the more a female will laugh at them, the less happy, the more we will be incentivised to search for the laughter.
This is because both men and women equally want to have sex — because that is how you pass on your DNA. However, in a non-pair bonded species, it is wiser to move on from a partner the moment the laughter dies and find someone who already is laughing.
So, there is no loyalty.
But in a pair bonded species, because couples give each other loyalty, they are incentivised to work together to bring back the laughter a.k.a. fix the problem.
In the past, the problem would always have been the environment was not right for making a baby.
That means in a pair bonded species, the males and females' desire to have sex with each other incentivises them to work together to create the right environment for raising children in.
So, if it is not one where the female could survive pregnancy and the offspring could make it into adulthood, they are incentivised to work together to find a better environment or to work together to make the present one more suitable.
This same incentive does not exist in a non-pair bonded species, that’s why there are no non-pair bonded species that have built cities.
But there is a caveat, many birds pair bond and they don’t create cities, so what gives?
Sexual connections on their own create loyalty — but not cities
In arguably the most monogamous species on the planet, geese, the females can demand the males be loyal and help build and protect the nest, and the males can demand the same, but that is the limit for both.
This is because you can’t demand something that cannot be given, as such, geese can’t use each other’s desire for sex to demand more, what more could they give? This matters because the only way to build cities is if men and women can ask for more from each other and are both capable of giving that more.
The question is, how do you create a world where that is possible, a world where ever greater demands can be both made and met, a world where women can demand men build them cities and do the dishes, a world where men can demand women build them homes and take the children to school?
Pair bonding gives men and women power over each other — societies supercharge that power
It is well known that stress typically increases men’s desire for sex but typically decreases women’s desire. So, the more stressed the man is, the typically higher his desire for sex will be, whereas the more stressed a woman is, the typically lower her desire for sex will be.
The instinctual response of women here makes a lot of sense, historically stress would equal an environment that was not right for procreating in, so it makes a lot of sense women would evolve to see their sex drives be killed by it — and this is seen across many species. Stressed females do not like to procreate, but stressed males do.
The question is why, why do stressed males want to procreate even more than non-stressed males? Surely procreating while stressed would be self-defeating?
Nope, it is the perfect complementary response. The less a woman feels able to have sex, the more motivated a man needs to be to help fix the reasons why she feels unable to have sex, so when you kill the female libido but at the same time raise the male, what you get is two people who will be motivated to do what is needed to be done to create a world where they can have sex.
As what needs to be done is making the world safe enough to have children i.e. a world with fewer stress factors, men and women work together to do just that.
But here is the thing, there is a limit to how many stress factors can be faced down, that limit defines the limits of a species' potential intelligence.
The thing that defines those limits is the size of the society and the loyalty of those in the society to each other. The more loyalty there is, and the bigger the society is, the more stress factors that can be faced.
This is why geese can’t build cities, their societies consist of a male and a female. That’s it. That means no other geese have any form of loyalty to each other, so won’t help each other.
It’s also why chimpanzees and bonobos can’t build cities, they may give loyalty to a group, but they don’t give loyalty to each other on an individual level. So, geese will give loyalty to one other person, the person they have bonded with, and chimpanzees will give loyalty to a group, but no individuals in the group.
Do you see the problem, to build cities what you need is a group of people who will give loyalty to each other on an individual level, but how do you do that?
The answer is, to do what humans have done, which is evolving to form societies of families.
This is because, the bigger the societies, and the greater the loyalty in those societies on both an individual and group level, the more stress factors that can be faced, and the more stress factors that can be faced, the more we can ask people to face them.
This really matters if you want to build a city.
The more stress factors you can face, the smarter and safer your world becomes
In a non-pair bonded species, males typically would be incentivised to simply move on from a stressed female and find a non-stressed one i.e. a one willing to “put out.” Females on the other hand, would be motivated to avoid stressed males.
Things get a little bit better if you form a group of individuals, but not much better. A group of non-pair bonded people will only be motivated to work for the group, not to fix individual problems, as such, again, individuals will be motivated to avoid stressed people, run from stress and not help other people deal with their stress.
In a pair-bonded species that do not form groups, things are not much better. For example, both males and females, when in an environment where the female’s libido is dead, if pair bonded are incentivised to work together to fix the problem. However, if they do not form larger groups of pair-bonded couples, they will be on their own.
That means there will only be so much each will be able to do on their own to help the other, which means both will still be largely motivated to try to avoid stress rather than face it down, and run from stress when it arises — even if that means running from each other and finding another to pair bond with.
This is where the genius of humankind comes into play, in a pair-bonded species that form societies of pair-bonded males and females, what you get is the best of both worlds, men and women will work for each other on an individual level, but also on a group level.
That means you maximise loyalty, and if you maximise loyalty, you maximise the idea of people sticking around to help each other when problems arise because you maximise the ability of people to ask people to stick around and help, and the more people who stick around and help, the more problems that can be fixed, problems like, how do we keep ourselves alive, more importantly, how do we keep our children alive.
The answer turned out to be, build cities.
Final word
Without the desire for sex, a sexually reproducing species would be a dead species walking. This is why a species’ sex drive is its most important survival tool, it is also why if a species' sex drive tells it that running from stress is the best way to procreate, then all in that species will be incentivised to run from stress.
However, if a species could somehow turn this on its head, and use their sex drives to incentivise each other to face down stress, it would unlock a city-building superpower.
This is what the human race did, by forming societies of pair-bonded males and females, we gained the power to face down ever more problems. We did this by giving males and females the power and the incentive to fix ever more relationship problems, because as it happens, just as a family has a greater power to fix problems than an individual, a society made up of families has a far greater ability to fix problems than a family on its own.
That means the formation of pair bonding along with our evolution to create societies of pair-bonded couples, incentivised us to stop running from problems to procreate and to instead start facing them down because that was the best path to procreation.
If you don’t know what this means, at the heart of our evolution to becoming an intelligent species capable of building cities, is the male and female sex drive which incentivises us to try to fix relationship problems rather than run from them.
That means truly, fixing relationship problems built our cities.
That’s all from me, thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, you may also enjoy the following:
Sex and Consent Are Human Superpowers That Fuel Intelligence — Here Is Why
Five Fascinating Facts about Human Nature That Will Blow Your Mind
Six Interesting Theories About Sexual Desire and Relationships That You Probably Didn’t Know
To learn more about me see this link, to support me click the link below:
