Nature is a powerful force that influences every living creature. Although the smartest on our planet, we, humans, are still animals. It might seem that we always make conscious decisions, but you’ll be surprised at how many choices have been predetermined for us.
There are several bases of dating, but did you ever wonder what drives people closer towards each other and helps them transition between the stages of intimacy? What evolution has to do with the way we pick a partner and develop a close connection?
In this post, we’ll explore some natural inclinations that impact the success of our relationships. Keep reading to learn more about yourself!
An Evolutionary Perspective on Relationships
Frankly, people aren’t the strongest and bravest mammals. We’ve always needed to belong to some group in order to survive. Being excluded from the group meant inevitable death, so over the course of evolution, humans developed some critical needs:
- finding a mate (dating),
- keeping them (marriage),
- caring for the closest people around (family),
- forming alliances with others (friendship),
- gaining some status in the tribe (building a career).
Fulfilling these needs could make a difference between living a relatively long and happy life or not making it till the next month. And that’s exactly what became a precondition to the development of different types of social ties – romantic love, friendship, family care, and workplace relationships. But there’s a certain evolutionary cost to every opportunity. That’s why there’s relationship-specific psychology to every bond, and there are certain stages everyone has come through to develop it.
Have You Heard Of Levinson’s Theory?
Back in the 1980ies, a well-known psychologist Daniel Levinson came up with his explanation of the connection between human development and building social bonds. He called in a stage crisis view. According to Mr. Levinson, as a person reaches certain biological maturity, they become ready to develop a certain type of social relationship. Likewise, the transition from one stage to the other is determined by some big event or action. Let’s illustrate that.
During early adult transition (Age 17-22), people make first choices about adult life (whether or not they want to go to college, leave parents’ home, start the first serious relationship). As they enter the adult world (roughly between 22-28), they get a better understanding of their values, adjust their lifestyle, choose an occupation.
At age 28-33, people usually feel the need to build a family, so they tend to get married and have children. From then on till around 40, working on one’s social status (building a career) becomes a priority, and so on. So basically, what he was trying to prove is that our position on this scale is the result of our evolutionary needs and biological readiness.
Although this theory has been criticized for being somewhat inaccurate, we must admit there’s something to it that gives food for thought. Whether you’re looking for a casual one-night stand on Tinder or seeking a long meaningful connection on DoULikeSenior might just reflect your biological readiness.
At this point, it might be tempting to blame everything on the evolution, but whether you like it or not, you’re the one responsible for your personal life. You must invest in the relationship if you really want to make it work. And if you’ve just started dating someone, here’s a couple of things you might find useful.
Building a Successful Relationship Is on You
Romantic love is more than a passion, which by the way fades away after around 2 years. What comes next is constant hard work and it requires respect, trust, agreement, mutual appreciation, teamwork, and essentially, readiness to compromise. These critical elements are super important for sustaining a long and successful relationship. The couples that lack at least some of these things are less likely to make it through all these evolutionary stages.
That is not to say that you must wait until 30 to get married if you met your soulmate at 25. And don’t panic if you’re 33 and you’re not having two kids yet. You don’t have to follow a strict deadline. The age marks are really blurred here. Some people with more experience in life go through these transitions faster, whereas others tend to progress slower. The dynamics might also be different for men and women, but sooner or later, we’re all going to complete those stages.
Final Thoughts
To conclude, we’d recommend that you don’t pay too much attention to the age and evolutionary progress and focus on these six attributes of a successful relationship. Nature will do its job anyway, so don’t worry about it and invest in what makes us humans.
We hope this article was useful. If you’d like to see more posts like this, leave a comment below.
