Psychologically Speaking

with Stewart Hase

A special kind of smell

It's nearly spring and therefore a good time to talk about mating. Not that males need any excuse since they appear to think about mating in its various forms about every few seconds or so. Actually I didn't want to talk about mating itself but the very interesting topic of our choice of mate. Sorry to those who were expecting something a little more risqué.

You've probably noticed, like I have, that a surprising number of people choose mates who are quite different to themselves. Opposites attract, as the saying goes. This is completely different to peoples' choice of canine companion which, to my constant amazement, tends to look very much like themselves. So, we find extroverts teamed up with introverts, intuitive types married to very practical people, and the adventurous flying away from the more home loving body, for example.

My grandmother used to recite a nursery rhyme when I was a very young lad that, from an increasingly unreliable memory, went something like this, "Jack Spratt would eat no fat, his wife would eat no lean. And so between the pair of them they licked their platter clean." The images that went with this were by today's standards very politically incorrect but consisted of a very tiny and thin Mr Spratt and a very large Mrs Spratt, their sizes presumably due to their respective diets. There is a certain utility in Mr and Mrs Spratt's choice by way of saving on the food bill and washing up.

There may be a more important reason for choosing a mate who is different to oneself. From a biological point of view it makes sense that we would mate with someone as genetically different from ourselves as we can within the species. All of us carry less than perfect genes. If we match up with someone with similarly imperfect genes then we run the risk of a less than desirable trait appearing in our offspring. It is possible that the way we do this is by smell. We each have a scent that is given off by hormones and, in turn, is determined by our genetic make-up. Apparently, according to this research, we are attracted to a potential mate by their scent. It turns out that this attraction tends to be towards someone who has quite different genes to ourselves.

You have probably by now worked out the terrible truth if this research is correct. It wasn't just the hip hugging jeans that made you fall in love (although they may have helped initially, particularly if the person was out of nose range, so to speak) but genes of a different kind.

Scary as this might be the real challenge is how to stay attracted to that wonderful smell long after the mating bit has served its purpose. The seven-year-itch and all that. The differences that can exist between a couple can be a problem rather than the advantage found by the Spratts. My long-suffering partner of 31 years is an introvert and is married to a sometimes extreme extrovert. It has taken a lot of adjustment for both of us because we process information and, therefore, think in different ways. We have learnt that we can actually see the same problem from different angles as long as we are prepared to listen to the other's view without dismissing it out of hand.

Sadly, couples sometimes find this simple piece of communication difficult and it leads to conflict or avoidance. And it's not just couples that can find this hard.