Latest research on love: we are beasts.

IT’S VALENTINE’S DAY AND WE ARE IN A RUSH TO GET OUR HEART BROKE. A super-fast summary of the latest research on what we look for in a mate, why we fall for that person, and why, dammit, we always lose him/her/it:

• Researchers say that, like wild animals, we want our mates fertile, bursting with egglets and baby seed.

• We determine fertility by symmetry. We search for faces with the best-matched ears, eyes, and cheekbones.

• We also check out the prospect’s ratio of waist flab to hip fat. An ideal ratio for women is .7 — a 29-inch waist over 41-inch hips, for example. For men, the ideal is .92 — 34 inches over 37 inches would do it.

• Both sexes demand fidelity. Men hate women who cheat because they make it hard to establish paternity. Women hate cheating men because they spend money outside the home.

• We demand a mate who agrees with our self-image. If we think ourselves ugly and stupid, we want our mate to say, Come to think of it, you ARE ugly and stupid.

Given these variables, how long does it take us, on average, to fall crazy in love with the wrong person? Studies tell us that we court an average of a year and half before marrying. “Our brains want three people,” says Helen Fisher, author of Anatomy of Love: The Natural History of Monogamy, Adultery, and Divorce. “We can lust after one person, be infatuated with a second person—which doesn’t have to include sex—and desire a calm attachment to a third.”

But a mathematical cloud hovers over all matches. If we divide the number of people we date by the earth’s 6 ½ billion population, it quickly becomes clear that the odds of three billion people finding their best match among three billion others—finding The One—is insurmountable. A heterosexual American female, say, narrowing her search for the “perfect match” to her age group—about a third of the population—searching only guys living in the United States, has a pool of 42 million bachelors to choose from. If she dates a different guy every day, it would take her 115,068 years to sample them all. If she were to go out only twice a week over a ten-year period–a furious pace that would translate into a thousand different men—her odds of meeting the best guy would still be one out of 42,000!

So, we always settle. Statistically speaking, we all marry the girl next door.  But, according to Catherine Surra, a University of Texas researcher, we already know that. She found that 38 percent of seriously-dating people continue shopping for spouses. Gee, guess that’s why so many couplings don’t pan out. Depending on the study, the divorce rate hovers between 50 and 60 percent. And no wonder. Studies of adultery among both sexes range from 15 to 70 percent, indicating one thing for sure: people lie; to their spouses, to researchers, and, (especially those fond of the term “soul mate”) to themselves.