The Future of Seduction

Being made to feel special – even if just for an evening – is at the crux of seduction regardless of gender.

The average person in medieval times is thought to have laid eyes on fewer than 100 people in the course of a lifetime. An attractive young woman can rack up that many matches in minutes.

In one study of singles on the pull in a bar, researchers observed 109 distinct ‘attraction tactics’, including offering to buy someone a drink, sucking seductively on a straw, puffing out one’s chest, and maintaining eye contact.

In The Paradox of Choice, the psychologist Barry Schwartz argues that infinite choice – whether of mutual funds, breakfast cereals or lovers – is exhausting to the human psyche and leads to greater dissatisfaction. When presented with too many choices, we are not only stunned, like a kid in the proverbial candy shop, but also less satisfied with th

One study showed that half of Tinder users had not gone on a single date with a match made on the app.

A study out of Stanford showed that a staggering 80 per cent of single straight adults had not gone on a single date or hooked up in the previous year, leading the researcher to conclude that the main utility of the apps for heterosexuals might be ‘for flirting or for browsing’.

Trading in insecurities, dating is one of few services in which dissatisfaction leads users to question themselves instead of the product, and even increase spending to up the odds of success.

The social psychologist Eli Finkel, the director of the Relationships and Motivation Lab at Northwestern University, believes the future lies in using dyadic data, observing rather than predicting compatibility from an initial interaction. Non-conscious synchrony emerges when two people are interested in one another: within minutes, pupil dilation,

In communities around the world in which there is a surplus, or perceived surplus, of women, men pursue a mating strategy geared towards multiple casual relationships.