Evolutionary Psychology
Evolutionary psychology provides the theoretical foundation for Costly Signals. These pieces dive into mate selection, sexual strategies, and the biological logic of attraction that underpins everything else on this site.
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Death of the dating app: costly signals, rejection, and the return of real dating
This article appeared in Quillette earlier this month In mid-2025, Bumble’s founder Whitney Wolfe Herd returned to the company she had left two years earlier and offered a blunt assessment of the industry she helped build. Today’s dating apps, she told Fortune, “are rooted in rejection and judgement [and] these…
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Costly signaling across a century of dating advice
What bowerbirds, a 1920 love manual, and brutal modern advice reveal about trust A 1920 dating manual, a book about animals having sex in a zoo, and a profane modern self-help book walk into a library, and somehow all say similar things about why dating feels so broken today. That’s…
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Sydney Sweeny’s older men: the evolutionary truth behind age-gap relationships
Age-gap relationships are only scandalous when men are older—and the data and hypocrisy prove it On April 7, Sydney Sweeney walked the red carpet at the Euphoria Season 3 premiere. Inside the theater, she sat next to Scooter Braun—44 years old, sixteen years her senior—and the internet erupted. “Scandalous.” “Awkward.”…
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Looksmaxxing: signaling to the wrong audience
Looksmaxxers think they’re attracting women, but the research says otherwise In February 2026, twenty-year-old streamer Braden Peters, known as Clavicular, closed a New York Fashion Week show looking every inch the ideal of chiseled masculinity: square jaw, angular features, lean and broad-shouldered. Few in the audience knew he had built…
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Bonnie Blue’s pregnancy and the evolution of dating signals
What the “breeding mission” tells us about costly signaling in the attention economy On February 22, 2026, the British adult content creator Bonnie Blue posted a YouTube video confirming she was pregnant. The announcement came two weeks after she hosted what she called a “breeding mission” at a private mansion…
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Valentine’s day is a fitness test (and you’re being graded)
From panic bouquets to quiet presence: how February 14th grades your mate value Every year around the middle of February, a familiar anxiety settles over men in relationships. What do I get her? Is a card enough? Are roses too predictable? According to Mintel, 52% of Valentine’s Day shoppers admit…
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What evolutionary psychology actually says about attraction
Debunking the pop science—and what the research really shows If you’ve spent time in online dating discussions, you’ve likely encountered evolutionary psychology explaining attraction. Men prioritize youth and beauty for fertility. Women seek resources for parental investment. Alpha males. Ovulation effects. Hypergamy. Much of it is wrong—or at least, dramatically…
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Why manners matter: the evolutionary origins of etiquette
How a healthy Victorian-era adaptation to disgust got rewired during Covid into maladaptive shaming When we think of Victorian etiquette—the elaborate rules about which fork to use, how to make introductions, or the proper way to leave a calling card—we tend to dismiss it as stuffy social performance. But what…
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The twin brothers throuple: why polyandry goes viral in Thailand’s polygamy-tolerant culture
Exploring Thailand’s infidelity paradox through evolutionary psychology An interesting story by Chattarin Siradakul in The Thaiger reports on a TikTok video from Nakhon Phanom showing 24-year-old Fah announcing her relationship with twin brothers Sing and Suea. Responses to this polyandrous relationship have been predictable: shock, curiosity, moral condemnation, and support.…
About the author
Andrew King
Author of Costly Signals: The Evolution of Dating Advice. PhD researcher with 500+ dating guides from the 1800s to today. Why do we take romantic advice from strangers? I have answers.
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© 2026, Andrew King