When alpha males are preoccupied with fighting, weaker bystander males can take advantage of the commotion to mate with otherwise inaccessible females. This is actually known among zoologists as the “sneaky-fucker” strategy.
Nicholas A. Christakis, Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society
I was sitting at the mouth of my cave, wincing with every flap of a pterodactyl’s wings because I over-indulged in a crude precursor to “lite” beer last night and today I have a wicked hangover. So much for “sober October,” even though we don’t have a calendar yet.
“Hey–keep it down, wouldya?”
But, I consoled myself, at least I got laid. If my, ahem, “mate” was at the right point in her menstrual cycle, I might even have perpetuated my genetic material, in addition to finally pulling off the complicated and risky sexual position known as the “Pleistocene Cartwheel.” She wasn’t the best-looking female I’ve ever inserted myself into, but all the she-hominids look better when you’ve had a drink or twelve.
My reverie was interrupted by my buddy Ug, who sauntered past with a dejected look.
Ug: “Why can’t me find nice girl?”
“Hey Ug,” I called out.
“Yeah?”
“Why the long face?”
“Why you think?” he replied. “Same old story. Ug want woman, no can find.”
I should point out before we get much further that Ug, like many men, vastly over-estimates his attractiveness to the opposite sex. He’s not the brightest star in the heavens, he drools a lot, and his personal hygiene leaves much to be desired. He may take a bath this millennium, but if he does it’ll be a photo-finish.
Ug got down on his haunches, and I just shrugged my shoulders. How do you tell a guy he needs to lower his expectations because he’s not A-list material? Like our friend Nutz, the premier horn-dog of our tribe, who wandered up and joined us.
“What’s shakin’?” Nutz called out at a level of volume that I might have tolerated–barely–any other day of the week, but which made me wince on the morning after a night of drinking.
“Would you mind keeping it down to a dull roar, Mr. Enthusiasm?” I said.
“Uh-oh, looks like someone once again used alcohol as crutch to support his hobbled love-life.”
That’s Nutz for you. Other guys over-imbibe, buying drinks for females in the hope that they’ll lose their inhibitions and do the dirty with them. Nutz? He barely has to try. You see, he’s a creative type, an “artist.” It’s his day job to produce attractive objects that lure females to romantic assignations. And he talks his way into women’s hearts–and pants–by being “sensitive.” At least until he’s spilled his seed, as they say. Then all of a sudden he’s up and out the cave, saying he’s got a herd of bison to paint, I’ll give you a call, blodda blodda blodda.
“How about you, Ug?” Nutz asked. “You hung over too?”
Surprise your favorite female hominid with a frappucino!
“Ug no hung over. Ug just sad.”
“What’s there to be sad about?” Nutz asked. “We have to forage for food all day, we’re chased by gigantic pre-historic predators, and if we’re lucky we may live to see our twentieth birthdays. What’s not to like?”
“Don’t rub it in,” I said. “Ug wants nothing more than to settle down in a furnished cave and crank out an Ug Jr. and Uggina before he’s crushed to death by an avalanche or freezes in an ice age. Unlike you, he’s capable of thinking beyond the fleeting firefly of the present moment.”
“So you ply women not just with drink, but also crappy poetry?” Nutz said, raising a critical eyebrow that future generations will see on the face of guys like T.S. Eliot.
Eliot: “You call that primitive junk poetry?”
“Hey, I gotta use every trick that comes to hand,” I said. Like most males, both now and in the future, I’m proud that I’ve distinguished myself from the crude mesomorphs who preceded me in the evolutionary chain by my tool-using ability.
Nutz gazed off into the distance, snorted a little laugh of contempt, then turned back to us. “You know,” he began, then corrected himself. “Actually, you don’t know, which is your problem.”
“What don’t Ug know?”
“You have to use strategy,” Nutz said.
“Nutz–please. You know Ug can’t process words of more than one syllable.”
“Okay, let me break it down for you,” Nutz said, then condescended to descend to my cave floor. “Who gets laid the most around here?”
“Besides you?” I asked.
“Right.”
I had to think about that one. “Uh, I guess Glork.” He’s the biggest baddest hominid in our tribe.
“Right. He goes around killing off the competition, then takes their women,” Nutz said. “As a mating strategy it’s successful, but it’s a lot of work. You’re always chasing other guys down, wrestling them to the ground, crushing their skulls with rocks. It tires me out just watching him.”
Glork, demonstrating his suave seduction technique.
I couldn’t help myself. I broke out laughing.
“What funny?” Ug asked.
“The thought of Nutz here following Glork around, watching him shorten the life span of his competitors. Haven’t you got anything better to do?” I said, turning to Nutz.
“Actually,” Nutz said, and rather drily I might add, “Glork is so busy snuffing out other guys’ DNA that he leaves a lot of opportunities in his wake.”
“He does?” I asked.
“Right-o, brilliant boy. It’s what’s called a ‘symbiotic’ relationship.” I could see Ug’s brow furrow as the talk turned to a rung higher up the intellectual ladder.
“How does it work?”
“Glork usually does a dick-dance over his fallen foe, then collapses from exhaustion. While he’s napping, guys like me move in for the goodies.”
“Is that . . . fair?” Ug asked, dimly perceiving the benefits of the gambit, but troubled nonetheless by the first stirrings of an ethical conscience.
“All’s fair in love, war, and reproducing, my beetle-browed friend,” Nutz said.
“You are one sneaky fucker,” I said with grudging admiration of the depth of thought that Nutz had put into his love life. “Both literally and figuratively.”
“Thanks,” Nutz said. “I like to think that perhaps someday . . .”
“Yes?” Ug and I said in unison.
“. . . that I’ll be recognized by zoologists not just for my skills at seduction, but also for my contributions to science.”
If I wasn’t already married, I’d be taking notes.