Natural Selection

In one of my random days off with my friends from work, we managed to catch up for a very nice lunch and then ice cream in the park. Okay, so it was a guy, but hey, why can't two guys enjoy an ice cream in the park all the same without being all Brokeback Mountain?

We had a really good discussion over the few hours, and as with all good guy friend conversations, it hovered around the topic of women and previous relationships.

He was someone who had been in about four or five long term relationships, and finally settled on his most recent partner, someone he had been together for four years.

They had met at a mutual friends' party, and soon got to talking and exchanging numbers. She called him out one day, and they went jogging together. He remembers being impressed by her determination and how she wasn't afraid of getting dirty and sweating, and pushing through all the way with him.

Here was a woman, he felt, who would stand up to the things that the world would throw at her, here was the woman who would be the mother of his children.

Without a doubt, there were other things as well, she was intelligent, warm and shared the same outdoor interests with him. But here was this other primitive instinct which played a part in choosing his partner.

And I thought how interesting it was that who we end up choosing sometimes stems from some primeval need to continue our line. Almost a selection of the fittest, if you will.

Take that, romance and Valentine's Day.