On Attraction, Identity, and the Dance of Display
What do peacocks and poets have in common? According to evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller, quite a lot. In The Mating Mind (2000), Miller proposes that many human traits—like creativity, humor, music, and even morality—evolved not just for survival, but for sexual selection. Much like a peacock’s tail, these traits may serve as signals of fitness, or genetic quality, designed to attract mates.
But how does this theory hold up in today’s fast-moving, unstable, and hyper-connected world—what sociologist Zygmunt Bauman calls liquid modernity? In a culture where identities shift, norms are fluid, and platforms for self-display multiply by the minute, the human desire to attract and impress others takes on new forms—and new anxieties.
This essay explores how the evolutionary logic of The Mating Mind operates within the cultural conditions of liquid culture, and what it means for how we present ourselves, choose partners, and construct meaning in our lives.
The Mating Mind: Attraction Through Display
Miller’s theory builds on Darwin’s idea of sexual selection—the process by which traits evolve because they are attractive to potential mates, not necessarily because they offer a survival advantage. For example, a bird’s complex song or a dancer’s graceful moves may signal underlying fitness.
Miller suggests that many of the traits we think of as uniquely human—language, art, kindness, philosophical thinking—may have evolved as courtship displays. These traits are expensive to develop and hard to fake, making them reliable indicators of intelligence and social ability.
In this view, much of human behavior can be seen as a form of mating performance: we signal our worth through wit, taste, creativity, and cultural capital. It’s not just about reproduction—it’s about being chosen.
Liquid Modernity: The Unstable Stage
Zygmunt Bauman, writing from a sociological perspective, paints a very different picture—but one that surprisingly complements Miller’s evolutionary lens. In Liquid Modernity (2000), Bauman describes modern life as fluid, unstable, and individualistic. Traditional roles, communities, and values have broken down. In their place, we’re left with a world where people must constantly reinvent themselves—socially, emotionally, and even romantically.
Where The Mating Mind sees courtship as a natural process shaped by evolutionary forces, Liquid Modernity shows us how that process is now happening on an unstable stage. The scripts have changed. The audience is global. And the performance never really ends.
Where They Meet: Display in a Liquid World
In many ways, modern culture supercharges the dynamics Miller describes. Social media platforms are digital arenas for self-display. Profiles, selfies, tweets, bios, and likes all become part of a carefully curated mating (and social) signal. Online dating apps like Tinder and Hinge reduce attraction to images and short texts—speeding up the display-and-selection process to an evolutionary blur.
But Bauman’s insights add a crucial twist: in liquid culture, the self is no longer fixed. We are constantly urged to rebrand, update, and improve ourselves—not only for employers or friends, but for potential romantic partners. The pressure to be attractive now extends far beyond physical looks: we must be interesting, woke, witty, emotionally intelligent, and Instagrammable.
Miller's evolutionary signals have not vanished—they’ve simply multiplied and fragmented, delivered through apps, memes, playlists, bios, and TikToks.
The Costs of Liquid Attraction
Bauman warns that in liquid society, relationships can become fragile and consumer-like. People are treated less like long-term partners and more like options to be tried and discarded. Love, once tied to community and ritual, becomes another space for choice, performance, and uncertainty.
This affects how we use our “mating minds.” If our displays are constantly shifting to keep up with trends, how do we know who we really are—or what kind of love we truly want? If the self becomes a performance, is there still an authentic core behind the show?
Conclusion: Between Biology and Culture
Geoffrey Miller and Zygmunt Bauman come from very different disciplines—evolutionary psychology and sociology—but together, they offer a powerful way to think about human connection today.
Miller reminds us that the drive to attract and impress is deep, ancient, and creative. Bauman shows us that in a world where everything flows, that drive becomes harder to satisfy, and more anxious to maintain.
We still seek to be seen, chosen, admired—but in a liquid world, that search is increasingly unstable. Understanding both the biology and the culture behind our desires may help us navigate the tension between display and depth, freedom and connection, and ultimately, between performance and presence.
Further Reading:
Geoffrey Miller – The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature (2000)
Zygmunt Bauman – Liquid Modernity (2000)
Eva Illouz – Consuming the Romantic Utopia (1997)
Sherry Turkle – Alone Together (2011)
Byung-Chul Han – The Agony of Eros (2012)