As the New Year receded into the past but the holiday feeling was still hanging in, I caught up with an old university friend returning to New Zealand for a family visit. I can’t remember the last time Lester and I caught up, but it’s more than a decade and maybe less than a couple. We chatted over burgers, bringing each other up to speed on our families and professional lives, and then headed off.
As we parted, Lester observed a funny thing about relationships. He speculated that men seem to be able to have no contact for years but pick up the conversation as it left off. Women, on the other hand, have to get up to speed either by re-laying the groundwork, or not falling out of contact in the first place.
Assuming he’s right about this pattern, Lester’s speculation, as a biologist, is that this is something adaptive. It’s something that we’ve evolved from a time when men might have been more likely to head away from the tribe for potentially unknown amounts of time in search of food or other resources. Maybe women have to invest more in day-to-day maintenance of relationships because they tended to do more of the gathering closer to home?
Whether or not this speculation is right, it’s a reminder that we do a lot of weird things that may have their basis in a distant ancestral past and serve functions of maintaining social cohesion.
Another example: Last November, as I was walking back to my hotel after a post-conference dinner catch-up with my academic mates, I was animatedly discussing something or other with the person next to me and managed to walk into a signpost. I’m sure you’ve either done this or been there when it’s happened, so you can imagine the script that plays out next.
I carry on walking, protesting that it’s not that one beer, the signpost was in a blindspot caused by the frame of my glasses and the particular tilt of my head and, of course, I’m fine, I’m fine. Nothing to see here, keep on walking and talking. I’ve seen this general pattern play out before, whether it’s a rogue signpost, a trip on a paving stone or a missed step.
On the upside, an inch lower and the signpost might have broken my glasses, and on the downside, it bonked me on the forehead. Fortunately, it wasn’t a big cut and my friend Chris gave me a Mickey Mouse sticking plaster to staunch the wound. I’m not too proud to sport a cartoon mouse on my noggin on the streets of Noosa.
And because Chris is, like me, a student of human behaviour, the conversation refocused on the script that had just played out. Something happens to one of the gazelles (that’s me in this analogy), the herd checks they’re okay, and the clumsy gazelle reassures them excessively that they’re fine and shouldn’t be abandoned. Thanks Chris; I thought my friends were just being nice, not trying to decide if they should leave me for the lions circling the metaphorical herd.
I’ve known these folk for many years, and it’s a hallmark of our get-togethers that we rib each other. Chris cheerily reminded me of my ignominious loss to the signpost when the chance came up, and we all play along.
So, if we apply an evolutionary lens, what function does this serve? Again, I think it’s about group cohesion. It’s a mini hazing that provides the opportunity to demonstrate continued commitment to the herd. We take the ribbing. We wind each other up to give group members a chance to show their “loyalty”; that they’re a part of the group. Of course, it could also just be because it’s fun.
Regardless, next time you see one of these social scripts play out, ask yourself, why is there a script?
