From simple basic attraction to careful approach over rightout flirtation to something more serious, sometimes, or more physical, depending on personality and individual choice of the moment. Now and then, the sudden retreat, or worse, the move to a different opportunity - just like 5 year-olds in the toy store, brighter bigger better, loud and shiny, taken, sold, gone - worst case, the replacement is clearly below standard in respect to the dumped toy (or so the dumped toy believes).
But, don't despair: this may implicitly show the great appreciation for the freshly ignored previous potential mating partner.
Biology is the field of study where you'll find anything, in any shape or color. What is entirely ridiculous in one context, is just perfect in another.
Enough preamble, let's talk about fish.
A recent study, published in Current Biology, looked at male atlantic mollies flirting with the girl fishies. For a matter of decency I will not go into detail about what flirting with the typical atlantic molly entails.. one could call it advanced foreplay. Read the article yourself. And no, there are no pictures, freak.
Guy alone with a set of females, he clearly goes straight for the best lady out there, big and healthy, that can have lots of babies and belongs to the right species (the baby thing is tricky otherwise).
Now, have another guy hang out and watch. The human guy might simply show off more but still go for the best girl. Not so the molly - he ignores the supergirl and starts flirting with the small fish that clearly won't be producing much offspring and doesn't look half as good. Can't cook well either. Why the hell would he do that?
Remember, mating is not a very unique thing, even if you think you're so special at it - we all do it, we all want it, and we all know that if someone is attracting serious attention, there must be something about them that we might have missed at first glance. The molly basically yells at his competitor: hey, look at that cute little fish, she's really hot! Hoping, that the other guy will go straight for her, exhaust his energies and other resources with this not-so promising catch while he can go back to his one and only.
"Sending deceptive signals and leading competitors away from a preferred female can be a powerful alternate mating strategy..."
Got it? Now, go home and remember that being suddenly dumped for the low-grade replacement may be the best compliment you've ever received.. :P
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