Sometimes Common Knowledge Is Wrong

The Media Misunderstands Me!

We were at the "Free zoo" here the other night, watching as wild deer ambled up to a pile of apples to graze while, literally, dozens of people watched. The free zoo is another term for the place where we drop off our lawn clippings and yard detritus. As a result, there are no fences and nothing to separate us from the animals. One little boy about three went wandering off toward the animals, oblivious to the fact that they were,w ell, wild, and many of the bucks had dangerous-looking antlers. Of course, it didn't help that the tyke did not understand English, and his dad was trying to get a photo with a malfunctioning cell phone camera. When ten people raised a ruckus, the dad finally corralled the youngster and took him to safety, but we were all worried more than a little bit. Unlike the little guy, WE all understood the danger of wild animals who might prey on the young and unsuspecting.
So it is in the human world...cougars have a nefarious reputation, and I'm here to refute much of that with scientific evidence. It seems as if everyone believes that older women prefer younger men; and, while Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher are poster children for this theory, current research shows their relationship to be an anomaly rather than a regular occurrence.
Michael Dunn, a psychology professor at the University of Wales Institute in Cardiff, studied 22,000 men and women ages-20-50 to decode their dating preferences. Dunn considered almost every aspect, and included both Christian and Muslim people...no word on whether or not he considered agnostics, atheists, Hindus, etc. Here are his basic results with regard to preferences...and I doubt if they will surprise us too much!
Women generally selected online dating matches among men who had money and/or status of some sort. No surprise there...the homely and insignificant among us always get short shrifted.
Men, on the other hand, (get ready for the big surprise) chose potential dating partners on the basis of physical attractiveness! Ya think? Once again, the somewhat less than 10s get left out.
Men between the ages of 20 and 25 preferred dating partners their own age (NOT wealthy, older women), and AS THEY AGED, men tended to prefer younger and younger women...the Hugh Hefner syndrome, I would say. Again, this is no surprise, but it does make us wonder about Kutcher et al.
Finally, among the 22,000 who were women between the ages of 20 and 50, they overwhelmingly selected men either their own age or OLDER!
Now...is this just because the study was done in Europe and not Hollywood? I doubt it.
It simply means that while there are some animals in the wild that are dangerous to the young, many of them simply want to be around their own kind.
Deer and cougars included.