Bedder Later

I'm a woman in my 20s seeking a boyfriend. On the first date, I like to have a few drinks and, if the guy and I hit it off, have sex to see whether we have physical chemistry. Lately, I've had a string of great first dates -- flowing conversation, emotional rapport, and what seemed to be long-term potential -- yet they all ghosted me after sex. Are men still living in the Victorian Age?

--Confused

The wait to have sex with you mirrors the mandatory waiting period to buy a plastic squirt gun. That said, you aren't wrong to want to figure out up front whether there's sexual chemistry. As for just how "up front" to do that, there's reason to slow your roll -- even if it means you get involved with a few guys who turn out to be sexual duds. Because a woman can get pregnant from a single ill-advised naked romp, women evolved to be the "choosier" sex -- to take a "hmm, we'll see..." approach: stand back and assess a man's potential to "provide" and willingness to commit before dropping their panties (and everything else) on his bedroom floor. Men co-evolved to expect female choosiness and to need to prove themselves over time to women of high mate value: women who can hold out for just the right guy. In short, men tend to value (and stick around for) what's hard to, uh, grope. Women are also more likely to succumb to a sort of alcohol-induced blindness, which psychiatrist Andy Thomson, in an email to evolutionary psychologist David Buss, called the "Prosecco perception bias," after the Italian sparkling wine. Buss, who included this in his book, "When Men Behave Badly," explains that women have less of the alcohol-detoxifying enzyme, alcohol dehydrogenase. (That's why women get more rapidly drunk than men, even when they throw back less alcohol per pound of body weight.) "Because alcohol stimulates bonding endorphins, women are more likely to misread interactions with men" when tipsy, Buss explains, and "overestimate the likelihood of an emotional bond and a long-term relationship." Sure, there are blissful long-term relationships that started out with no-strings-attached sex. However, because you're a woman hoping to find a boyfriend, having sex on the first date is a risky strategy. There's a way to get a guy to stick around after sex, and it's to wait to have it till he's got feelings for you -- though, admittedly, zip-tying him to your headboard works, too. ... For pages and pages of "science-help" from me, buy my latest book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of transforming to live w/confidence.