Smell dating. Do me a favor and don’t take off that t-shirt for a few days. Get it
all fumed-out. Now send it to us; we’ll cut it up into pieces and ship it out to
potential mates. If they like what they smell, you’ve got yourself a date.
Yeah it's cute, but let's get something straight - when you choose a
mate based on their armpits, it is your offspring that benefit, but not you
necessarily.
Yes there is truth to this; it's pretty well-known: People tend to
prefer the smell of others who have complementary immune systems. This makes
your offspring have super-immune systems.
The thing is, it's not the Pleistocene anymore, and we don't have to
choose mates based on major
histocompatibility complexes via volatile metabolites. I mean, who said I
even wanted to reproduce, I'm just looking for a date for this Friday, right?
In this case, smelling t-shirts is funny, but it's not so practical
these days. Dating someone because of their MHC is like dating a robot because
you like their algorithm.
