I've slept with a lot of really hot guys, but weirdly, the guys who end up being my long-term boyfriends are not the super hot ones. My current boyfriend is attractive but not even close in hotness to some of the guys I've had one-nighters with in the past. I've noticed this pattern in female friends' guys, too. Why is this a thing?

--Interested

There's a certain kind of man a woman looks to date exclusively...for three to five hours.

I often cite research from evolutionary psychology that finds that women across cultures prioritize finding a man who's a "provider." A man's appearance isn't unimportant, but context -- whether a woman's going for a long-term or short-term thing with a man -- is a factor in how much it matters. Not surprisingly, if a guy is a potential husband, a woman's more likely to make do with, say, a dad bod and a weak chin than if she sees him as a potential hookup -- a disposable himbo, a single-use Adonis.

A possible evolutionary explanation for this is the "sexy son hypothesis." Evolutionary psychologist David Buss explains that "by mating with an especially attractive man, a woman might be able to bear a son who is especially attractive to women in the next generation. Her son might have increased sexual access, produce more children, and hence might provide his mother with additional grandchildren."

There is support for this idea in research by biological anthropologist David Waynforth, which finds that ladies on the hookup track prefer men with more masculine facial features -- a la square-jawed superheroes. Hookup-minded women likewise favor more muscular men (according to research by social psychologist Michael J. Bernstein).

However, when a woman needs to make trade-offs between hunkaliciousness and character to land a long-term partner, it surely pays to relax a little on physical criteria: go for a really good man who's good enough in the looks department. "Good enough"? He doesn't have to be smokin' hot, but he can't be so uggo that you need to reassure him, "Not to worry! My sex drive will come back...um, when you're on the mantelpiece in an urn."

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.