Love In The Time of Evolution

(Giant Sphinx Moth, the Ghost Orchid's Perfect Mate)

Shreddakj’s comment on my last post really kept me thinking about our “minimum requirements,” or at least “desired qualities” we seek in a mate. I thought a lot about the people I dated in the past who all looked good on paper but made for awful partners. Do I even know what’s best for me? If not me, then would anyone have insight into what qualities make someone good for me? Am I really flying so blind?

For example, one ex I had sounded a lot like my proposed Stepford Husband. This blue-eyed, well-read, atheist, city-boy who always declared his love for me and even made dinner from time to time should have been my every-dream-come-true. The relationship just lacked some sort of chemistry that I couldn’t put my finger on and it slowly disintegrated. I simply grew apart from him with each passing day.  Then, when I considered that I am now in a happy monogamous-yet-barely-defined relationship with someone who believes in life after death, hates my favorite book, and wishes he could live out in the country where dogs run free and the milk man delivers milk in glass bottles left on your porch, well, I was at a loss. Was I just plain wrong about what I wanted? Do opposites attract? Do people change, and did *I* change?

It was when I was watching my brand new Blu-Ray of “Life” (The BBC version, of course) that I was reminded of the very unique relationships that flowers share with other types of living things. Darwin, when looking at an orchid in Madagascar with its nectar buried deep within its flower, correctly predicted that a moth with a tongue of the exact length necessary to reach that nectar would one day be discovered. He based this on a principle of co-evolution that allows different living beings to evolve together to better benefit each other. The benefit for this orchid is that its pollen is extremely likely to be shared with its own kind as the special moths take advantage (nearly exclusively) of the nectar supplies available for less competition from this very specific type of flower.

And, a more recently discovered example:

This large sphinx moth (Cocytius antaeus) has an extremely long proboscis (tongue) – here seen fully extended as it would be if the moth were sipping nectar from the bottom of a very long-tubed flower. Important pollinators, some sphinx moths have very specific relationships with the plants they pollinate. The giant sphinx, for example, is the only known pollinator of the rare and delicate ghost orchid of Florida’s swamps.

This type of species-monogamous relationship lends a very interesting benefit to both parties. I wondered if maybe the initial “ingredients” of a human relationship are less important than their ability to co-evolve into something strong and so mutually beneficial that being together and monogamous gives both partners a distinct advantage over being single or being with others.

So, how did the Ghost Orchid and the Giant Sphinx Moth choose each other? I won’t go into an explanation of natural selection, but I imagine there *were* a few initial qualities that were required. Maybe one orchid plant mutated with a slightly deeper nectar pocket, and it happened to be visited by a moth partner with a tongue just a bit longer than its relatives to take advantage of the orchid's differences. Over generations, through many tiny changes, their partnership slowly evolved into something incredibly strong and completely exclusive. But if you think about it, only two very small qualities were really necessary for this to begin.

People do evolve, and people do change. (Sorry, Dr. House, we’ll disagree about this.) People might *prefer* (and fight for) the natural safety we feel in predictable environments, but our bodies and surroundings are constantly in flux. Is it possible that in one of these ever-fluid situations we discover another being with which we share one small complimentary quality – just enough to keep us together long enough to react to each other in a way that we discover is mutually beneficial? Does the relationship grow when we change and adapt to our lives in tandem? The more I consider it, the more I really believe this is possible. I imagine that sometimes the benefits are temporary and people evolve apart as situations in life change. But maybe sometimes a foundation is established so well in thousands of tiny decisions and adjustments that the evolution of each person becomes rooted in the evolution of their partner that despite the fact that they may in some ways be as different as a flower and a moth, they have found happiness and strength for themselves in what they share.

This would also mean we might be wasting our time hoping for a pre-made ideal mate. In the beginning, the sphinx moth was not perfect for the orchid; it only offered a slightly nicer answer to a small variation in structure. It was only when they continued to adapt to each new environmental variation with each generation in each other’s favor that they became the perfect match. In other words, maybe we make our perfect match for ourselves at the same time that they are creating us.

S.A.M.