BBC 6 Minute English 2018 Do opposites attract

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BBC learning english.com hello and

welcome to six minute English

I’m Sophie and I’m nail so Sophie the

subject of today’s show is attraction do

you believe in love at first sight no I

don’t I think it takes time to get to

know somebody well enough to know if you

love them but I have a friend who says

when she saw her husband for the first

time that was before they got married

that’s right when they met for the first

time that was it a bolt out of the blue

and they got married three months later

a bolt out of the blue means something

totally unexpected well that sounds very

romantic and leads me on to today’s quiz

question Sophie what percentage of

Americans said they believed in love at

first sight is it a 26 percent be a 56

percent or cat6 percent I’m not an old

romantic like you Neal so I’m going to

go for a 26 percent well we’ll find out

later on in the show if you’re right to

be skeptical or not Sophie and skeptical

for those of you who don’t know means to

have doubts about something I think you

can be physically attracted to somebody

straight away I just don’t think you can

fall in love with somebody so easily

love is about other things

compatibility personality and a good

sense of humor yes humor is important

but apparently Sophie for men it’s all

about the waist-hip ratio according to

research the ideal waist-hip ratio for

women is 0.7 where ratio means the

relationship between two sizes and you

get this figure by dividing the waist

measurement by the hip measurement I see

and why do men find naught point 7 so

irresistible well let’s listen to doctor

and a match in an evolutionary

anthropologist from the University of

Oxford explaining what a man is looking

for he’s going to look up signs for

fertility and what we call for Kunda tea

and good health and the major indicator

of that in women is the waist hip ratio

and the waist-hip ratio the absolute

ideal what men find most attractive

regardless of culture this has been

tested in many different cultures around

the world is 0.7 and that’s really your

classic hourglass figure and the reason

why that universally is attractive it’s

because it’s tied to the health of that

individual there’s a very strong

relationship between someone’s

circulating estrogen and testosterone

obviously we want the east region to be

high their testosterone to be low for

women to be fertile and also her general

health so 0.7 is linked to lower risk of

heart disease lower risk of diabetes and

certain sorts of cancers so a waist-hip

ratio of 0.7 correlates or has a strong

relationship with good general health

and fertility in women and men find this

attractive because it identifies fertile

women women who will be able to conceive

or get pregnant and have babies

successfully dr. machen also mentions

that 0.7 is the classic hourglass figure

which means curvy do you like curves

naome mind your own business Sophie but

all this waist-hip theory of Attraction

isn’t very romantic is it you’re right

it isn’t and whilst we do judge people

by the way they look we also use our

sense of smell to sniff out our ideal

mate or sexual partner apparently we can

detect whether people are genetically

different to us by the way they smell

and parents who have different immune

systems create healthier babies so it’s

back to having babies again all biology

and chemistry and not about feelings at

all well let’s leave chemistry behind

for a moment and listen to Professor

David parrot at the School of Psychology

and neuroscience at st. Andrews

University in Scotland he talks about

other factors that play a role in

attraction classic surgery really

doesn’t count for much in the end and

you could be with somebody who’s

aesthetically very beautiful but if they

don’t smile and react then that counts

for much less so we can change your

faces by interacting with others and

doing so in a pleasant manner and that

will aid our attractiveness and make

others interested in us

what does aesthetically mean Sophie it

means judging something by the way it

looks and whilst we all enjoy a pretty

face most of us are looking for more

than that we are looking for people who

appear friendly and approachable and who

we share interests with exactly and

personally I think kind eyes are very

important with a bit of a twinkle what

about you Sophie I like a good sense of

humor very good now remember I asked you

Sophie what percentage of Americans said

they believe in love at first sight is

it a 26 percent B 56 percent or C 86

percent I said 26 percents sorry that’s

the wrong answer Sophie 56 percent of

Americans believe in love at first sight

and the percentage is even higher for

married people and those in

relationships according to a poll

conducted by the website cbs.com in 2013

well Americans are a romantic Bunch

me too and I’m British now here are the

words we heard today bolt out of the

blue sceptical ratio correlates fertil

conceived hourglass figure mate

aesthetically well that’s the end of

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