SPRUCE up your appearance ladies and take grooming very, very seriously. Let us not blame women who go in for asset-enhancing techniques anymore. For, where a man is concerned, nothing seems to have changed so far as his mating instincts go. He is still the visual creature he was many centuries ago - appearances are all to him!!



And even with appearance, he goes straight for the jugular - those aspects that signify a woman's sexuality are most attractive to him. For a man, the seduction game is all about sex, sex and more sex. Only then comes - even more sex! A woman might as well accept this and be resigned to the fact that it's the sex appeal she oozes that scores over all other attributes she may possess - mental, emotional, spiritual, whatever.

Evolution has geared men to look for facial sexual signals. Research shows men are most attracted to a childlike face, for this arouses their paternal instincts to touch and protect. With eyes, men world over go for the large, luminescent variety. When a woman is attracted to a man, her pupils dilate. Contact lenses give the impression of glistening eyes and permanent dilation of pupils. And sure enough, studies reveal that men find women with contact lenses very sexy! Lips, if we are to believe Freud and zoologists, are an outer manifestation of a woman's sexuality and fill with blood and swell up when she is excited. Men find full, sensual lips attractive. Do you wonder at the silicon injects women undergo to get the bee-bitten swollen look?

For the rest, men find a woman with long neck and long hair more appealing. Long necks signify gender difference, while long hair indicates good health and so potential to produce healthy offspring.

Coming to body shape, a man's ideal for women is a waist-hip ratio of about 70 per cent - and this ratio is actually an indicator of high fertility in a woman. All men love breasts and cleavage, and find a rounded, protruding behind attractive - a symbol of fertility since time immemorial. So, ok, with a man, looks do matter. And how! To the extent that over time, women's bodies have evolved as sexual signals to beckon men!

However, things are different when a man is looking for a long-term partner. Unlike women, men, with their age-old hunting instincts, know exactly what they are looking for when their search for a partner begins. And, a man makes a difference between short-term and long-term partners, with criteria for both differing.

If it is a fling or a one-night stand he is looking for, he looks out for women who are provocatively dressed, sexy and a little drunk and loud. If she doesn't drink, confesses a male colleague, forget about it! You aren't in luck that night. For a short-term affair, she must also be friendly and warm into the bargain.

However, if a man is looking for a long-term relationship, the criteria changes. Now he's looking for a beautiful girl, warm and friendly. She should be sexy but not overtly so - after all you wouldn't want a Mallika Sherawat as long-term girlfriend, would you, exclaims the colleague in horrified tones! She should be 'different' from others - warm, attractive and a good conversationalist. Research shows personality, good looks, brain and humour is a man's wish list in order of priority for a partner.

A man likes a woman to say positive things to him, ask questions about and show interest in whatever he does. Of course the one thing that puts him off is a woman who clings - is too needy and wanting all the time. A woman must give him his space. A trick the colleague shares is that the woman must keep withdrawing a bit and coming back again - so as to keep him on his toes. A man appreciates a slight aloofness over a clingy attitude.

If a man needs to appeal to a woman's vanity to be attractive to her, she needs to appeal to his ego if she is to make an impact on him. Most men are susceptible to compliments that boost their self-esteem. And nobody knows this better than a woman.

Give him single-minded attention, flirt with him, prod him on to talk about his day and work, make appropriately appreciative sounds at the right places and soon you will have him eating out of your hands. Till you keep him guessing, he will dance attendance; the moment he knows you are hooked, he will relax his guard and start taking you for granted. A man somehow is convinced that a woman dresses and grooms herself for him, though research shows women dress more for other women!

Men, however, draw a straight correlation between the amount of effort women take with their appearance and their interest in them. As a result, if somewhere along the line a woman stops looking after her appearance, a man sees it as a signal that he is no longer important to her!

And so, just like a man must never stop complimenting a woman, a woman must always look-after her appearance for her man's sake. If he must always pander to her vanity, she needs to pander to his ego. When a woman looks for a sense of humour in a man, she means he should be able to make her laugh; when he seeks a woman with a sense of humour, a man means she should be able to laugh at his jokes! While a woman looks for a bit of a scoundrel in a short-term relationship, he is looking for a bit of a vamp. However for long-term, both change criteria and look for more mind than matter! Now she seeks a guy with potential for moving ahead, while he looks for a good homemaker.

Sounds so clinical and unromantic, doesn't it? And yet, knowingly or unknowingly, it all boils down to just that! What's so different about the 21st century? Primal instincts are still as much at play beneath a veneer of civilization.