Gold-digger? Don’t be so quick to judge

He might be over the hill,
but his sperm ain’t.

I’m as quick to judge as anyone when it comes to pictures like these. He’s rich, famous, successful and geriatric; she’s fit, attractive and generations younger.

“What does she see in him?” we ask ourselves. A lifestyle choice is the kindest way to describe our knee-jerk reaction. She gets money, luxury, travel, recognition and security; he gets his ego stroked, not to mention other parts of his body if he’s still capable.

We might be a touch kinder and put it down to a psychological aberration; a search for a father figure, dealing with issues from childhood, etc.

Thinking about it though, this seems to me another case where we can dispense with psychobabble and cheap shots. When it comes to a social or emotional attachment becoming a sexual one, isn’t this just another example of our being slaves to our genes?

Why do we fall in love? Whether we consciously intend to have children or not the instinct is all down to procreation, about snagging the best possible DNA to mix our own with. His best decades might be behind him, but his genes are still the same ones that secured that fame and fortune in the first place.

Okay, these days his sperm might need a Stannah to get up the fallopian tube, but if they ever scored a goal they’d make the same kids they would have made fifty years ago.

In terms of mate-selection, that doesn’t make him such an unreasonable choice.