Dancing

An evolutionary display of fitness. A way to show the opposite gender that you are free of disease and have a relatively high number of desirable genetic traits. A way to advertise one’s, not only high level of evolutionary fitness, but also youth and willingness to mate.

Person A: Wanna go dancing?
Person B: No thanks, I prefer my Fallopian Tubes sperm free at this time.

Kiss

A sign of genetic trust. Your body spends so much energy trying to keep unwanted microbes out, that for you to combine your oral environment with someone else’s is like two countries just opening borders and letting the populations mingle. The problem is, humans are not very selective about who they kiss. Have some alcohol, then add another human with symmetrical features and signifiers of youth and willingness to mate, and kissing will occur. Now the problem is not what most germaphobes fear- systemic illness, nay my friend, the problem is bacteria associated with periodontal disease and caries. Lets say you have a healthy mouth- you brush and floss daily, you keep the sugary drinks down- then you go to a party, get drunk, and make out with Mike the Man whore, Bam! Unbeknownst to you, Mike has generalized chronic moderate periodontitis and rampant decay. Your mouth is then flooded with bacteria associated with these conditions. These bacteria are highly virulent and greatly increase your risk of coming down with the same oral diseases. Oh, and your mouth will not “go back to normal” after a few days, Oh no my friend, these bacteria have been INTRODUCED! They are reproducing like crazy- setting up nice cozy homes in biofilms and gingival sulcuses! Because of your impulse to pass your genes on with what your primitive “ID” considers a good partner, you have allowed the equivalent of an ecological disaster to start in your mouth. Hope you know a good periodontist!

Bob: Last year my periodontal diagnosis was “healthy”. This year they told me I need monthly scaling and root planing.
Sally: Well, I did see you kiss that rando at the party.

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Football

A stand in for war. In modern society, there are certain anachronistic human traits that persist, despite their lack of adaptiveness. One is the need for some sort of territorial conflict. Football teams are named after, and have stadiums in, certain geographic areas (eg the “Oakland Raiders”) to create the illusion that they are, somehow representative of this area. All, or almost all, of the players and coaches are inevitably not from this area, but the naming scheme is enough of a paper thin veneer to allow anyone in the entire state to arbitrarily consider this “their” team. This feeds into the irrational impulse for territorial struggle or even war while maintaining decorum. Also makes millions of dollars.

Bob: What do you think of the Seattle Seahawks football team?
Sally: Well, despite the fact that everyone on the team is from the deep south, I am from Seattle and thus live vicariously through them.