IStock Photo 6225338 © simonmcconico

In 2004, ABC News conducted a survey to gauge how many people jump at the chance of getting lucky on the first date and how many wouldn’t consider it under any circumstances The network found that the odds a man has ever had sex on a first date are 1 in 2.43. The odds a woman has ever had sex on a first date are 1 in 6.06.

Not surprised? That’s because the gender stereotype is that men want to do it with anyone, anywhere, anytime, while women are the cautious gatekeepers, balancing between the appearances of chastity and promiscuity. Men like the chase, and women are ill-advised to take away the challenge too soon. A man pushing for sex so early isn’t looking for a long-term commitment. A woman climbing into bed right off the bat must be sexually promiscuous.

Of course, human relations are never so black and white. Some women are looking for a fling, not a soul mate. Some men crave stability, not novelty. And these observations don’t address the complexities of both a sex survey (study bias, participant self-selection, the chance that respondents are merely saying what they believe is socially acceptable) and the subject itself. There are defenses of sex on the first date, set against arguments that initiating a sexual relationship too soon can only lead to a casual fling or worse, heartache. There are arguments that many happily married couples started out with a quickie and the counterargument that those couples are the rare exception. There are correlations to consider. Did the couple meet online? Did they meet in church? What about when partners are of the same gender? In short, there’s a lot to think about before anyone makes a move.

Behavioral scientists are among those who try to find rules underlying the chaos. In 2008, a pair of British researchers constructed a mathematical model of courtship behavior. If you’re wondering what the equations look like when you’re trying to determine the optimal male and female dating strategies, the Journal of Theoretical Biology provides a detailed mathematical model.

While acknowledging that this was a “highly idealized” simplification of the mating process, especially for humans—after all, the hermit crabs and horned dung beetles also cited in the paper don’t have to deal with splitting restaurant bills or struggling with conflicting messages from popular culture or the pulpit—the researchers nonetheless felt that they could gain certain insights into heterosexual dating-and-mating behavior across species.

They considered dating as “a gradual accumulation of costs to both the male and the female over time”—an all-too-familiar sentiment—with “costs” taking the form of gift-giving for the male and lost time for both the male and female. Then they weighed the costs against the possible benefits, all the way from minimal nutrition gained from a meal to the ultimate goal of finding a suitable partner to raise offspring.

After creating a sort of courtship logic table, the researchers determined that, if a female has the chance of enjoying a high payoff from courting a male for a long time, she’s better off stretching it out than giving it up (or giving up) after one candlelit dinner. Not only does making the guy work for it allow her to observe him for an extended time and thereby make a more accurate judgment, the researchers argued, but the guy’s very willingness to wait indicates his suitability.

But again, that’s all based on a set of assumptions that doesn’t capture complex human experience. One day there may be a set of variables where you can plug in what you want and see how long it’s worth dating someone to get it. Until then, there’s always the philosophy that you should just go with what feels right… possibly because when it comes to matters of the heart, inflexible rule-following is a turnoff.