SO WHAT IS IT YOU LADIES want us to do? "If you're not a great skier and dating someone who is, sign up for lessons," says 30-year-old Sandra, who skis 100 days a year. "Tell her you're on a business retreat and secretly take a couple weeks in Jackson."

Annika, a ripper featured in seven ski films, says it's even easier: You don't have to excel at her sport—as long as you excel at something. "I want to be pushed and motivated by my boyfriend," she explains. "Maybe I can beat him to the chairlift, but if he's a better mountain biker, I can follow his wheel on the descents and learn how to corner."

Not coordinated enough to make it happen? Then simply try not to be a jerk. "Don't feel like you have to take me on an ‘adventure' down some closed run without any snow," says Jennifer, a former freestyle competitor living in Park City, Utah. "Get over your ego; have fun. And if that doesn't work, then just watch my ass and like it."

Now that I can do!

But, honestly, these tips are hardly astonishing. How did it ever come to this, these playground rules?

Helen Fisher, research professor of anthropology at Rutgers University and author of Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love, believes that at least part of the answer is that, well, millions of years of evolution have not brought us that far. Women still can't ignore Cro-Magnon sex appeal, a man who is strong and skilled enough to protect and provide in the wild. "A woman might not need these traits in the modern world," Fisher says, "but that doesn't mean she's not attuned to them." Guys, unsurprisingly, are even more shallow. "Men," she says, "look for signs of health, fertility, and youth, including a supple figure, clear skin, bright eyes, swishy hair, and a buoyant personality."

In other words, humans are genetically predisposed to suffer SDS.