Have New Yorkers evolved to settle for just a â€˜good enoughâ€™ mate?

Mr. Right, or Mr. Good Enough? Evolutionary researchers out of Michigan State University found that most humans have evolved to accept the latter, rather than risk never mating at all.

But outliers always existed, and it is likely that many progeny of the pickiest proto-daters ended up in, you guessed it, New York City.

"Primitive humans were likely forced to bet on whether or not they could find a better mate," said Chris Adami, Michigan State University professor of microbiology and molecular genetics and co-author of the Nature's Scientific Reports Journal study. "An individual might hold out to find the perfect mate but run the risk of coming up empty and leaving no progeny."

However, some people did take the riskier bet and it paid off, creating diversity in humanity's level of risk aversion, Adami said.

"While most people developed to be risk-averse, not everyone did. You see some people who are more likely to take bigger risks than others," Adami said. "Some will make it to the next generation, and it makes sense that those risk-taking individuals might aggregate in a city like New York."

Brain imaging scans and a questionnaire study taken by more than 14 million people worldwide has validated that claim, finding that big cities like New York are filled with risk takers, said Helen Fisher, a research professor in the Department of Anthropology at Rutgers University and scientific advisor to dating website Match.com.

"New Yorkers are by nature risk takers, and that could be part of the problem," Fisher said. "Risk takers are always going to look for what is around the corner. They can, in a sense, sleep with their sneakers on, knowing that there might be somebody else out there."

There's no such thing as a whole package. The person that you marry at 32 might be different at 52 in substantial ways. - Lori Gottlieb, author of 'Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough'

Adami and his co-author Arend Hintze, an MSU research associate, used a computational model to trace risk-taking behaviors through thousands of generations of evolution with digital organisms. These organisms were programmed to make bets in once-in-a-lifetime gambles, such as mating. When the stakes were high — say, never passing along their genes — the overwhelming majority took the "safe bet," and carried those risk-averse genes to the next generation.

But New York is not an ancient caveman community — or even modern Wyoming — and what has worked for most people since the dawn of man doesn't necessarily translate to a city with more than 1 million Tinder users and bar tabs that run about 58 percent higher per resident than any other city in the US.

"How risk averse we are correlates to the size of the group in which we were raised. If reared in a small group — fewer than 150 people — we tend to be much more risk averse than those who were part of a larger community," Hintze said.

With scarce resources and few dating options, these ancient environments helped promote risk aversion. Meanwhile, a small number of risk-takers — people who took the gamble of, say, a beefier fella with a larger cave and a stockpile of lion pelts, saw it pay off and pass along their risk-taking genes to the next generation.

"If you live in a large group, then it pays off for a couple of people to work for this rare chance," Hintze said.

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In modern times, this evolutionary anomaly could explain whole metropolises full of highly selective singles, including New York, where there are an estimated 1.5 million people between the ages of 20 and 34 who have never been married.

For these individuals, low risk is often equated with low returns.

"There is a backlash against the idea of compromise because people associate compromise with lowering your standards. But any healthy relationship involves compromise," said Lori Gottlieb, Los Angeles-based couples counselor and author of "Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough."

Gottlieb said that too many singles discount traits like kindness, generosity and compassion when they're dating, only to realize a few years down the line that those were the traits they should have valued most.

"There's no such thing as a whole package," Gottleib said. "The person that you marry at 32 might be different at 52 in substantial ways. What you need to look for is stability of character and mind. Do they act in responsible ways? Do they have similar values, similar ideals?"

In this way, Gottlieb differentiates between compromising and settling.

"Nobody wants to be settled for. It comes across. Your disdain for your partner will come across. You will be unhappy and he will be unhappy with you," she said.

Photo: Getty Images

Couples counselors say they are less worried about people "settling" than people who want to marry never settling down.

A recent Pew Research report finds that the number of people who will never marry is at a historic high, with 30 percent of singles saying they still haven't found the perfect mate.

While the Pew study finds that marriage is still largely held as the ideal, the tide might be changing. An earlier Pew study from 2014 found that 53 percent of all never-married adults would like to marry eventually, down from 61 percent just four years earlier. And nearly 32 percent of never-married adults said they were unsure if they wanted to marry, while 13 percent said they definitely never did.

These findings don't entirely surprise researchers. While the Michigan State study did not project into the future, Adami said it is possible that we are evolving out of our primitive need to "love the one you're with," and that the volatile New York dating scene might serve as a bellwether for our entire species.

"Things have changed. We can make up our own mind without feeling tied to the genes of our past. We evolved genes to make us mistrust people who are not our kin, but in an advanced society, we have surmounted those genes," Adami said. "In the same manner, every person was supposed to achieve their potential — which meant mating and passing off their genes. In today's society, it doesn't have to be that way.