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" \n Ever notice how a cute guy will suddenly seem hotter the second he&amp;#039;s off the market? Take Ryan Reynolds: He was always adorable, but his serious hunk status didn&amp;#039;t kick in until after he hooked up with \u2014 then married \u2014 Scarlett Johansson. Ditto for Dax Shepard, whom we didn&amp;#039;t look at twice until he snagged Kristen Bell. And now that we think about it, Justin Long barely registered a beep on our babe-dar before Drew Barrymore. According to a new study, this phenomenon isn&amp;#039;t limited to our Hollywood crushes. After asking single women to describe the characteristics of their ideal man, researchers at Oklahoma State University showed them a picture of a guy who was their &amp;quot;perfect match&amp;quot; and asked if they would date him. When the women were told that their perfect match was single, 59 percent of them said they&amp;#039;d go out with him. When they were told he had a girlfriend, 90 percent said they would. The conclusion: Merely knowing that a guy is spoken for makes him more appealing. Given that this freaky news is bound to set off major alarms (are all women man-stealers at heart?!), we decided to dig deeper to find out what&amp;#039;s really behind this taboo attraction.  Basic Instinct To some experts, the fact that women automatically find taken men more tempting than single ones makes sense. Back in caveman days, finding an ideal mate was a matter of life and death, says biological anthropologist Helen Fisher, PhD, author of Why We Love. If your man couldn&amp;#039;t protect and provide, you wouldn&amp;#039;t survive. So when we see a guy in what looks like a successful relationship, the cavegirl part of our brain assumes he must be a good protector/provider and his desirability skyrockets. But on the flip side, men are different \u2014 the study found they had no preference for unavailable chicks. This also doesn&amp;#039;t surprise Fisher. &amp;quot;Men don&amp;#039;t have to do as much digging to get that instinctual sense that a woman would be a good mate,&amp;quot; she explains. &amp;quot;They look for physical signs that a woman is fertile, like having a good hip-to-waist ratio, which can be sized up visually on the spot.&amp;quot; In addition to our primal urges, some of us women are unwittingly drawn to men in relationships because we&amp;#039;re seeing them play a purely romantic role, says couples therapist Deborah Dunn, author of Stupid About Men. We watch a woman&amp;#039;s boyfriend hold her hand or open a door for her and we assume he&amp;#039;s Prince Charming. What we don&amp;#039;t see is the moody, burping, fantasy-football-playing dude she&amp;#039;s really dating. Why We Aren&amp;#039;t All Man-Nabbers Sure, some women take the Angelina route, but most of us check ourselves when we notice that a coworker&amp;#039;s boyfriend is a dead ringer for Zac Efron. It&amp;#039;s not that we aren&amp;#039;t up for a little girl-on-girl competition. It&amp;#039;s just that, well, we&amp;#039;re so much better than that. &amp;quot;Overall, women have too much respect for other people&amp;#039;s relationships,&amp;quot; says Debbie Magids, PhD, coauthor of All the Good Ones Aren&amp;#039;t Taken. Not to mention that we want to keep our reputations as spotless as possible. &amp;quot;Many smart people love their friends, their careers, their communities,&amp;quot; says Magids. &amp;quot;They don&amp;#039;t want to mess that up.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/advice/a3207/why-taken-guys-are-sexier/?click=rel>