What Women Don’t Know About Men
Myth 1:Men Are Less Romantic Than Women.
If either gender can be labeled romance junkies, it’s men. They often fall in love more easily and more quickly than women, who are apt to consider practical issues in choosing a mate.
In the mid-1970s Charles T. Hill,
a professor of psychology at California’s Whittier College, and his colleagues began studying 231 college-age couples who were dating each other exclusively. Fifteen years later he determined that half had broken up within two years of the initial study—most often because the woman ended the romance. Hill concluded, “When it comes to romantic beliefs, men are more likely to believe that true love lasts forever and overcomes all obstacles.”
Why, then, do so many women complain that their mates are romantic washouts? Possibly because women expect men to fulfill the female definition of romance, which has a lot to do with the verbal expression of feelings. But men tend to clam up after that first heartfelt “I love you.” They don’t need to reinforce intimacy with talk because they feel connected to their partner merely by being in her presence.
Myth 2:Men Want to Avoid Marriage.
For many single women, the typical bachelor is a Houdini of Heartache, a practiced escape artist who will vanish into thin air at the slightest suggestion that a relationship become long-term.
According to experts, however, these types are atypical. Men, in fact, seek marriage in greater numbers than women do, and very few remain lifelong bachelors: over 90 percent of American males wed at some point in their lives. Even after marriage, men are pleased with their decision. In one Harris poll, 87 percent of married men said they would marry their wives over again, while 76 percent of women would choose the same groom.
Moreover, once a man tries marriage, he’s hooked. Divorced and widowed men remarry at higher rates and in greater haste than do their female counterparts.
When psychologist Lillian B. Rubin asked married men whether they d marry again if something happened to their spouse, almost every husband responded yes without hesitation. Nearly half the wives, however, said they wouldn’t opt for a second stroll down the aisle.
Myth 3:Men Don’t Value Fidelity.
Guess again. More than three-quarters of the 1000 men surveyed in an opinion poll agreed that fidelity is more important to a good marriage than is a satisfying sexual relationship, financial security or having children.And a landmark study, published in the book American Couples by sociologists Philip Blumstein and Pepper Schwartz, revealed that only 15 percent of husbands married two years or less have strayed; among men wed a decade or more, not even one in three has cheated on his wife.
Myth 4:Men Cope With Breakups More Easily Than Women Do.
It may appear that men recover faster from a failed romance, but that’s only because “women don’t understand how men emote,” contends Los Angeles psychologist Stuart Fischoff. “He feels the pain, but in a very different way.” Though men might not cry after a breakup, they may become impotent, suffer gastrointestinal disorders, drink more and have automobile accidents.
In a study of how 150 young adults handled the failure of long-term relationships, Terri L. Orbuch, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Michigan, found that women turned to friends and family for advice and consolation, while men engaged more in competitive group sports.
“The question isn’t ‘Who feels the pain of a breakup more deeply?’” says William Becker, a professor of religion at Bucknell University who teaches a course called Masculinity and Femininity, “but ‘Who has the resources to deal with these painful feelings?’ And women generally have more resources. A friend said one of the loneliest and most bitter experiences of his life was when he was going through a divorce and realized his wife could call four female friends to talk about her feelings, while he had no one because his wife was the only person who had been that kind of friend.”
Myth 5:Men Never Feel Lonely.
To them, loneliness is weak, shameful, unmanly. But just because men don’t talk about loneliness doesn’t mean they don’t feel lonely. A report in the “Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin” found that, in studies relying on self-evaluation, women more frequently admitted to being lonely than men did. However, in studies that didn’t involve self-analysis, males typically had higher loneliness scores.
The researchers also discovered why men might be reluctant to reveal feelings of loneliness: doing so exposes them to social disapproval. This was demonstrated during an experiment in which men and women were told one of two case histories of a lonely person. The case histories were identical, save for one detail—gender. The results: people rejected a lonely male more strongly than they did a lonely female.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that male social isolation can be life-threat-ening. Research suggests that men’s health declines virtually the moment they find themselves alone. Comparing the health of separated and divorced men with that of married men, researchers at the Ohio State University College of Medicine found that unattached men were more distressed than their married peers, reported significantly more recent illness and had poorer immunity to disease.
Myth 6:Men Don’t Agonize Over Their Looks.
Not true. Ninety-four percent of men would like to change some aspect of their physical appearance. For an overwhelming majority of men, being muscular—with wide shoulders, well-developed arms and chest, and a narrow waist—is as tyrannical a standard for men as being slender is for women. One survey found that a man’s self-esteem is directly tied to having a muscular upper body. Those who feel their biceps aren’t beefy enough often feel inadequate and depressed.
Men are dissatisfied with themselves in other ways too. According to a study by the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health, 40 percent of the men surveyed wanted to lose weight, and another 45 percent wanted to gain weight. One in three American men report that they’d like to be taller.
Myth 7:Men Are Insensitive.
The real problem, says Deborah Tannen, author of You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation, is that the sexes have fundamentally different conversational styles. For women, conversation is about rapport—a means of establishing connections, underscoring similarities. Not so for men. “Since many men see themselves as problem solvers, a complaint is a challenge to their ability to think of a solution,” Tannen says. So women who seek understanding from their partner feel frustrated when they receive advice.
Men likewise feel frustrated when their genuine attempts to be caring are met with tears and anger. Notes psychologist Bernie Zilbergeld, author of The New Male Sexuality, “Many men say, ‘I’m trying to be helpful in a loving way by solving the problem. Why does she think I’m insensitive?’ ” Nor do men necessarily see women as sensitivity experts. A woman’s “I know how you feel” response may offend rather than comfort a man, who may feel that the uniqueness of his problem is being denied and belittled, Tannen says.
“Relationships are sometimes threatened because partners are expressing their thoughts and feelings in different ways,” Tannen says. “The answer is for men and women to take their partners on their terms, rather than to apply the standards of one group to the behavior of the other.”
So vive la difference! And let’s hear it for “men!”
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