Of Men and Women

A survey conducted by the website Match.com revealed some impressive results. It seems that the opinions of the men and of the women regarding the relationships are very different than we believe.

It seems that the men are not only interested in meaningless relationships, and that the women do not care only about finding Mr. Right. The new survey revealed the fact that men are more likely to want commitment and to have babies, and that the women are more interested in independence in their romantic relationships. The people who participated to the survey, all of them being single had the age between 21 and 65. Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist at Rutgers University stated that the survey proved that lots of changes have occurred in the past regarding the way in which the genders see the relationships. If in the past, the men were mainly interested in meaningless relationships, and the women were interested in stability, it seem that things have reversed since then, and that now the women are looking for independence and the men are looking for stability. Fisher said that one of the reasons for this change is money. For many decades now the women and the men make a similar amount of money. In the past, one of the reasons why the women wanted stability, was because they depended on the men from the financial point of view, Fisher said. She said that since the financial situation has changed, so did the social and romantic relationships. 5,200 people participated to the survey, in which they had to provide answers for 100 questions.

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These single people belonged to a variety of areas, races, and sexual orientations, in order to make sure that the survey would not be biased. Fisher said that the survey revealed some surprising things. For example, 24 percent of the men with the ages between 18 and 21 have stated that they want to have a child, whereas only 15 percent of the women who belong to the same age category declared their desire to have a child. Another surprising thing was the fact that 54 percent of the men stated that they get in love very fast, and that they have experienced love at first sight on numerous occasions. 40 percent of the women have stated this thing. When they were asked if the women should be the ones who should take care of the children, 51 percent of the women said yes, whereas 62 percent of the men had the same answer. The survey revealed that the women are more interested in being independent in their relationships. They are the ones who want to have more space, to have private things, to hang out only with the girls, whereas the men were more interested in doing things together. Fisher stated that one of the reasons why women desire to be independent is because they are more secure about their relationships. She stated that it is very likely that the men are insecure in the relationship, and in order to prevent a break-up, they would like to be together with their partner as often as possible. It has been discovered that the men are the ones which are more insecure in their relationships, the ones who are afraid of being rejected, and who are untrusting when it comes to their partners. It is believed that the reason for this is the fact that the men have lower self-confidence than the women do, and because of that reason they are afraid that they will not be able to find out someone else for them.

The survey also revealed the fact that the conception of being single has changed a lot in the recent period of time. 62 percent of the volunteers, both men and women, with ages between 21 and 34 stated that they want to get married, whereas 29 percent are not sure about it, and 9 percent do not want to get married. Things have changed a lot since the 60s, when the majority of the people wanted to get married then. Those were the times of the nuclear family, when everyone wanted to have a husband or wife, two children, a house with picket white fences and a dog. Stephanie Coontz, a social historian at The Evergreen State College in Washington, said that during those times a woman would get married by the time she was 20. If she would have not been married by the time she was 24, it is very likely that she would have not gotten married at all. She would have been forced to remain single. The people who were single after that period of time were ostracized, as it was believed that there is something wrong with them. Nowadays things are not the same, as being single is not as bad as it was in the past. People are no longer judged for being single, because they have more options nowadays than they had in the past. On top of that, the divorce rate is much higher than in the past and because of that, it is much easier for people to start a new life. People still want to get married, but they do not make a fuss if they do not get married by a certain age. There were many experts in the domain who predicted back in those days, in the 60s, that marriage will not be as common as it was then, and that the conception about the relationships will change. They were right, as this is the exact thing that happened.

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Coontz also said that the conception regarding sex has changed as well. Back in those days, a woman had to be a virgin by the time she got married; otherwise she would not be accepted by the husband. The ones who lost their virginity prior to marriage were considered sluts and got ostracized as well. Nowadays 80 percent of the people have stated that they are OK with having sex prior to being married, and 40 percent of them have stated that they have friends with benefit. A friend with benefit is a person to whom one has a strictly sexual relationship. The two people get together only in order to have sex. It has been discovered that 60 percent of the women who participated to the survey had one night-stand. 20 percent of them have stated that they are friends with benefits to someone. The psychologists have analyzed the “booty-calls”, and they have reached to the conclusion that they are very different than the long time relationships and than the one night stands. When it comes to these repeated sexual encounters, there aren’t as many emotions involved as in the case of a long time relationship, and the sexual variety is much more common than in the case of the one night stands. Peter Jonason, a psychologist at the University of West Florida, analyzed these sexual encounters. He had 123 students who often engaged in these booty-calls, 79 students who were in long time relationships and 50 students who have been involved in one night stands. He has discovered that the people who participated to the booty-calls were less likely to get involved from an emotional point of view, as they did not kiss or held hands very often, these being sings of affection. The people from the long time relationships did kiss and held hands quite often.

He has discovered that the ones who participate in the booty-calls are more likely experience new sexual things each and every time they meet. This does not happen in the case of the one night stands, because it might get too strange to get freaky right from the beginning without knowing the other person. He has also discovered that the people who often had one night stands were more likely to invest more emotional acts than sexual acts during the encounter. Johnson has also stated that in the majority of the cases, a booty-call relationship will end, when one of the partners will invest too many emotions. Both of them want strictly to have sex, and when one of them falls in love, the other partner feels smothered. In the majority of the cases, these people do not spend time together prior or after the sexual act. Johnson said that these types of encounters are very important, as they can help one understand more about the way in which the regular relationships take place. The study conducted by the website revealed the fact that 35 percent of the one night stands led to relationships. 35 percent of the people have stated that they have fallen in love with someone they did not find attractive at first. It has been discovered that people are more likely to hook-up with someone of different race or of different religion. What has not changed is the conception about fidelity, as the majority of the people have stated that being true to your partner is very important.