The problem of the eligible bachelor is one of the great riddles of social life. Shouldn't there be about as many highly eligible and appealing men as there are attractive, eligible women?
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Actually, no—and here's why. Consider the classic version of the marriage proposal: A woman makes it known that she is open to a proposal, the man proposes, and the woman chooses to say yes or no. The structure of the proposal is not, "I choose you." It is, "Will you choose me?" A woman chooses to receive the question and chooses again once the question is asked.
The idea of the woman choosing expressed in the proposal is a resilient one. The woman picking among suitors is a rarely reversed archetype of romantic love that you'll find everywhere from Jane Austen to Desperate Housewives. Or take any comic wedding scene: Invariably, it'll have the man standing dazed at the altar, wondering just how it is he got there.
Full story here: http://www.slate.com/id/2188684/
Happy Valentine's Day...to the decisive ones! I am decisively single....and never been happier!
Monday, February 14, 2011
Thursday, January 6, 2011
The future of love and the New Monogamy: Forward to the Past
The New Monogamy: Forward to the Past
An author and anthropologist looks at the future of love. This article was written by Helen Fisher and published in The World Futurist Society's magazine.
Marriage has changed more in the past 100 years than it has in the past 10,000, and it could change more in the next 20 years than in the last 100. We are rapidly shedding traditions that emerged with the Agricultural Revolution and returning to patterns of sex, romance, and attachment that evolved on the grasslands of Africa millions of years ago.
Let’s look at virginity at marriage, arranged marriages, the concept that men should be the sole family breadwinners, the credo that a woman’s place is in the home, the double standard for adultery, and the concepts of “honor thy husband” and “til death do us part.” These beliefs are vanishing. Instead, children are expressing their sexuality. “Hooking up” (the new term for a one-night stand) is becoming commonplace, along with living together, bearing children out of wedlock, women-headed households, interracial marriages, homosexual weddings, commuter marriages between individuals who live apart, childless marriages, betrothals between older women and younger men, and small families.
Our concept of infidelity is changing. Some married couples agree to have brief sexual encounters when they travel separately; others sustain long-term adulterous relationships with the approval of a spouse. Even our concept of divorce is shifting. Divorce used to be considered a sign of failure; today it is often deemed the first step toward true happiness.
These trends aren’t new. Anthropologists have many clues to life among our forebears; the dead do speak. A million years ago, children were most likely experimenting with sex and love by age six. Teens lived together, in relationships known as “trial marriages.” Men and women chose their partners for themselves. Many were unfaithful—a propensity common in all 42 extant cultures I have examined. When our forebears found themselves in an unhappy partnership, these ancients walked out. A million years ago, anthropologists suspect, most men and women had two or three long-term partners across their lifetimes. All these primordial habits are returning.
But the most profound trend forward to the past is the rise of what sociologists call the companionate, symmetrical, or peer marriage: marriage between equals. Women in much of the world are regaining the economic power they enjoyed for millennia. Ancestral women left camp almost daily to gather fruits, nuts, and vegetables, returning with 60% to 80% of the evening meal. In the hunting and gathering societies of our past, women worked outside the home; the double-income family was the rule, and women were just as economically, sexually, and socially powerful as men. Today, we are returning to this lifeway, leaving in the “dustbin of history” the traditional, male-headed, patriarchal family—the bastion of agrarian society.
This massive change will challenge many of our social traditions, institutions, and policies in the next 20 years. Perhaps we will see wedding licenses with an expiration date. Companies may have to reconsider how they distribute pension benefits. Words like marriage, family, adultery, and divorce are likely to take on a variety of meanings. We may invent some new kinship terms. Who pays for dinner will shift. Matriliny may become common as more children trace their descent through their mother.
All sorts of industries are already booming as spin-offs of our tendencies to marry later, then divorce and remarry. Among these are Internet dating services, marital mediators, artists who airbrush faces out of family albums, divorce support groups, couples therapists, and self-improvement books. As behavioral geneticists begin to pinpoint the biology of such seemingly amorphous traits as curiosity, cautiousness, political orientation, and religiosity, the rich may soon create designer babies.
For every trend there is a countertrend, of course. Religious traditions are impeding the rise of women in some societies. In countries where there are far more men than women, due to female infanticide, women are likely to become coveted—and cloistered. The aging world population may cling to outmoded social values, and population surges and declines will affect our attitudes toward family life.
Adding to this mix will be everything we are learning about the biology of relationships. We now know that kissing a long-term partner reduces cortisol, the stress hormone. Certain genes in the vasopressin system predispose men to make less-stable partnerships. My colleagues and I have discovered that the feeling of romantic love is associated with the brain’s dopamine system—the system for wanting. Moreover, we have found that romantic rejection activates brain regions associated with profound addiction. Scientists even know some of the payoffs of “hooking up.” Casual sex can trigger the brain systems for romantic love and/or feelings of deep attachment. In a study led by anthropologist Justin Garcia, some 50% of men and women reported that they initiated a hook up in order to trigger a longer partnership; indeed, almost a third of them succeeded.
What will we do with all these data? One forward-thinking company has begun to bottle what our forebears would have called “love magic.” They sell Liquid Trust, a perfume that contains oxytocin, the natural brain chemical that, when sniffed, triggers feelings of trust and attachment.
We are living in a sea of social and technological currents that are likely to reshape our family lives. But much will remain the same. To bond is human. The drives to fall in love and form an attachment to a mate are deeply embedded in the human brain. Indeed, in a study I just completed on 2,171 individuals (1,198 men, 973 women) at the Internet dating site Chemistry.com, 84% of participants said they wanted to marry at some point. They will. Today, 84% of Americans wed by age 40—albeit making different kinds of marriages. Moreover, with the expansion of the roles of both women and men, with the new medical aids to sex and romance (such as Viagra and estrogen replacement), with our longer life spans, and with the growing social acceptance of alternative ways to bond, I believe we now have the time and tools to make more-fulfilling partnerships than at any time in human evolution. The time to love is now.
About the Author
Helen Fisher is a research professor in biological anthroplogy at Rutgers University and chief scientific advisor of Chemistry.com. Her most recent book is Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Love (Henry Holt, 2010).
An author and anthropologist looks at the future of love. This article was written by Helen Fisher and published in The World Futurist Society's magazine.
Marriage has changed more in the past 100 years than it has in the past 10,000, and it could change more in the next 20 years than in the last 100. We are rapidly shedding traditions that emerged with the Agricultural Revolution and returning to patterns of sex, romance, and attachment that evolved on the grasslands of Africa millions of years ago.
Let’s look at virginity at marriage, arranged marriages, the concept that men should be the sole family breadwinners, the credo that a woman’s place is in the home, the double standard for adultery, and the concepts of “honor thy husband” and “til death do us part.” These beliefs are vanishing. Instead, children are expressing their sexuality. “Hooking up” (the new term for a one-night stand) is becoming commonplace, along with living together, bearing children out of wedlock, women-headed households, interracial marriages, homosexual weddings, commuter marriages between individuals who live apart, childless marriages, betrothals between older women and younger men, and small families.
Our concept of infidelity is changing. Some married couples agree to have brief sexual encounters when they travel separately; others sustain long-term adulterous relationships with the approval of a spouse. Even our concept of divorce is shifting. Divorce used to be considered a sign of failure; today it is often deemed the first step toward true happiness.
These trends aren’t new. Anthropologists have many clues to life among our forebears; the dead do speak. A million years ago, children were most likely experimenting with sex and love by age six. Teens lived together, in relationships known as “trial marriages.” Men and women chose their partners for themselves. Many were unfaithful—a propensity common in all 42 extant cultures I have examined. When our forebears found themselves in an unhappy partnership, these ancients walked out. A million years ago, anthropologists suspect, most men and women had two or three long-term partners across their lifetimes. All these primordial habits are returning.
But the most profound trend forward to the past is the rise of what sociologists call the companionate, symmetrical, or peer marriage: marriage between equals. Women in much of the world are regaining the economic power they enjoyed for millennia. Ancestral women left camp almost daily to gather fruits, nuts, and vegetables, returning with 60% to 80% of the evening meal. In the hunting and gathering societies of our past, women worked outside the home; the double-income family was the rule, and women were just as economically, sexually, and socially powerful as men. Today, we are returning to this lifeway, leaving in the “dustbin of history” the traditional, male-headed, patriarchal family—the bastion of agrarian society.
This massive change will challenge many of our social traditions, institutions, and policies in the next 20 years. Perhaps we will see wedding licenses with an expiration date. Companies may have to reconsider how they distribute pension benefits. Words like marriage, family, adultery, and divorce are likely to take on a variety of meanings. We may invent some new kinship terms. Who pays for dinner will shift. Matriliny may become common as more children trace their descent through their mother.
All sorts of industries are already booming as spin-offs of our tendencies to marry later, then divorce and remarry. Among these are Internet dating services, marital mediators, artists who airbrush faces out of family albums, divorce support groups, couples therapists, and self-improvement books. As behavioral geneticists begin to pinpoint the biology of such seemingly amorphous traits as curiosity, cautiousness, political orientation, and religiosity, the rich may soon create designer babies.
For every trend there is a countertrend, of course. Religious traditions are impeding the rise of women in some societies. In countries where there are far more men than women, due to female infanticide, women are likely to become coveted—and cloistered. The aging world population may cling to outmoded social values, and population surges and declines will affect our attitudes toward family life.
Adding to this mix will be everything we are learning about the biology of relationships. We now know that kissing a long-term partner reduces cortisol, the stress hormone. Certain genes in the vasopressin system predispose men to make less-stable partnerships. My colleagues and I have discovered that the feeling of romantic love is associated with the brain’s dopamine system—the system for wanting. Moreover, we have found that romantic rejection activates brain regions associated with profound addiction. Scientists even know some of the payoffs of “hooking up.” Casual sex can trigger the brain systems for romantic love and/or feelings of deep attachment. In a study led by anthropologist Justin Garcia, some 50% of men and women reported that they initiated a hook up in order to trigger a longer partnership; indeed, almost a third of them succeeded.
What will we do with all these data? One forward-thinking company has begun to bottle what our forebears would have called “love magic.” They sell Liquid Trust, a perfume that contains oxytocin, the natural brain chemical that, when sniffed, triggers feelings of trust and attachment.
We are living in a sea of social and technological currents that are likely to reshape our family lives. But much will remain the same. To bond is human. The drives to fall in love and form an attachment to a mate are deeply embedded in the human brain. Indeed, in a study I just completed on 2,171 individuals (1,198 men, 973 women) at the Internet dating site Chemistry.com, 84% of participants said they wanted to marry at some point. They will. Today, 84% of Americans wed by age 40—albeit making different kinds of marriages. Moreover, with the expansion of the roles of both women and men, with the new medical aids to sex and romance (such as Viagra and estrogen replacement), with our longer life spans, and with the growing social acceptance of alternative ways to bond, I believe we now have the time and tools to make more-fulfilling partnerships than at any time in human evolution. The time to love is now.
About the Author
Helen Fisher is a research professor in biological anthroplogy at Rutgers University and chief scientific advisor of Chemistry.com. Her most recent book is Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Love (Henry Holt, 2010).
From now on...I'm DATING MYSELF!
I discovered slam poetry accidentally at about 2 am one morning several years ago while doing online research on entrepreneurship/ start-up competitions. I stumbled into the winning Business Case of a Microsoft-sponsored competition- written and recorded as a "slam" poem by the Mayhem Poets outlining a plan to create a slam poetry teaching and "spoken word" performance centre for youngsters in New York City. It was the cleverest thing I had ever seen.
I kept digging....and then I found him. Taylor Mali. I fell in love on the third line of his first poem that I watched on YouTube. It was called: "What Teachers Make"
I had to have more of it. I wrote to Taylor and a few months later met up with him in New York, but alas, he was too expensive to buy and keep for myself. As a poet-in-residence, of course! (He has a very lovely wife whom he loves very much and writes the most beautiful poetry for.)
I have visited the well-known New York Slam Poetry clubs, The Nuyorican Cafe in Alphabet City, The Bleecker St and Cornelia St Cafe in Greenwich Village and the Bowery Club in the East Village, and even the Green Mile Club in Chicago- birthplace of Slam Poetry. I have books and CDs and I have even tried to get a chapter going at work. (Watch this space!)
Now and then I dip back into YouTube and it always delivers just the right poem for the occasion. Here's one on finding happiness through dating yourself!
So what did you think? Like it?
I kept digging....and then I found him. Taylor Mali. I fell in love on the third line of his first poem that I watched on YouTube. It was called: "What Teachers Make"
I had to have more of it. I wrote to Taylor and a few months later met up with him in New York, but alas, he was too expensive to buy and keep for myself. As a poet-in-residence, of course! (He has a very lovely wife whom he loves very much and writes the most beautiful poetry for.)
I have visited the well-known New York Slam Poetry clubs, The Nuyorican Cafe in Alphabet City, The Bleecker St and Cornelia St Cafe in Greenwich Village and the Bowery Club in the East Village, and even the Green Mile Club in Chicago- birthplace of Slam Poetry. I have books and CDs and I have even tried to get a chapter going at work. (Watch this space!)
Now and then I dip back into YouTube and it always delivers just the right poem for the occasion. Here's one on finding happiness through dating yourself!
So what did you think? Like it?
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Meeting his / her kids
My last serious relationship broke up ...over children. His, and mine and different values and approaches to how to deal with our children. And it was horrible. If this article can help anyone avoid this kind of pain, then I would be a very happy woman.
Our children are an extension of ourselves and it's not possible to maintain a "secret life" dating someone you care deeply for and keep that away from the children. What message does that in itself send to your kids? That you are ashamed of your partner? That you are in a sordid affair? That you cannot be trusted and are doing something behind their backs that you don't want them to know about? And how does that make your partner feel? Not very worthy - for sure.
When I don't know how to tackle a situation, I research it from many angles. Whilst I seldom find a silver bullet, it gives me confidence in my intuition. Intuitive wisdom and emotional intelligence is not so widespread, and some blokes just don't have much of it - especially if they are impatient in a new love affair. And note - teenagers are much more tricky than younger children.
So if you are intent on making the relationship work, is it not worth taking a bit of time to think things through? It's not a guarantee of success, but at least you can't blame yourself for blundering about like a bull in a china shop and fracturing delicate things needlessly, and it demonstrates your own maturity to your partner!
Kids are smarter than you think. Act from your Fourth Chakra- an open heart! Treat both your partner and kids with the respect and the honesty you espouse in all other relationships, and that will give you the best chance at future happiness.
While many of these articles deal with re-marriage, I believe the same care and approach should be taken in all serious long-term relationships. So here are a few good articles for further reading:
http://www.ivillage.com/making-healthy-stepfamilies/6-a-127706?p=1
http://www.suite101.com/content/meeting-your-partners-children-for-the-first-time-a304752
Have you ever dealt with this scenario before? What tips or experiences could you share?
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
The past, present and future of Love
The origins of our drive for a mate
Satoshi Kanazawa is an evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics. His research uses evolutionary psychology to analyze social sciences such as sociology, economics, and anthropology.
Here he discusses the evolutionary psychology of successful dating! Apparently, men do what they do to get laid and in their younger years have their greatest achievements - apparently all part of the reproductive drive! Also, the maths of dating!
Watch it here- it's fascinating! http://bigthink.com/satoshikanazawa
Why online dating is so unsatisfactory
Then onto Dan Ariely, one of my top 5 favourite thought leaders. Dan is a Behavioral Economist from Duke University on . Dan Ariely is the author of Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions and is the James B. Duke Professor of Behavioral Economics at Duke University, where he holds appointments at the Fuqua School of Business, the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, and the department of Economics. In addition, Dan is a visiting professor in MIT’s Program in Media Arts and Sciences.
If you are investing hours and HOURs on dating sites trying to find a suitable partner, then take 20 minutes to watch this interview with Dan: http://bigthink.com/danariely
Why online dating should be free and the role of maths (again!)
Then, finally...the CEO and founder of OKCupid- a free online dating service
Sam Yagan is co-founder and CEO of OkCupid.com, the fastest-growing free online dating service. Yagan was previously co-founder and CEO of TheSpark.com, maker of SparkNotes, and president of MetaMachine, which developed P2P file-sharing application eDonkey. He has also been vice president and general manager at Delias, and vice-president and publisher at Barnes & Noble.
The Algorithmic Future of Love: http://bigthink.com/samyagan
SEX
And for a real Whooooaaaaaaa from a scientific not erotic, (but hugely amusing!) perspective! Take a look at the interview with Mary Roach, American science writer.
She has published three books, the most reason being Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex (2008). Raised in Etna, New Hampshire, she holds a bachelor's degree in psychology from Wesleyan University and currently resides in San Francisco, California.
Satoshi Kanazawa is an evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics. His research uses evolutionary psychology to analyze social sciences such as sociology, economics, and anthropology.
Here he discusses the evolutionary psychology of successful dating! Apparently, men do what they do to get laid and in their younger years have their greatest achievements - apparently all part of the reproductive drive! Also, the maths of dating!
Watch it here- it's fascinating! http://bigthink.com/satoshikanazawa
Why online dating is so unsatisfactory
Then onto Dan Ariely, one of my top 5 favourite thought leaders. Dan is a Behavioral Economist from Duke University on . Dan Ariely is the author of Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions and is the James B. Duke Professor of Behavioral Economics at Duke University, where he holds appointments at the Fuqua School of Business, the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, and the department of Economics. In addition, Dan is a visiting professor in MIT’s Program in Media Arts and Sciences.
If you are investing hours and HOURs on dating sites trying to find a suitable partner, then take 20 minutes to watch this interview with Dan: http://bigthink.com/danariely
Why online dating should be free and the role of maths (again!)
Then, finally...the CEO and founder of OKCupid- a free online dating service
Sam Yagan is co-founder and CEO of OkCupid.com, the fastest-growing free online dating service. Yagan was previously co-founder and CEO of TheSpark.com, maker of SparkNotes, and president of MetaMachine, which developed P2P file-sharing application eDonkey. He has also been vice president and general manager at Delias, and vice-president and publisher at Barnes & Noble.
The Algorithmic Future of Love: http://bigthink.com/samyagan
SEX
And for a real Whooooaaaaaaa from a scientific not erotic, (but hugely amusing!) perspective! Take a look at the interview with Mary Roach, American science writer.
She has published three books, the most reason being Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex (2008). Raised in Etna, New Hampshire, she holds a bachelor's degree in psychology from Wesleyan University and currently resides in San Francisco, California.
She began her writing career at the San Francisco Zoological Society, producing press releases on such topics as elephant wart surgery.[1] In 1986, she sold a humor piece about the IRS to the San Francisco Chronicle. That led to a spate of humorous first-person essays for such publications as Sports Illustrated, Vogue, The New York Times Magazine, Discover, Outside, Reader's Digest (for whom she wrote a monthly humor column) and GQ.
She appeared on The Colbert Report, a satirical news program, in November 2005.
http://bigthink.com/maryroach
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Why remarry?
Nearly two of three second marriages end in divorce, and cohabitation is increasingly accepted. Why make a relationship official?
How to Make It Work This Time
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2010/12/19/why-remarry/how-to-make-a-second-marriage-work
Second marriages, on average, are slightly more likely to break up than first marriages, but the difference is quite modest. Twenty-seven percent of women in their second marriages divorce before their 10th wedding anniversary, compared with 23 percent of women in their first marriage.
First, you have to admit that your first marriage's failure wasn't all your ex-spouse's fault.
These averages hide big variations by class and educational level, with educated, economically secure couples having a much lower rate of divorce. Furthermore, they lump together those people who learn from their first marriages how to make a relationship succeed and those for whom the second marriage is simply a way station on their way to a second, third or even fourth divorce – none of them, of course, in any way their fault.
Interestingly, women initiate two-thirds of all divorces, and only half as many divorced women as men want to marry again. When women do decide to marry again, says Lawrence Ganong, a step-family expert at the University of Missouri, they usually seek more power in their new relationship than they had the first time around, and in successful remarriages husbands tend to be more willing to yield such power.
Over the years, I have taken oral histories of many couples whose second marriage had lasted longer than their first marriage and was still going strong. In almost every case, two things stood out. One was the willingness of these individuals to admit what they had done wrong the first time around, instead of putting all the blame on their former spouse. The second was that both spouses felt they had discarded older gender-stereotyped attitudes and behavior that had created problems in their first marriage.
But this occurred in different ways for each sex. The men I interviewed tended to attribute the success of their second marriage to their having learned to be a more involved father and a more egalitarian partner. The women, by contrast, usually reported that they had changed what they were looking for in a potential mate. The second time around, they said, they were drawn to men who listened to them rather than trying to impress them.
The psychologist Joshua Coleman, co-chairman of the Council on Contemporary Families, says he has found the same patterns in his work with clients. “When people take some responsibility for why and how the first marriage ended,” he says, “that allows them to work on the challenges of a new relationship in a more productive way, or decide to not take a problematic relationship any further.” And when they do establish those relationships, Coleman observes, "women in successful remarriages often become more independent than they were in their first marriages, while men learn to be less independent."
Breaking with traditional gender patterns is especially important when children are involved. Successful step-families are more flexible in their family boundaries than couples in a “traditional” nuclear family, and less rigid in assigning parenting roles by gender. A wise stepfather, for example, doesn’t try to become the family disciplinarian. (Note from Ms Maverick: This was the undoing of my last serious relationship- a judgemental partner who was outspoken and out of line when it came to my children) A stepmother may find it more effective to act like a friendly aunt than to try to become an instant “mom.”
But this doesn’t mean these relationships are “second best.” Second marriages can and do create “real” families.
Author of this article:
Stephanie Coontz teaches history and family studies at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., and wrote "Marriage, A History." Her new book, "A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s," will be out in January.
How to Make It Work This Time
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2010/12/19/why-remarry/how-to-make-a-second-marriage-work
Second marriages, on average, are slightly more likely to break up than first marriages, but the difference is quite modest. Twenty-seven percent of women in their second marriages divorce before their 10th wedding anniversary, compared with 23 percent of women in their first marriage.
First, you have to admit that your first marriage's failure wasn't all your ex-spouse's fault.
These averages hide big variations by class and educational level, with educated, economically secure couples having a much lower rate of divorce. Furthermore, they lump together those people who learn from their first marriages how to make a relationship succeed and those for whom the second marriage is simply a way station on their way to a second, third or even fourth divorce – none of them, of course, in any way their fault.
Interestingly, women initiate two-thirds of all divorces, and only half as many divorced women as men want to marry again. When women do decide to marry again, says Lawrence Ganong, a step-family expert at the University of Missouri, they usually seek more power in their new relationship than they had the first time around, and in successful remarriages husbands tend to be more willing to yield such power.
Over the years, I have taken oral histories of many couples whose second marriage had lasted longer than their first marriage and was still going strong. In almost every case, two things stood out. One was the willingness of these individuals to admit what they had done wrong the first time around, instead of putting all the blame on their former spouse. The second was that both spouses felt they had discarded older gender-stereotyped attitudes and behavior that had created problems in their first marriage.
But this occurred in different ways for each sex. The men I interviewed tended to attribute the success of their second marriage to their having learned to be a more involved father and a more egalitarian partner. The women, by contrast, usually reported that they had changed what they were looking for in a potential mate. The second time around, they said, they were drawn to men who listened to them rather than trying to impress them.
The psychologist Joshua Coleman, co-chairman of the Council on Contemporary Families, says he has found the same patterns in his work with clients. “When people take some responsibility for why and how the first marriage ended,” he says, “that allows them to work on the challenges of a new relationship in a more productive way, or decide to not take a problematic relationship any further.” And when they do establish those relationships, Coleman observes, "women in successful remarriages often become more independent than they were in their first marriages, while men learn to be less independent."
Breaking with traditional gender patterns is especially important when children are involved. Successful step-families are more flexible in their family boundaries than couples in a “traditional” nuclear family, and less rigid in assigning parenting roles by gender. A wise stepfather, for example, doesn’t try to become the family disciplinarian. (Note from Ms Maverick: This was the undoing of my last serious relationship- a judgemental partner who was outspoken and out of line when it came to my children) A stepmother may find it more effective to act like a friendly aunt than to try to become an instant “mom.”
But this doesn’t mean these relationships are “second best.” Second marriages can and do create “real” families.
Author of this article:
Stephanie Coontz teaches history and family studies at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., and wrote "Marriage, A History." Her new book, "A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s," will be out in January.
Monday, December 27, 2010
That moment! First date jitters- and Dawn French is not alone!
I have vivid recollections of my first date as a newly single 40-year old mum, and it wasn't dissimilar to what Dawn French describes in this video. Watch the whole thing or fast-track to around 1 min 20 secs.
Nine years have passed since that first date, and it doesn't get any easier...lol....every time you meet someone new you have to confront "That Moment" - and get through it and beyond it! And if a woman of Dawn French's confidence struggles, is it any surprise that the rest of us feel adrift at sea in these moments?
From a middle-aged female perspective raised with values of "not being an "easy" girl" and waiting for him to ring and initiate the chase, you arrive at the end of the date, and you don't know where you stand. He doesn't say anything, he doesn't make an obvious move, and you are left feeling very vulnerable. So, instead of the akwardness of "THAT MOMENT", you close up. You self-protect by getting very practical, platonic and functional- even if your insides are screaming "Kiss me now you bastard".
I am sure if you are a newly-single middle-aged male, this is even more frightening because YOU are the one expected to make that move! And no-one wants to be romantically rejected! And in the absence of strong and obvious clues from your female date, avoidance would be a most appealing alternative action.
It's supposed to be easier when we are older and more experienced, but it's actually harder for a whole host of new reasons. We don't have the confidence of youth, many of us have scars from a relationship that faltered after many years for whatever reason, and we are certainly not in the same shape we used to be! Its also easier to withdraw back into the cave after a few less than spectacular dates, because our biological sexual drive is not firing as strong to overcome rejection as it does when you are in your teenage years!
Id be interested to hear: How do YOU handle THAT MOMENT? Any tips we could share here with others?
Nine years have passed since that first date, and it doesn't get any easier...lol....every time you meet someone new you have to confront "That Moment" - and get through it and beyond it! And if a woman of Dawn French's confidence struggles, is it any surprise that the rest of us feel adrift at sea in these moments?
From a middle-aged female perspective raised with values of "not being an "easy" girl" and waiting for him to ring and initiate the chase, you arrive at the end of the date, and you don't know where you stand. He doesn't say anything, he doesn't make an obvious move, and you are left feeling very vulnerable. So, instead of the akwardness of "THAT MOMENT", you close up. You self-protect by getting very practical, platonic and functional- even if your insides are screaming "Kiss me now you bastard".
I am sure if you are a newly-single middle-aged male, this is even more frightening because YOU are the one expected to make that move! And no-one wants to be romantically rejected! And in the absence of strong and obvious clues from your female date, avoidance would be a most appealing alternative action.
It's supposed to be easier when we are older and more experienced, but it's actually harder for a whole host of new reasons. We don't have the confidence of youth, many of us have scars from a relationship that faltered after many years for whatever reason, and we are certainly not in the same shape we used to be! Its also easier to withdraw back into the cave after a few less than spectacular dates, because our biological sexual drive is not firing as strong to overcome rejection as it does when you are in your teenage years!
Id be interested to hear: How do YOU handle THAT MOMENT? Any tips we could share here with others?
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