Sex and Love 100

Musings on the most basic life skill . . .

Monday, November 21, 2011

Men Love!

Who loves more? I believe men do.
You are laughing right?  Stop.  Women don’t kill themselves over men, women don’t kill their families, rivals, stalk or obsess anywhere near the rate the men.  Rejected men go nuts.  Why?  Because they tend bond to the women they love furiously. 
     Stereotypes however portray men as cold, aloof, cunning, ruthless in exploiting women, going from conquest to conquest.  Women are the lovers and men are the leavers.  Not so. One of the most interesting studies on this topic was done by Zick Rubin, Latitia Peplau and Charles Hill in 1981 who followed a large group of couples over a long period of time examining their love relationship and their break-ups.  That stereotype of men as cads is false.
     Men reported they fell in love first, were less apt to end a relationship and had a more difficult time recovering from a break-up.  Women on the other hand were more cautious about entering a relationship and could end it without the hesitation their partners felt.  The men, according to the authors were the romantics!
     In other studies men report more romantic idealizations than women (Sharp and Ganong 2000) and men tend have more romantic ideals, believing love conquers all,  love can happen at  first sight, and love can transcend religious, economic and social differences (Hobart, 1958; Knox & Sporakowski, 1968; Z. Rubin, 1969).  Why these facts have been ignored and few if any research exists on this topic is simply because we have allowed our perceptions of men to be based on what we do know of their nature; highly sexual and more physically aggressive.  Sex or lust may not imply love and caring. 
     “If men are so sexual,”  my colleague said, “how can they really love?”  Love and sex are like boxers, and in our minds one can knock the other out.  Although we know deep passionate love exists but seem to think of it as sexless.  Just read a romance novel where the elaborate scripts tease us with banter and words and little sexual contact, except at the climax (no pun intended). Sex is the serpent in the garden of love and sadly we often think that male's higher drive for sex implies a lower drive to love. Does a higher sex drive knock out the ability to love? No way!  In fact it may be the very way it binds men to women. When men have deep feelings for women, sex and fantasy string him up.  That will have to wait for a future blog.
     Another issue with studying love is that people believe, mistakenly that love implies complete faithfulness. If one thinks about cheating, has had a fantasy about cheating they cannot be ‘love’ in the true sense.  Thinking is not behavior and least of all not an indicator of our actual behavior.  A novelist who writes about murder is not going to go out and do it!  But I’d bet that a lot of thinking about cheating is not a good sign for a relationship. Sadly our world today is a lot more complicated than the world our brains evolved in; your ancestral father didn’t have a diet of porn streaming into his cave giving him all sorts of crazy ideas. He went to sleep with only one picture on his mind- her.  And when he wanted to fantasize it was her- over and over, night after night and over time…Pavlov said it best- he became conditioned.  Cave love must have been great. I’ll bog about that soon.

43 comments:

  1. I think that I fell in love first but he thinks that he fell in love first. There were a lot of times that I noticed that he was more faithful to his love for me more than I was after I got married, especially when we have a crazy argument, I usually say more harmful words, which I really do not want to say.
    I agree with what you wrote about man's love. We express our love for each other differently which can be cause for misunderstanding between us. However, we both are very romantic for each other.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Women have a verbal edge- Marianne Legato wrote
    Why Men Never Remember and Women Never Forget- we operate differently and we can summon a laundry list at a moments notice when we are angry.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Men are more likely to go off the deep end over a break up then how come these same men will cheat or simply not show any appreciation?

    ReplyDelete
  4. I am baffled after reading this blog, when it stated that men loves more than women do. I always thought women would show more affection toward men than men toward women. I strongly agree that men can't take rejections nor break-ups well. I was in the same situation a year ago when I had to break up with my girlfriend. She moved to Alabama while I still stayed in Troy. During the next month, I couldn't concentrate on school work or football. My mind was wondering off to space every single day. My grades were mediocre and my coaches were on my back during the first 4 games of the season. I thought I was just being human for being in this mood; so I called her the next day to talk. I thought she was feeling the same way but she took the seperation way better than I had thought. So why do men feel more affection for women when breaking up?

    ReplyDelete
  5. At this age I disagree with this blog. From what ive seen guys put on an act when it comes to girls. They hide the way they really feel because they dont want to get made fun of by their other friends. In my opinion at this age girls are more likely to love due to the fact they are proud of their relationship where men are more likely to hide it.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Such great writing...So why do men feel it more? Testosterone. It's the drug that amps up competition, anger, lust, and maybe the edge men have when it comes to their ability to focus on a target. Men feel rejection more. Now- another point- young men and maybe men in general don't tell their friends about their loves lives for several reasons- one which is definately 'p----y whipped syndrome. Mike is right- Consider this. There is no such descriptor for women. We are simply 'good wives, girlfreinds or partners- no one can be penis whipped!!!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I agree that men and women love differently. My husband and myself were raised very differently. I believe this play a important role in the ways that we love people. I think that a lot of men tend to have trouble with commitment is because they know that if something goes wrong they will be deeply hurt. As to the topic of being faithful, this is a whole other story. Id like to see what other people think about love and cheating. Do people believe that someone can cheat and love someone? are they completely different? Im interested to see what people think. I would also like to see if anyone could give feedback as to why they believe it is so hard to get over your lovers past loves? I know that some people have a very difficult time getting over this issue. Any suggestions?

    ReplyDelete
  8. I couldn't agree more with this post. Growing up I watched my brother love his highschool girlfriend and man did he fall hard for her. She was constantly breaking up with him and playing games that hurt him. I watched my brother cry over her, fight for her, show his love for her, stick up for her and live his life around hers. It was sickening, she ran his life and he let her. Thankfully he let her go, on occassion she comes around and we all hope that she doesn't stay long!

    As far as lovers pasts go, I believe that the past is the past. Only insecure people are tortured by their lovers past.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I agree with this completely and i actually experience this when my boyfriend at the time loved more. He was a few years older then me but a complete sweet heart. We dated for about seven months talking and seeing eachother just about everyday. Everytime we were together we would always have fun. Too soon the good times ending and i realized the stress and the pressure of all things i had to do i could do i felt as if i was being unfair to him and i ended it. Two years have passed and he recently brought up how we broke up and told me how crushed he was and theyh he still loves me. I didnt realized how much a guy can love. do to my past experiences when it was always me that a guy broke up with or put the most effort into making it work. Thinking about how two years later and months without talking and he still had the same feelings put the control love can have in complete perspective.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I definatly think that men fall in love quicker and i think if a man loves a women you can definatly tell. Men tend to act differently towards women they love and women they dont truly love. I feel if a man truly loves a women they will do anything for them.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I dont think i ever realized it but its so true how men love more. Woman can be so cruel and just not care how the person "they love" feels at all. Its so horrible to have that stereotype

    ReplyDelete
  12. I absolutely agree with Dr. Hopper. At the end of August my girlfriend of 2 years broke up with me out of nowhere (I'll refrain from giving too much detail, but she said it was because of a dream she had... Yea. I know). I was going crazy to put it lightly. I was pacing back and forth asking her why, crying, yelling, having suicidal thoughts aking for her to relaize the gravity of her decision. All the while she didn't seem to be emotionally phased at all. I believe men, like me, love more than woman. I was a wreck for months and months afterwards and she got a new boyfriend within 1.5 weeks. Thats what I got for loving her unconditionally, telling her she was beautiful every day, buying her aching she wanted, kissing her every day and protecting her, she was all I thought about. Woman can be cruel, men get the all of the s--t.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I am very interested in this blog topic because I can relate to it. In my relationship, I can see how much my boyfriend loves me and possesses many traits which proves he may actually love me more than I love him. A few times we have broken up and he was devastated and he did everything to get me back the 2 times we fell through at stressful times in our lives. I realized the second time he wanted me back that he was truly a lover and not the "sterotypical guy" in love/romance. He cried his eyes out for weeks and literally told me he would rather kill himself than deal with the agony of me being with another man. It really hit me that men and women do love differently and that you'd be surprised when you experience this scenario that men actually are more bothered than women with a break up!

    ReplyDelete
  14. I have to agree that the average man does love more... My girlfriend and I are both in a marriage and the more that we talk to each other, the more I come to realize that our husbands are more emotional than we are in the relationship. They are more sensitive and look for us to reasure them that we love them. They fear us leaving them to some degree. It's odd because I know how much my husband loves me and I would never think he would leave me or cheat on me because I trust our love but my husband and hers both imply that they might have the slightest fear that we might leave them or cheat. I don't know why this thought would come about other than we are very independant woman and can stand on our own with or without our husbands. I'm sure that is threatening to them because they both came from homes where the mother's we dependant on the father's not the other way around.

    ReplyDelete
  15. To be honest I agree that men tend to love more than women do. I know some girls that have went into emotional distress because they thought that they were good enough, but the 'love bug' would bite them again and they would forget about the past relationship or try to improve themselves. With guys though... I have meet a few good guys who are just great and when they are with someone they have never cheat, giving all their love to their partners. Some of them have even went over the top to get their dear ones everything they could want. I've never really seen a women do that. Not saying that they don't, but in my life time so far I haven't. So, men in most cases love more than women.

    ReplyDelete
  16. I am still questioning this theory ever since I read it. In my mind it just sounds so impossible. I know when I care about a guy and the guy breaks up with me, I hide the fact that I am so completely heartbroken. I just pretend that nothing happened and I am happier then I ever could be. And it takes me a while to get over guys. So I guys I'll believe it when I will see it or experience it.

    ReplyDelete
  17. I agree that men have a great capacity to love. I was fortunate enough to be married for 20 years to a man with an enormous capacity for love. When he died, one of the first things I thought was that I will never be love that much ever again. He loved me deeply and completely, and I hope that I was able to return that to him. I think if it had been me that passed away first, he would have never recovered.The world could use more guys like that.

    ReplyDelete
  18. I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that most woman are the care-takers of the family and as such, don't take the time to take care of themselves. Perhaps there is a feeling of relief and release if you've been in that role for so long and your husband passes away (in some instances of course). You would finally be able to do whatever you desire without answering to anyone else.

    ReplyDelete
  19. I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that most woman are the care-takers of the family and as such, don't take the time to take care of themselves. Perhaps there is a feeling of relief and release if you've been in that role for so long and your husband passes away (in some instances of course). You would finally be able to do whatever you desire without answering to anyone else.

    ReplyDelete
  20. I agree mostly with this blog. Men can love. Coming from a male point of view, I would have to partially agree on the statement that men love more than women. Sometimes it seems as though my girlfriend doesn't show as much love as I feel that i show her. But on the other hand, there are some women that couldn't live without a guy. I guess it just depends on the situation and the person.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Before reading this and hearing what you had to say about the topic in class i would have automatically said that women love more. But you have changed my mind. Like you said when boyfriends breakup with girlfriends ofcoarse were going to listen to sad songs and cry but you rarely ever hear of women killing themselves.

    ReplyDelete
  22. I will write up a little something from personal experience and a small viewpoint of my own. Personally, I agree that men love more than women do, though I also believe that the misconception may easily result from the idea that Men do not verbalize so much as they act on their compassion and love.

    Many men, I believe, (myself included) would rather go out of their way to ensure that their girlfriend/fiance/wife is taken care of and is comfortable, regardless of the discomfort it may give on our part, though we may not verbalize exactly how much we love women while we do so.

    ReplyDelete
  23. I also agree with this post because of what happened with my dad about three years ago. my dad loved this woman from california and then she broke up with him. i think that men love their girlfriend and that sometimes the women are the leavers because my dad's old girlfriend broke up with him in the worst way: by a text. that made my dad very sad an lonly so he found a new girlfriend off a dating website and now two years later are very happy and living in the same house and they both have chlidren around the same age. my younger sister and my dad's girlfriend's daughter are the same age so they love to gang up on me and they think it is so funny when it is very annoying.

    ReplyDelete
  24. I completely agree that men love more! I think women are so used to preparing themselves (from stereotypes) to be hurt, that they always have a wall up and never love 100%. In my experience, when men fall in love, they usually go blindfolded and all the way. They open their hearts completely! So when it turns out that the relationship ends, they take the hurt the same way, 100%. I think this holds true especially in a situation where a man meets a woman who seriously hurt in her past relationship(s) and he has not. It is his first real experience with love and will be his first serious heartache.

    ReplyDelete
  25. I agree with you that men fall in love first. Also, men and women love differently. I think that whether the women are educated or not, they know about love more than men. Women know about love since they were born, but men need to have love exercise and lessons to know how to express their love. Men say I love you first, but women wait. When men love, it’s hard for them to forget, and they want to be the first one in women’s life, but women want to be the last one in men’s heart and not another woman. In the same time, I think that each one loves the other equally and if they break up, if they love each other truly, both of them will have difficult time to get over it. In my case, if my man left, I don’t know what I am going to do because I can’t live without him.

    ReplyDelete
  26. I have heard this before, but I'm not sure whether it's exactly true. I think both men and women are capable of being aloof and careless, just as both men and women are capable of real love. I think it is more likely that men react more aggressively because men in general are more aggressive than women (usually).

    ReplyDelete
  27. I do believe that men can have the ability to love more than a woman. Men take pride in the things that they can call their own, which is why when you have the right guy, he can treat "his own" like a princess. I believe that women are more cautious about going into relationships is because most women do believe in the sterotype that men have against them. That they have no feelings, can be cruel and see women as just an object. Men will put a lot more out on the line when willing and in love, which I think is great.

    ReplyDelete
  28. I found this blog to be very interesting. I would think that women are able to love more than men because women tend to be much more emotional than men. After reading this blog, I pondered the fact that men are able to love just as much as women, if not more than women in some instances. Most men are brought up to hide their emotions, but a lack of showing does not mean a lack of feeling.

    ReplyDelete
  29. This is totally true! My boyfriend of two and a half years did not treat me well and never in a million years thought I would break up with him. He never thought I could get the strength to do it. And as a matter of fact..I certainly did. At first I wasn't confident in my decision at all and I slowly came to the conclusion that it was the right decision. After I broke up with him, he told me multiple times a day that he was going to change and make me the happiest girl. I knew that it might have been possible to change for a period of time but he had other deeper problems that needed to be solved that I certainly couldn't solve for him. Ever since we broke up, he has been trying to prove to me that he has changed. I feel terribly that I couldn't give him a second chance but I knew it wasn't a good idea. He didn't take the break-up well. Just by this one experience, I know that men do love more than women.

    ReplyDelete
  30. I definitely agree that men are capable to love more than women... but Iv'e noticed that more men these days settle for woman they don't love and therefore it appears as if they're only after sex. Or maybe just fear being alone? Although women do some crazy things for love too. Generally it's the women who are expected to give up a lot to be with her husband. You very rarely hear about men giving up their career or location to be with their significant other...

    ReplyDelete
  31. Even though its hard for me to say, I do believe men love more than women. I think men are very emotionally attached and when rejected like you said they go nuts. Women don't do crazy things like what men do when abandoned.

    ReplyDelete
  32. I agree with Mike M. Guys deffinatly do put on an act around their friends for the simple fact that theyre afraid of getting made fun of. Instead of telling their friends how they truly feel about their significant other, they tell their friends what they want to hear or whatever will make them look cooler. Because of that, they will act differently with their girlfriend in public then they will one on one. With girls its the exact opposite. They love showing their boyfriend attention in public and i guess you could say "flaunt what they have" to make other girls jealous. So i believe that in this case, women do love more or atleast they show love more.

    ReplyDelete
  33. I think I can pretty much totally agree with this post. A lot of that coming from personal experiance

    ReplyDelete
  34. As a society we also put a double standard against men in that they don't have an abundance of feelings. But we are very wrong because they love harder and now I can see why some men can get so angry and obsessed over love they kill their wives and family, just to be in control.

    ReplyDelete
  35. I feel like im stuck in between on agreeing with this blog or disagreeing with it. I've witnessed bad breakups after long relationships where the woman took it much harder than the guy and broke down, while ive just recently saw a long relationship come to an end and the guy was way more affected than the woman.

    ReplyDelete
  36. I must say that the post titled "Men Love!"was an enlightening read. Although I have never generally perceived men as "cold, aloof, cunning or ruthless", I did not give much thought to the reality of how men respond when rejected in comparison to how women respond before reading this peice. It is true that men generally have the reactions that were noted like "killing their families, and stalking etc." I also do not buy into the too often stereotypical comments such as "men are dogs, or cads etc.
    E.L.

    ReplyDelete
  37. I couldn't agree with this blog more. I absolutely feel that men love more then women. It's important to treat a girl like a queen and give her what she deserves. I also feel it's important to have an equal amount of love and respect in a relationship. I'd rather have sex with a women I love rather then a random hook up. When it happens I know I'll be happier then I've ever been. Men who don't love weren't raised right.

    ReplyDelete
  38. I have to agree with this one. We all love differently and act differently but becoming attached to a person may happen instantly. Women may show more affection in public or when they are alone with their partner but men do little things like cards or flowers. where I work one night a couple came in a bought brownies the girl was outraged at the price (which was 2.99) and said i don't care it's making them with you that counts.

    ReplyDelete
  39. This is good to hear. Marring my wife looking back at all of our years together prior to marriage and even after marriage I can tell I love her a lot, but I know for her she was more tenative and would not always be so forth coming with her emotions. I know that now we are good, but looking back she needed more coax into the relationship as a long term concept.

    ReplyDelete
  40. Completely both sided!

    I am not a jealous man, I never have an issue with space in dating, in fact my last relationship was one sided and all her doing! I would be driving 40 minutes to her house and if I decided on coffee I became the asshole for being late for dinner?!

    If some girl liked my facebook status I became too open about my life and should "delete a lot of the girls I dont talk to on a day to day basis" who was she kidding? I wasnt allowed to talk to girls??

    It was suffocating!

    ReplyDelete
  41. I believe that men and women cheat equally as often. It really depends on the situation they are in and if their hormones get in the way. One example is after men and women get married and have children. After having kids, there is usually no time for sex. Both women and men put all their energy into raising their kids that they don’t have as much time for each other. Sometimes both people are okay with this but sometimes one person becomes frustrated and will eventually cheat. I believe that the occurrence at which this happens is equal for both the man and woman in the relationship.

    ReplyDelete
  42. I think this blog is very difficult to answer because you never rreally know and many people have their own opinions. I think that men and women show qualities of being very loving towards the other. As far as who loves who more that really depends on who your in a realtionship with. Of course I have no idea if any studies were done and what the facts are, but I just feel like it depends on who you are and who you are with.

    ReplyDelete