I was chatting with one of the young people this evening and our conversation turned to the different attitudes of men and women to relationships. It reminded me of something that I've often talked about with female friends with frankness and with male friends to looks of horror.
All the women out there will KNOW that, at least once in their life, they have wondered what their name would sound like with the surname of some guy, a friend, a cutie they've just met... It's a thing we do. It's inane. It's plain BIZARRE really but we do it. I know I did it when I was at primary school and more embarrassingly have done it within the last five years (I won't confess to anything more precise!) More than that... women (and it really is NOT just me here) have this curious tendency to leap ahead and start considering what lies in the future with someone they may not even have begun dating.
Guys just don't seemed to be wired the same way. Well for a start they don't NEED to consider what their name would sound like with a different surname but I'm sure they don't even begin to consider how some woman's name would sound with THEIR surname. It's inconceivable. Men certainly don't appear to be doing the pie in the sky future planning either. For them the question is "how's it going?" not "where's it going?" It seems a terrible stereotype but the men I know seem to be far more logical about relationships and we women do seem to get all emotional about them.
Which attitude is more healthy? I've seen lots of women go through heartaches because the futures haven't shaped up. The "happy ending" hasn't turned up. Yet do women benefit from this activity? Well it can be wonderful fun to dream about happy futures. Surely it's half the fun of the dating game. This means the guys might be missing out. Of course seeing dreams fade or shatter is not pleasant and the guys are fortunate to miss out on that.
As much as I know that I've indulged in this kind of craziness in my time, and I know it has been painful at times, I wouldn't trade places with the guys for anything. They can keep their cool logic, I think. Give me the emotions any day!
1 comment:
i think it's more Christian's that think 'where's this going?' (i don't know much about the men/women differences, but have had alot of Christian/non-Christian conversations over the last 3 weeks).
After about 3 minutes of officially 'going out' we had discussed marriage. That's because he's not a Christian and I had to let him know that I don't date without the possibility of leading to marriage... so we talked about it. One of my friends recently dumped her boyfriend of 3 years and they'd never even mentioned marriage because their relationship was about the 'now' rather than the future. With so many relationships ending in divorce, little girls aren't brought up with the dream of a 'happily ever after' anymore. Non-Christian marriage isn't thought of as forever and even though girls still dream of their prince charming, it's a dream not a reality.
So how about 'Mrs Katie Choules'.....
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