it seems like a lot of women are with someone else within a few days after leaving a different relationship?
Now, there are quite a few men that do this as well, but in my thirty years of experience, I’ve noticed that it seems there are far more women who are with another man soon after ending a relationship with a different man. Even Jeff Foxworthy has a joke about it:
“When a woman says she needs space, you can rest assured she’s cut a different pony from the group, and if she hasn’t ridden him yet, she’s got the saddle out of the barn!”
I don’t want to seem sexist, because I’m not, I love women as much as any hetero male. I am honestly curious if there is any truth to this. Is it true women do this more than men? Has it ever been studied?
I"ve answered in email, but for other readers, I sometimes move legit GQ’s to other fora to allow for the wide range of answers that are sure to come. No reflection on the OP.
A lot of people are insecure about not being in a relationship, and it’s generally easier for women to find new suitors. No need for them to have a greater desire to do so.
Um…not so to the “easier for women to find new suitors” part. But I agree conditionally with the people (a lot of them being women) being “insecure” not being in a relationship.
Being a woman, I find that I’m happiest being in a good relationship. Key word GOOD. I haven’t ever gotten into a new relationship within days of ending an old one, but in my youth there were times when I had indeed “cut a new pony from the herd”.
Sometimes the new pony was interested, sometimes I got shot down. Oh well. But in answer to your question, imho, as a woman I am far happier in a relationship. Nowadays, I’m not trying too hard to find one, but if there were some likely prospects around, I probably would have been not too long after my last relationship ended and for just that reason.
That is, I like life a lot better with a good partner.
There are guys who specialize in being the rebound, or transition, guy. It’s a sure thing: strike when the woman is vulnerable, move on when she says it was “too soon.” It’s basically free booty, perfect for a guy who doesn’t want to commit.
Based on my observations (purely anecdotal, YMMV, blahblahblah), young women and middled aged men are the most likely candidates for “relationship overlap.”
My theory is that young women are more likely to see being in a relationship as an important seal of approval upon their persons, and so are more unlikely to leave a relationship until they have another lined up.
Middle aged men tend to find that being in a relationship affords them a level of convenience that they appreciate. On the whole, it just makes their lives easier, and so they’re unlikely to leave a relationship unless (slightly different from “until”) they have another lined up.
I agree with the middle aged men getting in relationships soon after leaving another as well. I’ve also known a few men to remarry within a year of losing a spouce, which I’ve always found odd. Hence the question, has it ever been studied in some sociology class why people do this?
If you look at studies on divorce, you find that people (I don’t know of gender differences, or see them in my clinical work, which doesn’t mean that there aren’t any) who are in a relationship that’s got some problems will stay in that relationship until they discover someone more attractive to them. This isn’t necessarily a hedging-your-bets kind of thing, but more of a maintenance of the status quo deal. Not in a calculating way, but in a going about one’s business inattentively kind of way.
The contrast provided by the attraction to a new person tends to make people evaluate the current relationship. Often at this point, people are less interested in making the old relationship work than they are in ending it. This may not be because one person wants to hook up with a new mate–it may be because, having found a different person attractive, it’s become clear that the present relationship is no longer working or is no longer satisfying. Sometimes, by the point at which a person is attracted to somebody else, the current relationship has already become stale, or been neglected, and there’s not a lot that can be done to reconcile it because one of the people involved is no longer interested.
That’s why it’s really important to find out why a couple is seeking counseling, say, for “relationship issues”–are they both interested in working things out, does (at least) one of them have somebody on the sidelines, and/or what has happened to cause one or both of them to evaluate the current relationship as insufficient at this time?
Maybe because guys feel better about cheating. So where a woman would END a relationship because she’s interested in some other guy, and then quickly moves on to the new guy. A man would just keep his two women stringing along and not break up with anyone “because it hurts them to see a woman cry.”
:dubious:
Seriously, tho. I have never witnessed this “phenomenon” the OP speaks of. Men do it, women do it. People are weird.
My wild ass guess tells me: If your a hot looking (Young) woman you’ve probably got every man with in a hundred mile radius tripping over themselves to get at you.
Guys on average don’t have this (dare I say?) luxury. We have to be one of the dolts competing with a hundred other dolts for this one woman’s attention.
I wonder if the OP refers specifically of hot younger women?
I’d amend that to “Easier, in general, for women to find new suitors.”
Sure, there are women out there that probably have just as much difficulty finding a signifigant other as guys, but it sure seems that the majority of women I have had contact with readily admit that guys come up to them all the time. I am a decent looking guy, confident and in shape, but I don’t have women coming up to me all the time. Neither do any of my friends, they have to be the initiators.
Does that mean it is easier to find a GOOD relationship? I couldn’t really say, but my guess is that if there are more people approaching you, you would have a greater chance of finding a suitor.
*This is simply conjecture, but I know few guys that would hold up his hand to a girl that is approaching her and saying “I don’t think so” simply because he isn’t in the mood to be hit on. I know many girls that put on the cold shoulder to guys they think are cute but just aren’t in the mood to socialize. Why the difference in attitude, if it is so hard for women to get a man?
As teens and 20-somethings, women do have the advantage in finding new suitors, IMHO. Not only do teen and 20-something girls get attention from men their own age, but a lot of older dudes go after them too. I am a 20-something and NOT an especially pretty girl, but I can find dates with decent guys much easier than my male friends of the same age and attractiveness level seem to be able to find decent girls to date. Of course, “decent” isn’t enough to build a truly satisfying relationship on…but for people who just don’t want to be alone, it would be enough.
I think the tables turn in the 30s. That’s when men tend to be at their most attractive, since they’re often settled in their careers then (money and power/prestige are attractive), whereas a lot of women that age find their male peers are interested in dating younger women, so there is an imbalance in “supply and demand” that leaves women that age at a disadvantage.