Men Helen Fisher

Biological Anthropologist, Rutgers University; Author, Why Him? Why

Her? How to Find and Keep Lasting Love

Scientists and laymen have spent the last 50 years dispelling myths

about women. I worry that journalists, academics and laymen will

continue to perpetuate an equal number of myths about men.

Annually in 2010, 2011 and 2012, I have conducted a national survey

of singles, in collaboration with a US dating service. Together we

designed a questionnaire with some 150 queries (many with up to

10 sub-questions) and polled over 5,000 single men and women. We

did not sample the members of the dating site; instead we collected

data on a national representative sample based on the US census.

All were "never married," divorced, widowed or separated; none

were engaged, "living together" or in a serious relationship.

Included were the appropriate number of blacks, whites, Asians and

Latinos, gays, lesbians, bisexuals and heterosexuals, rural, suburban

and urban folks, and men and women from every age group (21 to

71+) and every region of the United States. These data paint a

different portrait of men than do America's chattering class.

Foremost, men are just about as eager to marry as women. In

the 2011 sample, 68% of men in their 20s wanted to wed, along with

71% of women; and 43% of men (and 50% of women) hoped to have

children. Journalists have suggests that men want children because

they don't have to change diapers. But men spend a great deal of

metabolic energy at childcare. To support their young men take the

dangerous jobs—and 90% of people who die at work are men.

Moreover, men universally confront an intruding thief and men

generally drive the family car through a raging blizzard. Men do

their variety of childcare.

Men aren't "players" either. When asked about their approach

to dating, only 3% replied, "I would just like to date a lot of people."

Men are just as eager to find a partner; indeed, men find loneliness

just as stressful. And men are far less picky in their search. In the

2011 sample, only 21% of men reported that they "must have" or

find it "very important" to have a mate of their ethnic background

(versus 31% of women); only 18% of men (as opposed to 28% of

women) "must have" or find it "very important" to have a partner of

the same religion; men are less interested in a partner of the same

educational background and political affiliation; and 43% of men

between ages 30-50 would make a commitment to a woman who

was 10 or more years older. Women are the picky sex.

Men fall in love faster too—perhaps because they are more

visual. Men experience love at first sight more regularly; and men

fall in love just as often. Indeed, men are just as physiologically

passionate. When my colleagues and I have scanned men's brains

(using fMRI), we have found that they show just as much activity as

women in neural regions linked with feelings of intense romantic

love. Interestingly, in the 2011 sample, I also found that when men

fall in love, they are faster to introduce their new partner to friends

and parents, more eager to kiss in public, and want to "live together"

sooner. Then, when they are settled in, men have more intimate

conversations with their wives than women do with their

husbands—because women have many of their intimate

conversations with their girlfriends. Last, men are just as likely to

believe you can stay married to the same person forever (76% of

both sexes). And other data show that after a break up, men are 2.5

times more likely to kill themselves.

In fact, women who seek more independence when in a

committed relationship. Women want more personal space (women

77% vs men 56%); women are less eager to share their bank account

(women 35% vs men 25%); women are more eager to have girl's

night out (women 66% vs men 47%); and women are more likely to

want to vacation with their female buddies (women 12% vs men

8%).

Two questions in these annual surveys were particularly

revealing: "Would you make a long term commitment to someone

who had everything you were looking for but with whom you were

not in love?" And "Would you make a long term commitment to

someone who had everything you were looking for, but to whom

you did not feel sexually attracted?" Thirty-one percent of men were

willing to form a partnership with a woman they were not in love

with (as opposed to 23% of women). Men were also slightly more

likely to enter a partnership with a woman they were not sexually

attracted to (21% of men vs 18% of women). Men in their 20s were

the most likely to forego romantic and sexual attraction to a mate;

the least likely were women over 60!

Why would a young man forfeit romance and better sex to

make a long term partnership? I suspect it's the call of the wild.

When a young man finds a good looking, healthy, popular,

energetic, intelligent, humorous and charming mate, he might be

predisposed to take this opportunity to breed—despite the passion

he might have for another woman, one whom he knows he would

never want to wed. And when the "almost right" woman comes

along, the ancestral drive to pass on their DNA toward eternity

trumps their sexual and romantic satisfaction with a less

appropriate partner.

The sexes have much in common. When asked what they were

looking for in a partnership, over 89% of men and women "must

have" or find it "very important" to have a partner whom they can

trust, someone in whom they can confide, and someone who treats

them with respect. These three requirements top the list for both

sexes in all years. Gone is the traditional need to marry someone

from the "right" ethnic and religious background who will fit into

the extended family. Marriage has changed more in the last 50 years

than in the last 10,000. Men, like women, are now turning away

from traditional family customs, instead seeking companionship

and self-fulfillment.

In the Iliad, Homer called love "magic to make the sanest man

go mad." This brain system lives in both sexes. And I believe we'll

make better partnerships if we embrace the facts: men love—just as

powerfully as women.