Age: 9.

City: Detroit, MI

Activities: Standing in a department store trying on school uniforms. Being adjusted in said uniform by my mother. Witnessing my first public fight as another mother yells at her son.

Quotations: From yelling mother – “Pants don’t fit you. You’re too fat. You should stop eating. Why can’t you be more like the other kids? My life is hard enough without having to come home and deal with your sorry %*@!

Status: I watch furtively, and then hide behind my mother. A silent thank you to the powers that be. My mother says something to the woman about being in public and embarrassing her child. The woman scoffs.

In the New York Times’ I Need to Vent. Hello, Facebook, Skyler Hurt, 22, friend and bridesmaid to a feuding couple, likewise, intervened:

“Hey, you guys know we can still see this right …?”

Apparently, couples DO know their fights are being observed, and like the mother yelling in the store, they don’t care. In fact, as the Times article notes, some of them welcome the chance to publicly air their grievances for friends and family to see.

Michael Vincent Miller, psychologist and author of the book “Intimate Terrorism: The Crisis of Love in an Age of Disillusion” notes:

Today, popular representations of marriage tend toward “two very self-protective egos at war with one another,”…“each wanting vindication and to be right by showing that the other is wrong.”

The thing is, isn’t marriage about two individuals coming together as a couple? By using Facebook and other social media to gain “support” for their respective “sides” in an argument or disagreement, it feels more like they are keeping separate counsel and setting up camps to do battle. Additionally, when you ask your friends and family to constantly choose sides and what they see most is your Facebook status rather than your faces at the dinner table, that support each person is looking for individually can quickly turn into disapproval for the couple as a whole. [Plus: “Tacky!” — BG]

Brad Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia would agree.

“People tend to do better in their marriage when friends and family are supportive,” Mr. Wilcox said. “When that support dries up, that can be a really big problem.”

Additionally, in an era rife with passive aggressive forms of communication, from sites that allow you to anonymously tell your friends and family what you really think to others that allow you to virtually “slap” someone, one has to wonder exactly where we’re going. Are we really evolving as thinking and feeling human beings or is technology slowly unraveling us? Have we become a society where we are more comfortable interfacing virtually with our partners rather than speaking with them when they are sitting in front of us? Just as importantly, will couples venting their frustrations with each other in the new public spaces, as parents, do the same to their children? Will anyone say anything?

The accompanying photo was particularly powerful as one of the couples sits together on the couch, their faces aglow, not with love, but lit from the screens of their laptops. While the Victorian ideals of marriage are thankfully passé, the openness that modern couples should be striving for is openness with each other, not the World Wide Web.

‘Tis the season: Easter, Passover, a delightful asparagus frittata. The New Scientist’s got an interesting thinky essay about which sex has the evolutionary upper hand when it comes to the mechanics of reproduction; there is, thus, discussion of the once-seen-as-all-powerful egg–and the eventually dominant homocentric view that semen “perfects” it. Cue epic battle between “ovists” and “spermists,” then an uneasy truce brokered by the emerging field of genetics. But ultimately (long interesting story short, with other implications not relevant here), the writers (professors of ecology and evolution) conclude that since the mother nurtures offspring inside her body for so many months — therefore wielding more genetic influence — “it looks like eggs rule after all.”

Mothers have more genetic influence; ergo: that’s why men take breakups harder. That’s the theory advanced in response to the NS piece by Alex Balk over at The Awl (h/t The Atlantic). He writes:

Why should it be so that a man has greater difficulty coming to terms with the end of a relationship than his female counterpart? (This is gonna be a very heteronormative discussion here, so gays and lesbians are free to check out some of the fine content at the right.) My research suggests that it all has to do with childhood.

Little girls are often treated as “princesses,” the object of paternal affection in an idealized-but-not-romantic way. This convention is so strong that they are referred to even by non-relatives as “daddy’s little girl.” Daddy is the man who adores them, who sets the template for what they will expect from all other men in life when it comes to affection.

Little boys are often treated the same way by their mothers. “Mommy loves you,” she will repeat over and over. “You will always be Mommy’s little boy.” Mommy makes it very clear that her little boy is most special boy in the world—even more special than Daddy—and that he will be an object of veneration and pride so long as she lives. This also sets a template.

The difference is stunningly obvious: Dads are far less committed parents than moms. Daddy may tell you that you are Daddy’s little girl, he may take you to a Daddy-Daughter dance one night after weeks of prompting, but most of the time he’s at the office, or away for business, or out with his buddies for important “man time.” Young girls, who, let’s not forget, mature far more quickly than boys, pick up on this: The man who says he loves me, they realize, is not at all reliable. He says what he thinks he is supposed to say, but his actions tell a different story.

Moms, on the other hand, are always there. They do the majority of the parenting, of the cooking, of the cleaning, of all the things that we equate with nurturing. To a boy, there is never any disconnect from the message of love he gets from Mommy and the way that he sees it play out in real life.

And this is why men take break ups harder than women. When a woman breaks up with a man, it is Mommy telling him that she doesn’t love him anymore. And Mommy promised that she would always love him! What is so terrible about him that Mommy stopped loving him? He can bury the sadness with alcohol, or watching a lot of sports, or sleeping around, but deep down he cannot fathom how this rejection has happened to him. His cries of pain, either voiced or shown by his actions, are really him shouting, “Mommy, why did you stop loving me?”

Whereas for a woman, she had no illusions that Daddy wasn’t going to leave at some point. Sure, she’s hurt initially, but she knew the score going into the game. And because women are more or less what Science refers to as “mercenary bitches,” even as she’s filling her pint of ice-cream with those fat, salty tears, she is unconsciously determining whom she will settle on next, the better to get her eggs fertilized so that the cycle might continue. [I should note here that a scholarly friend of mine (who is well-versed on the subject of women by virtue of her position as an expert on young adult novels for girls) had a minor dissent to this hypothesis, noting that every woman has one man who legitimately broke her heart and for whom she will always pine; I am perfectly willing to accept this “ur-Daddy” postulation and add it to the literature.]

Also relevant: the fact that men are not culturally conditioned to feel and express and wallow and process after a breakup. This may or may not be a good thing. (Freeing for the dump-er, limiting for the dumpee?)

So what do you guys think? Broadly speaking, does one gender take breakups harder, and why? Discuss! Through fat, salty tears!

Tracy Clark-Flory of Salon.com’s Broadsheet calls out the New York Times for misrepresenting statistics in the title of their article, “Living Together First Doesn’t Make Marriage Last, Study Finds.” Clark-Flory examines the statistics of said study and looks to other sources to sum up with her title “Living in sin not so bad after all”.

Now, a little something from revelations…for those living in sin, marriage isn’t always the end goal. Whoa. SHOCKER. How do I know this? Live in an overpriced metropolis where rent-controlled apartments are as hard to come by as the Holy Grail or the Ark of the Covenant and you find a lot of people shacking up for reasons other than a trial run for a walk down the aisle. Some of these reasons include freedom from rooommates, convenience, mobility, economics, and well, just plain old lust. So, what’s important in moving from “living in sin” to making an “honest man/woman/etc. out of someone/yourself”?

Having co-habitated a time or two, experience has taught me that what makes or breaks your relationship isn’t decided from the day to day stuff of living in each other’s space. It’s about sharing basic values and goals as a couple. It’s also about knowing why you moved in together and realizing that can change for both people. The day to day stuff just exacerbates an eventually doomed union. Really, even if someone keeps a clean house and finds your keys, it’s not going to fix your fear of commitment or the fact that you hate their work ethic. However, if a relationship is already working on the inner levels, leaving the cap off the toothpaste or drinking out of the orange juice carton isn’t such a big deal. Whether or not a couple lives together isn’t going to break them so much as reinforce what they already know – good and bad. As Clark-Flory notes “you’re better off following your own heart than any supposed make-or-break marital rules.”

The couples who do end up married after first living together most likely would have gotten married anyways – whether they both saw marriage as a possible end goal or they were the type to ignore doubt and just push forward. I am actually curious to know how many couples move in together and break up before the point of marriage. If living in sin is bad for anyone, it’s most likely divorce lawyers.

Just don’t forget the pre-prenup!

Lori Gottlieb’s Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough–which started life as an article that got a whole lot more people to read The Atlantic–has been getting heated attention since its publication in early February. The book has garnered high praise from many relationship experts, book critics, and readers, and also — shall we say — spirited dismissals from nay-sayers who question Gottlieb’s facts, premise, or even her emphasis on marriage.

Gottlieb’s thesis: a woman, particularly an older woman (and by “older” we mean not 27), who allows pickiness and a sense of entitlement to restrict her dating life is missing an opportunity to find her “Mr. Good Enough.” It has, understandably, rankled some who take issue with the idea of “settling” — shifting definitions though it may have — or those who wonder if women, in fact, aren’t picky enough.

An animated, friendly lady with a good sense of humor about it all, Gottlieb is well-prepared to counter criticism from people who have read no more than her book’s title and thus feel qualified to reject it.

I have to admit, the subtitle of your book (The Case For Settling For Mr. Good Enough) is a little hard to digest, and I wonder if it doesn’t subvert what is basically a helpful and positive message about having more realistic expectations. Was this your choice of words, or your publisher’s?

Well, this came from the original subtitle of the Atlantic article, but it’s used to really get people to think about what “settling” actually means. Forgive the pun, but some people are unsettled by the idea of “settling.” But the thing is, I’m not telling women that they have to set low standards, or put up with relationships that don’t work. I’m suggesting they revise the list of things they’re looking for in a man — to conform with what actually makes a strong relationship and actually makes people happy in love.

There’s a presupposition here that marriage is a good thing for people–

Nope, no presupposition there at all. I’m saying that marriage is something I want personally, and I’m not alone in wanting it.  So I was trying to figure out what was keeping me from finding the right guy. If you aren’t interested in marriage, there’s no reason to read a book about how to be happy in a marriage.  This book isn’t for people who are happy to go through life single.  It’s for people who want to find long-term romantic happiness and are curious about how to do that.

Your book is unusual in that it’s not truly a self-help book, although it does give advice to readers. Maybe it’s more like a memoir of a certain period of you life, with some breaks in the fourth wall…

It’s not self-help or a memoir, really–this is journalism. I’m a journalist by profession, and I did a lot of research to explore the question: what really matters in love?  I interviewed neurobiologists to talk about chemistry, sociologists to talk about how the culture influences us, scientists and researchers who study relationships and marriage, men and women who were out there dating and who were married.  The goal was to get some answers for myself and others struggling with these questions.

You emphasize the importance of distinguishing between “needs” and mere “wants” when looking for a life partner, and how learning to separate the two led you to a successful online match with the man you dub “Sheldon2.” I know you were only seeing him for a few months, but it sounds like the experience provided an important insight for you anyway.

Actually, I’m still in touch with “Sheldon2.” We’ve stayed in touch, and talk regularly, but yes, definitely: that was a lesson in not letting superficial criteria get in the way of more important qualities. I mean, I saw his bowtie in the [online dating profile] photo, and thought “Ugh! I don’t wanna date Orville Redenbacher!” but then it turns out the bowtie was from his grandfather, and was a way of honoring his connection with him. And his profession, which was listed as “real estate”—well, he had studied architecture, really loved his work, but I wrongly assumed he wouldn’t be creative enough.  And Sheldon2 is 5’ 6”—I’m 5’1 ½ —and I just never thought I’d be attracted to a guy who was 5’6”. And I was so wrong, again!  I was very attracted to him.  But I learned that I had to get past that stuff, the stuff I always thought was important but had nothing to do whether he might make me happy

Were you able to process that lesson in your dating behavior after that?

Oh, yeah, and I have to say, my inbox is full of emails from men who’ve read the article or read the book and like what I have to say. Cuz I’m basically saying, let’s stop judging men on these superficial criteria, and value them for what they bring to a relationship–and they appreciate that.

Early in the book you pose the question “how much compromise [in a relationship] is too much?” and the question doesn’t explicitly get answered. I’m curious if you were able to answer that question at least for yourself.

Sure, that’s something that people have to address for themselves, and I think, again, it goes back to valuing what is going to make you happy in the long term, not what might look good on paper or what you assume will make you happy but so far hasn’t.

Your book is clearly written from a female heterosexual perspective, but have you gotten any feedback from the gay community?

Yes, the response has been very positive–it’s a universal theme.  Hey, everyone wants to find their Mr.–or Ms.–Good Enough!

As Amy noted earlier, Christian at OK Cupid’s blog recently found, using all sorts of lovely charts and graphs, that  “the male fixation on youth distorts the dating pool.” Maybe so, but I have an observation — or maybe a confession — to make: The fixation on youth isn’t just male. While it may be represented as such online, there’s still a whole lot going on offline. Since moving to New York almost 5 years ago, I have, ahem…well, I have developed a habit of dating younger men. Before living here, I mostly dated older men. Why the shift? Is it something in the water?

At the ripe age of 31, while staring into space writing at a coffee shop, I noticed a guy looking at me rather intently. He caught my eye, smiled furtively and then took a swig of his grande. I smiled back and continued about my business. The next time I looked up, his eyes met mine and he executed a rather sheepish wave of his hand. Within seconds he was sitting in front of me and by the time I left, a date was planned. About four dates in, we met up with one of my friends for drinks. Somehow the subject of age came up.

I figured he was younger from conversation and just how he carried himself. I’d also dated a 22-year old the summer I was 29, so when coffee shop guy told me he was 26, it didn’t faze me. What I wasn’t expecting was his reaction to my age. At first it was incredulous disbelief. Had I no proof of identification and a friend to verify, he wouldn’t have believed it. He had guessed I was 24 or 25, but suddenly it clicked. I was confident and self-assured, had lived on my own in quite a few places, and pursued various interests. I wasn’t 25 or even close.

Suddenly he made assumptions about what I wanted: something serious, marriage, babies. Like, with him.By next week. It didn’t matter that we were on date number four or that I was just out of a tumultuous relationship. In his head my age screamed entrapment. Like I was ready to drag the first guy who smiled at me that morning to the altar. Needless to say, our date was cut short and the warm goodbye that ended our previous date was replaced with a very reticent hug.

While looks have something to do with attraction to the young and virile/fertile, maybe the reason per Christian’s data that “the median 30 year-old man spends as much time messaging 18 and 19 year-olds as he does women his own age” is not only about physical attraction. What might also be at play is what those men want at the moment and what they perceive rather than just cut and dry looks. People seem to think that once women hit a certain age, we’re on this warpath to the altar or the birthing center. Yes, we have a time limit with reproduction, but we already know that and a lot of us make peace with it one way or another. However, we don’t have an expiration date when it comes to love, lust, spontaneity or enjoying life. We also don’t want to marry and make babies with everyone we go out on a few dates with. While we are more likely to be looking for a real relationship, we also like to meet new people and explore our options. What we don’t want is a constant reminder of how old we are and questions like “shouldn’t we be finding that special someone soon?”

For me dating younger men has been an eye-opening experience. At first I found myself drawn to them because they are cute and fun, but that’s not all they are and that may be a common mistake when going younger – the seriousness factor. The men who are choosing younger women are potentially not doing so at a disservice to older women, but possibly as a disservice to younger women.

When I dated a 22-year-old at 29, I embraced the experience. Surprisingly, fitting into each other’s worlds wasn’t actually that much of a stretch. What I was surprised about was the reaction from my friends, particularly my female friends. A lot of them voiced some concern because 22-year-olds wouldn’t want to get married anytime soon. That was just it. At the time, I wasn’t ready to get married. I was running far away from commitment and wedding freak-outs. Dating a 22-year-old was safe.

In terms of OK Cupid’s data, I would like to see a chart comparing what exactly each person is looking for – like are the 30 year old men who are messaging 18-19 year olds looking for a relationship or a “playmate”? Odds are, they are not looking for a life partner. As such, young women as a whole may be getting the short end of the deal in terms of their interactions with much older men. They may not be taken seriously or seen as viable long-term partners. Maybe the disparity between men and women’s dating habits with regard to age in the OK Cupid data is just as much about emotional age as it is about physical attraction. Hell, if those men need convincing that older women can be as full of fun and energy as a younger woman, then maybe older women don’t want them anyway.

My point is we often date people we think we might not get serious about when we are not ready to be serious –- which is fine, but we should also be open to the possibility that someone will surprise us. What I’ve learned as I’ve returned to a place where I am ready for a relationship is that men of all ages can be both fun and serious, thoughtful or thoughtless. Internet dating eliminates nuances as it makes us all check a box, but it’s only reflective of what we as a society already perceive. It’s time older women and younger women alike get as much credit for their whole person and not categorized by stereotypes of age and gender.

What a rollercoaster of emotions we’re feeling at BG today. We found this blog entry via Wired from OK Cupid, noting a bias in their dating pool against women of a certain age (“a certain age” being a year or two older than you are, but whatever).

The good: It’s a veritable candy store of charts, graphs, a javascript widget (ooh! shiny!), and the like. Plus, the blogger, Christian, makes his case enthusiastically, circling the ages 30-45 and labeling it the “Zone of Greatness.” Plus, he’s done extensive research (statistical research, you naughty-minded harlots) to support the thesis that older women are more sexually willing, open-minded, and hotsy totsy. Sure, in an ideal world he’d be all “and they have the most beautiful minds!” but given that we’re talking about a dating site, we have to assume a certain meat-market mentality. And how!

Plus, that’s only part of his picture. And with phrases like this:

There are two operative stereotypes of older single women: the sad-sack (à la Bridget Jones) and the “cougar” (à la Samantha from Sex In The City) and both, like all stereotypes, are reductionist and stupid and I’ve tried to avoid them. I hesitated beginning my case for older women with something about their sexuality, like I did in Exhibit A, because that territory borders right on cougar country. But the evidence there was too compelling to ignore.

Christian reveals himself to be a FOBG in a BW (big way). We luuurve him.

Plus, the comments section speaks well of OK Cupid users.

So why the roller coaster? The original premise. Like the one bad review in a sea of raves, we keep mulling it over and wondering if all the blog posts in the world will knock any sense into unwilling minds. What do you think?

From the Charlotte Observer: “A forthcoming study by a Duke University researcher and several colleagues confirms what not-so-thin women and short, broke men have long suspected: They don’t get nearly as much romantic attention as skinny women and tall, financially secure guys.” You need a study for that? Here, I got a study. It’s called pay my rent, food, and Netflix. Fund that, science people.

The study, out of the University of Chicago, is still under peer review before publication. But here’s what we know: analyzing 22,000 online daters, researchers found that “women put a premium on income and height when deciding which men to contact.” They did the math: the study showed that a 5-foot-9-inch man needs to make $30,000 more than a 5-foot-10-inch one to be as successful in the dating pool.

Men in the study demonstrated a strong, and depressing, preference for women with a BMI of 18 or 19, which basically means if you’re 5′ 6″ you’ve gotta weigh 115. So okay, women want men who can afford to take them to dinner, but the men don’t want us to eat. This should work just fine.

Sarcasm aside, I’m still annoyed with this study — or at least, to some degree, this article about it — and the way it only, and unnecessarily, perhaps even misleadingly, perpetuates and underscores that same-old same-old depressing, needlessly divisive message: “The only thing men and women have in common is that they’re shallow.” ‘Cause here’s the thing: the article and the researchers talk about what a fertile field for study these online sites are, because there are just so many people on them. Right: there are just so many people on them. That’s why people go in — or at least online — with those faux-“high” standards. Because they can. There are so many eligible singles there, at least in urban and urbanish areas, that you can afford to impose a minimum height or maximum BMI standard. You know? Then later, at a party, you happen across someone who — for whatever ineffable reason — makes your heart go pitter-pat, maybe someone whose attributes you wouldn’t have click-clicked and checklisted, and boom, you give them a chance. I’m not saying some people aren’t shallow, but still.

As the article, to be fair, does state: “Since the study focuses on first impressions and initial contacts rather than marriage, it doesn’t rule out the chance of true love winning despite appearance or income. ‘If you had to sit down and write what you wanted in your dream guy, most girls would write ‘tall, hot and well-off,'” said Kari Castle, a 27-year-old online dater in Charlotte. ‘But in reality, is that the only thing they’d settle for? Probably not.'” Right.

So, I guess, since the study doesn’t really tell us much, the reporter is forced to fill in with dumb cranky unhelpful — and dare I say self-fulfilling — quotes like, “It’s got nothing to do with anything but green,” [said one bachelor]. “If you’ve got enough money, you’ll have women swarming all over you.” Attitude, people! Actually, it might be a guy in the comments who said it best: “If you think women will only like you if you have a sizable bank account, you are the one who makes that happen.”

This recent study suggests that women looking for mates think altruism is…sexy.

No surprise here.  At BG HQ we like nice guys!  As this classic letter affirms, being a good person does not have to mean being the (sad trombone) Nice Guy who doesn’t get any play. (Pay close attention to the comments section there–good additional insights about confidence vs arrogance.)

What we learned from watching the Super Bowl: women are frigid, scoldy bitches, unless you drink beer. What we learn from most media analysis of studies of women’s (waning?) libido is often — if less uncreative and nasty — equally reductive.

How refreshing, then, to read, in yesterday’s Washington Post, about Daphne Miller, M.D.’s thoughtful consideration — and successful treatment — of her 47-year-old patient’s complaint of waning desire. Her point, however, is not her success; it’s that when it comes to finding a “cure” for stalled libido (exercise? counseling? drugs?) one woman’s mrrrrrrow! is another’s meh. Dr. Miller writes: “A woman’s sexual experience depends on a complex interplay of her neuroendocrine system, her multiple sex organs and any number of social circumstances, and it stands to reason that there might be many places where the process can go awry.” In other words: women are complex! Also, a unicorn! Brava.

Bonus quote from Rosemary Basson, director of the Sexual Medicine Program in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. “Look,” she explained to Miller, “if there was a drug that was so potent that it could overcome all misgivings we have about ourselves, our sexual image, our uncertainty about our sexual partners, the kids banging at our bedroom door, you could not make it legal. It would be slipped into drinks. What are people looking for?”

The brainiacs over at OKCupid — a dating site incubated by a bunch of Harvard math geeks in ’04; also where I met my music-nerd future-hub in ’09 after being a member for all of a 48 hours — recently crunched a few numbers to analyze the effectiveness of users’ profile pics. (Effectiveness = how many contacts were received monthly.)

What they found, which they’ve published in a lengthy, graph-dense screed, blew them away: “In looking closely at the astonishingly wide variety of ways our users have chosen to represent themselves, we discovered much of the collective wisdom about profile pictures was wrong.”

Specifically:

* It is not better to flash a pearly grin; instead, keep lips sealed and upturn your mouth corners coyly-yet-half-assedly. Females should do this while making “flirty eyes” at the lens; males should do this while gazing off-camera.

* By all means, do use a self-shot pic taken on a cell or webcam; what you forsake in high-pixel polish you’ll recoup with “an approachable, casual vibe that makes you feel already close to the subject.”

* Chicks especially can cash in big-time with the cell/webcam pic’s stylized subset: the  “MySpace shot,” which even OKC can only put into words as “taken by holding your camera above your head and being just so darn coy.” Like porn — which, c’mon, that’s what the MySpace shot is, right? First cousin to an American Apparel ad? — it’s hard to define a MySpace shot, but you know it when you see it. And when dudes see it, “the MySpace shot is the single most effective photo type for women,” annihilating the second most effective (in bed) by about 3-to-2. (And it’s not just because of the shot’s down-the-shirt angle, according to OKC’s stats.)

* Males fare better not wearing a shirt than wearing one… gah, hard to read much past this without short-circuiting my keyboard with the tears I weep for the future. The second half of the article talks about how old dogs (i.e., me, 35yo) should not learn these new tricks, as the backfire ratio swoops skyward the older you get.

AKA, OKCupid is not OK for “cougars.” Unless (and yes, I unfortunately do speak from experience here*) you do not mind being bombarded with IM requests from Fordham sophomores (and UPenn juniors and NJIT frosh…) to come see their dorm rooms tonight, because they’ve slept with tons of older women and they know just how to push your buttons and maybe they can show you how to use a webcam since when you were born phones actually had dial tones.

* Actually, it was pretty entertaining chatting with them.