Helen

Hail to my single friends on National Singles Week.  I’m among you.  And I’m not alone.  Some 50.2 percent of all adult Americans are now single.  And we rock—as is clear from the Match.com 2013 Singles in America study of all Americans, not the Match membership. 

Some 65% of us “work out” at least once a week. Over 80% of us save our money for a rainy day–or a great vacation.  And 65% of us are out one to two nights a week with friends.  We are on the move. 

We are also hip.  Over 50% of us think about sex every day; 39% of us have dated someone we met on line; and the vast majority of those of reproductive age want to tie the knot.  

But what is most impressive about my fellow Singles is what they seek in a partnership. They are shedding the racism and religious bigotry of myriad past generations to seek a far more intimate relationship. Today 74% of singles would date someone from a different ethnic background; 70% of singles would date someone with different religious beliefs; and only14% would marry for money.  Instead, over 95% of singles—men as well as women—say it’s “very important” to find a mate who respects them, whom they can trust and confide in, who can communicate his/her needs, and who makes them laugh. And what do they want to do with a beloved?  travel!   Singles are optimistic too:  89% believe they can stay married to the same person forever. 

And macho men are history.  Over 86% of men would date a woman who makes considerably more money, is much better educated and is far more intellectual than themselves.  Cougars aren’t on the prowl either: 76% of single women would not make a committed relationship with a man who is 10 years younger.  Instead, women want their wings—more time to spend with friends; more space in a partnership to pursue their interests.  

Everyone wants life to be meaningful; today’s Singles also want life to be fun.  I’ll play my part on National Singles Week. I’m heading off to buy some hot shoes to wear with my skinny jeans.  

What will you do on Father’s Day?  Skip it?   From the results of a new study of 1500 men, that’s what many men expect.  

How odd that we overlook this holiday.  Fatherhood is human.  New fossil finds from East Africa suggest that ancestral men and women began to form pair-bonds over four million years ago, rearing their children as a team.   Men still parent—everywhere in the world.   Moreover, I shall maintain that men are moving forward, busting entrenched myths about men’s roles as fathers and reassuming ancestral behaviors toward their young.

As this survey vividly shows, men are no longer scuttling off to play ballgames with comrades as the chores of parenting mount around them; instead men are taking on fatherhood with pride and gusto.  Some 68% of the men reported that they bonded with their baby in about the same amount of time as did the mother.   Fathers are sharing housework too.   Almost half (48%) of new dads say they are equally busy in the laundry room; 46% do just as many dishes; 34% prepare just as many family meals; and 43% spend equal time with the mop and vacuum cleaner as your partners.  Yet dads also continue their traditional responsibilities of yard work, auto care and household repair.  

Dads are changing their priorities too.  Time with single and childless friends; hours playing group sports; watching television: these have all become less important, these men report.  Some 50% are more conscious of their health.  And 44% say that parenting has made them more practical. 

Moreover, 70% find fatherhood fulfilling; 72% are confident in their parenting ability; 58% feel they spend enough quality time with their children; and 89% think they are good fathers.   In fact, 59% believe they are better dads than their fathers were.   Their own fathers, these dads estimate, were better at providing financially; but they believe that they spend more time caring for and educating their children, as well and more quality time with their partner.   Indeed, 54% feel closer to their parenting partner.

In 1989, sociologist Arlie Hochschild wrote a highly popular book, The Second Shift, about the struggles of working women who also do the vast majority of childcare and housework.  Are men now struggling with the second shift as well?  Perhaps. Some 48% of these dads also report that they have become more stressed with fatherhood.

This study captures a sea change in men’s parenting attitudes and behaviors.  As women have poured into the paid labor force, they have smashed long held myths about women’s interests and priorities—particularly the mantra that a woman’s place is in the home.  But men are smashing stereotypes of men as well.  They are assuming more duties around the house. And this is natural.  In fact, both sexes are returning to habits our forebears developed long ago.  For millions of years ancestral women commuted to work to gather fruits and vegetables, returning home with over 50% of the evening meal.  Women were crucial to the labor force.  And men were crucial in the home.   Men educated the boys.   And when in camp, they helped to entertain, soothe and educate their growing young.

Do dads think differently than moms?  “Yes,” replied 91% of fathers in this survey.   I was glad to see this response.   Some Americans would have us believe that men and women are (almost) exactly alike.  What nonsense.   Men and women are, on average, different in many ways.  But men and women are like two feet:  They need each other to get ahead.  And as the roles of women expand, men’s roles are expanding too.  Unchained from rigid traditions that arose during our farming past and have kept men out of the nursery for centuries, men can once again express who their really are–energetic, caring, responsible, available dads. 

amanda mcarthur

may 22, 2020

Few things feel worse than getting dumped.

Whether it’s out of the blue or it’s been a long time coming, the end of a relationship can be a painful thing—particularly when you didn’t have any say in its conclusion. But why exactly is that pain so severe, and why can it linger for so long? We were curious, so we asked Dr. Helen Fisher, biological anthropologist and expert on all things that happen in the brain when you’re in love.

Related: What Happens When We Try to Tango

Sweety High: What parts of the brain are most active after someone’s been dumped?

Helen Fisher: My colleagues and I put 15 people who had just been dumped into a brain scanner, and many brain regions are active when you’ve just been dumped or broken-up with.

We found activity in brain regions related to intense romantic love, as well as regions related to deep attachment. Just because somebody dumped you doesn’t mean you’ve fallen out of love with them. You’ve remained in love with them for at least a while and you’re very attached to them. We also found activity in three brain regions related to craving and addiction, including a brain factory associated with both substance addictions and behavioral addictions, like gambling.

Last but not least, we found brain activity in a brain region linked with physical pain—not just the trauma that goes along with physical pain, but the pain itself. It’s the same brain region becomes active when you have a really bad toothache.

Oddly enough, we also see activity in a brain region linked with figuring out your gains and your losses. When somebody has dumped you, you might say, “Well I really liked his mother. Will she still talk to me? We went out with those friends. Are they still my friends? Who gets the dog? What have I gained? I’ve gained my freedom. I’ve no longer with a man who was cheating on me. I can get on with my life.” You lie in bed trying to figure out what you’ve gained, and what you’ve lost.

SH: With those brain regions active, what feelings or actions might manifest?

HF: There are three basic phases of being dumped. The first is shock, followed by protest and resignation. You can hardly believe it, and then you begin to fight it. Women will try to bargain and win their guy back, and try to compromise and talk it out. Both sexes will try to make you jealous by showing up with somebody else or confront the abandoning partner as well as any new person that partner is with. Then after a while, they give up. They can fall into lethargy, and a sense of hopelessness and despair. It can overtake you. And then, after a while, you begin to recover. You slowly return to normal and then you start to look for love again.

SH: What steps can we then take to heal after being dumped? 

HF: I often wonder why evolution made it so hard to get out of these ways of thinking. The one thing we’ve been able to prove is that time heals. Among our 15 people dumped, we compared those who were farther away from the experience. The longer it’s been since you’ve been dumped, the less activity we saw in the brain regions linked to attachment. You slowly begin to feel less attached and less in love with this person. Still, it certainly helps if you treat it as an addiction and you don’t meet up with them, don’t text them, don’t save their letters. It really speeds up that process.

      So many times I have begun reminiscing with a boyfriend about a holiday we shared, a movie we saw, or a trip we took—only to discover how little he remembered of the event.  While I could recall what I wore, what we discussed, where we went, even what we ate, it was all a blur to him.  And these were highly intelligent and kind men; in no way duds.   I enjoy this trait: remembering.   But I must admit, there are things I would prefer to forget.   While I remain plagued by things I did or said years ago, many men seem to live in the here and now.  And it’s not hard to blame a region of the brain: the hippocampus.  This primary part of the memory system is packed with receptors for estrogen—the largely female hormone.    So women remember.   Alas, we can also hold a grudge.  And we’re not alone.   I know of a female chimpanzee that held a grudge for over 20 years.   While strolling with her infant one jungle morning, a deranged neighbor seized her child to slaughter it, as she had done to others.   The seasoned mother rescued her wailing offspring.   But she was hostile to the thief all her life.   Like female chimpanzees, ancestral women had to remember even far smaller transgressions for years, as they struggled to rear their helpless young. 

      But why do men forget?  Testosterone may play a role.  Transsexuals report that after three months of testosterone injections to transform from female to male, they begin to live more and more in the here and now; they remember less of the past.   High testosterone men also focus on the here and now.   And like women’s acute memory for offenses of any kind, men’s lack of memory for transgressions is adaptive.   For millions of years men had to put aside their differences to hunt together.   Surely they remembered serious betrayals (as modern men do too); but it was expedient to overlook, indeed even forget, minor squabbles in order to do their job.   These ancestral differences play out in business.  After a vicious office battle, all the men will go out together for a beer, while all the women head home alone, often remaining hostile or wary for days or weeks.        So the next time he can’t remember the details of your wonderful vacation together, just remind him.   He’ll be relieved you didn’t haze him for forgetting; and you can regale him with the juicy tidbits of these precious times.