[men and women] close partnership or constant war

National hero had been sleeping with his best friend’s wife

Relations between men and women is a field I’ve done a certain amount of research on over ten years although I’ve surveyed far more women than men, maybe 1800 females to about 200 males.

I’ve asked the straight question: “What are the characteristics you’d most like to see in your partner?” and have done scenarios where certain characters are placed side by side with multiple characteristics and have then seen which they’ve chosen.

Certain things have come out of this. Both felt that being loved, liked and respected was way up near the top but it came out differently. The males, who admittedly were a poor cross section, comprising only students and businessmen, assumed this but the females stated ‘respect’ over and over, ahead of ‘confidence’, ‘intelligence’, ‘sense of purpose’, ‘sense of humour’, ‘money’ and a host of other features.

Both assumed the opposite number would be good looking to a point. The males were less articulate about it but it’s perhaps fair to say they wanted the girl to be ‘feminine’, ‘soft and loving’ and the characteristics they most detested in a woman were ‘nagging’, ‘infidelity’, ‘troublemaking’ and ‘feminism’. These came out, over and over again as driving them away from their partners and even overseas to fresh fields, with nagging the worst, the older the man was.

The females hated ‘disrespect’ and then ‘weakness’ and ‘lack of intelligence, money and cleanliness’, in no particular order. In recent years, ‘money’ has gone further and further towards the top. Interesting then that Samantha Brett has just posed the question of a man crying – how it affects a woman and her results can be seen here.

Activity wise, most of the females liked dancing, conversation, shopping and sex; almost all of the males saw sex at the end of anything they did, though of course they’d be ‘just friends’ with a woman who didn’t physically attract them. Nightclubs were for the ‘scene’ and for ‘picking up’, not so much for the dancing for the guys, whilst it all fitted together for the girls.