in this series: #1 | #2 | #3 | #3.5
I have a lay theory of partner selection preferences of males and females in heterosexual romantic relationships. Oh, hear me out — it’ll be a fun ride (perhaps even obvious in hindsight!)
First tenet: Men and women have different criteria for life partners.
Men settle for stability, and women settle for love.
Men are more rational and calculating: they choose to settle with women they intuit they can build families with. This is not necessarily the woman they love the most, although they will definitely try to convince themselves so.
Another way to put it is that they will eventually marry the women their mothers approve of more. As a man, you might scoff at the idea that your mother has any real influence in deciding who you marry, except she does — you just haven’t consciously come to terms with it.
The above is where the “girlfriend but not wife material” (GBNWM from now on) descriptor stems from — because men are better at separating love, sexual desire, and marriage. So, the woman who he loves, the woman who is attractive to him, and the woman who he marries can be three different women. Lucky him if they are the same woman, but they are often separate.
Women are more emotion-driven. They want to and are more likely to settle with men they love. This would suggest that love and marriage come together. And what about sexual desire? Ever heard the familiar story of girlfriends hurt by their boyfriend’s pornography/Insta hot girl pic consumption (let’s not pretend otherwise), while the boyfriend exasperatedly attempts to explain that “porn is just porn; it doesn’t mean I love you less”? Indeed, he does not love her less, but he does not understand that women conflate the three elements.
Of course, women seriously consider aspects like wealth and physicality, which are evolutionary signals for reproductive fitness. But give them a choice and they will let love lead the way.
In summary, men marry with their heads (yes, not the other head), and women marry with their hearts.
We have discussed marriage. Now, let us discuss dating.
Second tenet: I further posit that people looking to date can be divided into two major types: people who date to date (the Romantics) and people who date to marry (the Pragmatics).
Your gender does not influence whether you are a Romantic or Pragmatic, unlike with marriage. Rather, your personality and past relationship experiences will determine your type. I will go as far as to predict that people who are high on openness to experience (a personality trait) are more likely to be Romantics.
Romantics say “I love them so much I can’t breathe; I have to be with them”.
Pragmatics say “I think they’re a great partner; I can see them in my future”.
There’s no right or wrong — it’s just a preference that has significant repercussions on who you meet and stay with, and how your relationships play out in the long-term. In general, Romantics are open to dating more people than Pragmatics, but they have shorter relationships.
(All of this is to say that you are not a “high-value person”, bless you, if you are selective in your choice of partners; you are probably just a typical Pragmatic, LOL. You should never be using that term unironically anyway.)
I did predict that men are more rational when it comes to marriage, but this does not necessarily mean they are more likely to be pragmatic when it comes to dating. For example, you may primarily date for love and discover a love that clutches at your heart and breaks you apart but still decide to marry someone stable in the end.
What’s interesting is that when the two tenets are combined, they result in unique patterns of partner-seeking behaviour in men and women.
Pragmatic men are the most selective, and Romantic women are the least selective.
Let’s say you are a typical Pragmatic man: you are looking for someone stable, and you are dating to marry. You will immediately disqualify GBNWMs because an uncontrollable woman might be sexual napalm as a girlfriend, but a liability as a wife. (I name this phenomenon “double jeopardy”, dedicated to crazy girls like me.) You will only date potential wives, which significantly restricts your selection pool.
Conversely, Pragmatic women might give chances to and later marry men who seem to not be husband material at first. Because — to use a cliché — love conquers all, and all can be forgiven. There might be no male equivalent for the GBNWM, actually — have you ever heard women describe a man like that?
Romantic men are kind of in-between in the sense that they might date for fun but not marry until they’re confident they’ve found the one.
Romantic women are just in trouble. HAHAHAHAH
Now we can make pairing predictions:
- Pragmatics prefer fellow pragmatics. Pair two Pragmatics together and you are basically guaranteed a stable relationship. They’re that couple who has been together since the start of university (they met in some school camp), have gotten a BTO, and will be having their wedding this year.
- Romantics care less about who they date. If paired with a Pragmatic, they may experience stress. If paired with a fellow Romantic, the relationship will be intense, but not necessarily stable, not that they mind.
- The combination least likely to work out is between a Pragmatic man and a Romantic woman because their values differ the most. (Maybe I keep falling for Pragmatic men…)
Third tenet: I expect that conservative men and women (compared to liberals) are more likely to be Pragmatic daters AND marry for stability. Conservatism involves upholding traditional standards in everyday life. Example: you believe that family is defined as the nuclear unit, men and women have different roles to play, etc.
The reason is that the more conservative you are, the more likely you are to adhere to gender stereotypes or the dominant trends you observe around you. And the Singapore Dream is stability across all facets of life. Singaporeans are generally quite conservative and risk-averse. Even marriages are tinged with transactionality nowadays (think BTO).
There’s nothing wrong with being conservative or liberal. It’s a preference. I’m not insinuating that those who lean conservative are mindless sheep. We make decisions that are aligned with our values. If you believe the status quo is fine, you would naturally act in a way that maintains it.
I might be completely wrong. These are all based on anecdotal observations limited to Singapore, and my friends have told me I tend to attract men who are bad for me (like attracts like, OK). You are welcome to DM me agitatedly proclaiming yourself as an exception, hah.
The final caveat is that these are generalisations, as theories must have — it does not mean all men and women act the same way. I am a Love/Romantic based on my theory though (of course). This means I date to date, and I will marry for love, consequences be damned.
Feel free to categorise yourself and let me know what you are. (If I am interested in you, I will ask you if I haven’t already guessed it).
Now for the cherry on top.
The research study: I ran an informal poll on Instagram to see if my hypotheses were supported. It’s not IRB-approved and might have involved coercion (I threatened my friends with the cold shoulder if they didn’t respond, hahahahaha).
It covers marriage preferences (first tenet) only. I will conduct another study for the types later, so stay tuned.
My aim is to demonstrate that in selecting a life partner:
- Hypothesis 1: A higher percentage of men will pick stability > love.
- Hypothesis 2: A higher percentage of women will pick love > stability.
Method:
- Participants were shown the prompt “In selecting a life partner, is stability or love more important to you?”
- They picked one of the two options provided — “stability” or “love” — and indicated their gender, male or female.
Sample characteristics: 21-30 years old, predominantly university-educated
Results:
- Overall, both genders (N = 101)
- Stability = 48 (47.5%)
- Love = 53 (52.5%)
- Men (n = 57)
- Stability = 24 (42.1%)
- Love = 33 (57.9%)
- Women (n = 44)
- Stability = 24 (54.5%)
- Love = 20 (45.5%)
Summary of results
- Hypothesis 1 not supported. Men prefer love over stability in their criterion for a life partner.
- Hypothesis 2 not supported. Women prefer stability over love.
- Of course note that I didn’t test for significance. But the differences seem big enough.
Discussion: Well, consider me shooketh. So I’m an anomaly? And my friends, too? This goes to show that one’s (my) view of the world can be surprisingly limited in the grand scheme of things. Or because I didn’t do my literature review before I generated my theory — it’s grounded science, baby!
Possible explanations of the findings from the literature:
- Evolutionary theory suggests that men’s long-term mating strategies involve searching for women of “high reproductive value”, which is inferred via physical attractiveness and age. None of these are related to stability (Buss & Schmitt, 2019, pp. 88-89). (But they aren’t related to love either, which more men in the sample picked?)
- Evolutionary theory again suggests that women’s long-term mating strategies involve searching for men who (1) can provide economic and status resources, (2) offer physical protection, and (3) are willing to commit (ibid., pp. 93-95). These all indicate stability.
Some potential alternative explanations must be considered:
- Skewed sample characteristics: My followers tend to be liberal, so the effects would be weaker (or even inverted) compared to my predictions.
- You guys are forecasting wrongly. HAHAHAHAHA. Let’s see why and to whom you all get married in the end — let me know! (wink)
Thank you to all of my 101 followers who participated. I hope you find the love you deserve.
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