Nancy Kalish, Ph.D. is the author of Lost & Found Lovers,
a book about her research on people who go back to lost
loves. She has been doing this work for 11 years, and has
a web site, www,lostlovers.com, with a discussion board.
Now she has completed a new survey of adults who have
not tried a reunion with a lost love. Her findings suggest
that men may be more “romantic” than women.
We too often define “romantic” in women’s terms — the
flowers and cards, saving items and putting them in a
scrapbook or listening to romantic songs all day long.
The men may not do these things, but they do something
more romantic than all that:
Dr. Kalish’s survey asked “how long did it take for you to get
over your lost love?’ The men tended to take longer to get
over a lost love than the women. And some of the men
were not satisfied with the survey choices.. The last choice
listed was, “Over 10 years.”Only the men crossed out all the
choices and wrote, “I never got over her.” While no doubt
some women never got over their lost loves either, only the
men wrote this comment in the margins.
Adolescent boys are not supposed to cry for a lost love. But
many of Dr. Kalish’s male participants cried hard, in private,
nightly…for months.
This is not just a reunion phenomenon. Dr. Kalish is finding
the same results in her First Love experience survey – for
adults who have never tried a reunion with a lost love. There
are significantly more men who chose to answer this survey
than women, and they express strong feelings for their first
loves, even though they have not contacted her (and may
never do so).
Members of Dr. Kalish’s web site, who are permitted to
post messages, seem to be more represented by women
than men. But Kalish warns that appearances are
misleading. There are slightly more men who paid to join
than women. The men don’t post as often as the women
— but they are reading!
Men are less likely to initiate leaving their marriages
than women, and over the last few years, there is little
difference between the number of men who have affairs
versus the number of women. As more women entered
the workplace, they found the same temptations there.
Dr. Kalish also offers private phone consultations. Men
more often want to talk to her about their lost loves than
women.
But it is a rare magazine that is pitched to men that will
print a story about love and romance. The media think men
are uninterested. Not so!
As Valentine’s Day approaches, we should all remember that
men express themselves differently — and that does not mean
worse than — women. If women want men to open up, says
Kalish, they have to take men on their own terms, not try to
make them express their feelings like a woman would.
Men may not make scrapbooks of their love experiences, but
they are every bit as loving, loyal, and yes, romantic, as
women.
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