Are men less socialable than women?

[QuietRiot]

Saw this profile of a woman stating that if you've not dated anyone outside your race or had a diverse dating history, that "we'd not make a good match" and that her "personal life and work life has me blessed with relationships with people from all walks of life, and someone who I am with needs to have the same attitude."

That makes sense...as I know a married couple that had been married several years that recently divorced...mainly due to this situation as, prior to her marriage, she was a serious social butterfly. Her FB profile has tons of comments and responses from people from all walks of life. Very gregarious and outgoing. Her then-husband would kind of sit on the sidelines if he was with her at social gatherings. His social circle is small or didn't co-mingle with her friends and I guess he keeps to himself most times while at gatherings when he really has no interest in mingling with her friends. Most times they wound up staying home on the weekends or, if not that, just going out one-on-one as a couple...with no one else involved.

This is typical of a lot of my friends that ARE on board with this as most couples, (at least in my area) tend to be joined at the hip and no longer partake in social activities. Thats typically small, sleepy town mentality and if both partners are on board with this...it'll work.

This led to the detriment of their marriage. But I've heard instances where women had to launch a guy when he was just tolerating her for an evening out with her friends where he was kind of looking at his watch constantly or not really engaging much in conversation.  A kind of "Are we done yet" attitude.

I am noticing this more so with men than women as I think men tend to be less social than women...esp. once they land a woman. They are like "I have a girlfriend or wife now, so...no need to really be socially active anymore".

Makes sense, right?

[basil67]

I'm female.  My husband is more sociable than me and always has been.

So no, doesn't make sense.

[Wiseman2]

Where was this profile? Match or FB?

Why scan this stuff? 

[CaliforniaGirl]

Yes. LOL.

I didn't really read the post. Just the subject line is plenty of info. 😂

Edited August 29, 2020 by CaliforniaGirl

[Weezy1973]

In general, yes men are less sociable than women. Even when men have lots of friends, they’re not as connected as women. Men tend to get together to do something. Golf. Watch the game. Play poker. Whereas women tend to get together just to talk. They often use an event as the excuse. My wife is part of a book club, and the actual discussion of the book is pretty minimal. They just chat about what’s going on in their lives.

[alphamale]

22 minutes ago, Weezy1973 said:

 Whereas women tend to get together just to talk. They often use an event as the excuse. My wife is part of a book club, and the actual discussion of the book is pretty minimal. They just chat about what’s going on in their lives.

yak yak yak

[mark clemson]

With the opening line it sounds to me more like she doesn't want to inadvertently date a bigot who's good at hiding that side of their personality/values. Perhaps she had a bad experience in the past with something like that.

I do think that, speaking VERY generally, women tend to be more sociable than men.

Edited September 3, 2020 by mark clemson

[CaliforniaGirl]

22 minutes ago, mark clemson said:

With the opening line it sounds to me more like she doesn't want to inadvertently date a bigot who's good at hiding that side of their personality/values. Perhaps she had a bad experience in the past with something like that.

I do think that, speaking VERY generally, women tend to be more sociable than men.

That first part: good point.

The second: even if we don't talk a lot (not all women yak yak yak, LOL!), we are socialized to reach out more, to have more friends, make more connections even if we aren't friends-friends, and so on. It doesn't work for every woman - we aren't a hive mind and neither are our parents or were our teachers, etc. - but girls are kind of taught from Mom's knee to reach out to others. In the beginning, even our stuffed animals will do. A little girl might talk to her dolls, pretend she's being their mother (still a favorite, amazingly) or whatever...lots of interaction with "somebody else."

I also see (as a VERY general thing...trust me, I've known some extremely social guys) that women form and keep more connections than men do after marriage. Even a super-introverted person like me is "connected" to other people...whether I speak to them once a week, once a month...once a year...I have friends dating back 45 years and I'm only 53. My husband "knows" old buds that way but they don't necessarily call, hang out or whatever. I feel like guys are more likely than women to drop that reaching out a bit and rely on the woman to organize thier activities with friends and so on. 

The difficulty happens when (if) there's a breakup. The woman (in the above general scenarios...again, this is not every woman) will reach out, she'll get support if she can manage to, she's not all alone. But MANY times I've seen divorced husbands sort of adrif...not only are they less culturally conditioned to run all around the place with friends, but so often they've just dropped the ball on being "the social one" after living together or marriage. That must blow mightily.

Now, I say all this as an incredibly introverted person. So if even I know I'm more social than anyone else, LOL, well, that's kind of my supporting evidence that women are encouraged all our lives to reach out...reach out...reach out. Whether we want to or not.  These are just observations I've accumulated over the years.

[mark clemson]

⬆️⬆️ Yes, I think that's more or less correct as well CG. I do think a divorced husband who DOES venture back out into the world, if he's well preserved and can re-hone his social skills a bit, is likely to find himself well-received by the single women out there, particularly near a population center where there's lot of them about. But not everyone is good at that.

[RecentChange]

GENERALLY speaking, women tend to have more intimate relationships with their friends then men.

But that is simply a generalization, and most people fall somewhere on a spectrum. Some women have huge social circles, or share everything, or communicate with their friends all the time. And some women are like me, more of a "lone wolf" who doesn't do much socializing with other women. Lots of variation.

Introvert / extrovert will be as big of influence on this as gender, if not more. 

While I love a party or a night out with all of our friends, I actually prefer time to myself, and haven't done a "girls night" since college. 

My husband is the huge extrovert with a big circle of friends - and he has to socialize several times a week to be content. 

Our ying and yang works well for us. I like hanging out with his friends, or sending him off with the guys so I can do my thing (riding, reading etc).

Our relationship is very much like my parents marriage - except for I take after my "lone wolf" dad, while my mother is a social butterfly like my husband. I feel like we balance each other.