Men want relationships more than women?

I found some interesting research from several years ago, that men want relationships more than women do:  link; link.

Huh?

That came as a surprise.  I always presumed the opposite, and perhaps that is a stereotype, albeit a dated one?  But it seems that today, young women are more afraid than men of being tied down in relationships.  They prefer their independence and their careers.

The implications of this came to me this morning, as I was reading a novel.  This writer has a collection of books involving several friends and their paths towards dating and marriage.  The book covers and blurbs were all written from the men’s perspective:  link.

Take about an “ah ha” moment.  I’ve been grappling recently with cover images and book blurbs for the two novels I’m working on.  The problem, I think, is that I was formulating them primarily from the women’s point of view, looking for images of young women and imagining book titles in light of their stories.  But it just wasn’t coming out right.

Once I revised my thinking process and started thinking from a guy’s point of view, things started to fall into place.  Suddenly, the book blurbs made sense, as well as the titles.  I could more easily find images for the covers:  link.

The irony is that the ideas for the books originally came out of imagining a group of young men dealing with change of life issues:  career changes and relationship interests.

Copyright Barbara James.  All rights reserved.