Interactions vis-a-vis Married People

      The "mode of standardization" theorem provides a good expla-
nation as to why never married men usually find married women con-
siderably easier than never married women to talk with. And, of course,
it is no secret that single, never married women tZ,pically find married
men much easier and more pleasant to talk with than they find never
married men to be. Married people are ordinarily used to talking on an
intimate basis to people of the opposite sex. After all, they do it with
their spouses every day. Thus they do not need to put on any kind of
a defensive, sham act. Simply put, married people are less likely than
single people to need the protective mask of a role or a script.
      Of course, this natural ease which never married people feel when
they are in conversation with married people often gives rise to prob-
lems. Secretaries who are otherwise quite conventional sometimes find
themselves falling in love with their married bosses or job colleagues.
Such love relationships often create a great deal of emotional pain and
suffering for everyone involved. And yet these same rather conventional
women who take such delight in talking with married men (often to the
point of getting themselves emotionally entangled) often behave in an
annoyingly aloof and disinterested way vis-a-vis the available single,
never married males prevalent within their social and work environ-
ments. Often the tragedy is that the never married man remains lonely
while the never married woman allows herself to become severely hurt
over an attached man whom she cannot possibly win. And the never
married man remains much more socially inept than he otherwise would
if he had the interested involvement of the woman who keeps spurning
him in favor of the smooth-talking, non-shy already married man.
      Despite extreme and chronic love-shyness, most of the love-shy
men interviewed for this book could recall instances wherein they had
stumbled upon a conversation with a married woman who had been
either in their own age range or younger. And virtually all of these love-
shy men were amazed at how easily they could talk with these married
women, and at how completely relaxed they had been made to feel by
these women's attitude toward them. Many of these men recalled how
frustrated and bitter they had felt upon learning that the woman was
married or otherwise "taken". In fact, had she not been "taken", it is
likely that at least some of these severely love-shy males could have
developed a viable and potentially permanent relationship. My point,
of course, is that young women who are spontaneous and open, without
any pretenses, are much easier for love-shy men to open up with than
are single, never married women who feel constrained to play a role.
As a result of being unused to interacting with male age-mates on an
open, honest, and casual basis, the never married woman in her role
playing and mask wearing diffidence erects barriers to free-flowing con-
versation that are every bit as real and impenetrable as the barriers which
the love-shy male erects.
     One of the questions to which each of the men in this study
responded reflects these problems very poignantly. I asked each man
to react to this statement: "It seems that whenever I develop a crush on
someone I soon find out that the person is already taken." And 100
percent of the older love-shys fully agreed with this statement together
with 86 percent of the younger (university aged) love-shys. In contrast,
only 20 percent of the self-confident non-shy men saw fit to agree with
this statement.
     In having had a good deal of experience at interacting with women
(including sisters) throughout their lives, the non-shy men seemed to
enjoy a relatively easy facility at penetrating the coolness and aloofness
barriers that are commonplace among never married women in our
culture. Perhaps the non-shys' calm self-confidence and suave, non-
threatening bearing assured them of being perceived in much the same
way that single women usually perceive married men. Then too, it seems
probable that the competitive nature of the non-shys served to render
them difficult to discourage.
     For the love-shy males, on the other hand, the disinterested airs
of single girls cause feelings of fear, anxiety and discouragement. Lack-
ing past experiences with sisters and with other young women, the love-
shy take life too seriously. And they are thus unable to roll with the
punches and sustain a creative, happy sense of humor about the foibles
of human nature--as these foibles affect heterosexual interaction and
the various sham acts and pretenses that both genders tend to use on
one another.