Discussion keeps the world turning.
This is Roundtable.
You're listening to Roundtable.
I'm Steve Hatherly, together today with Nyo Hong Lin and Yushin.
Coming up, contrary to popular belief, research suggests men may fall in love faster than women, but the heart doesn't always follow the rules.
Love's timing is messy and personal, We'll see what the latest science has to say on the matter.
And then it's time for us to share with you the things that have been putting smiles on our faces this week.
Roundtable's happy place is on the way.
Our podcast listeners, that is you, can find us at Roundtable China on Apple Podcasts.
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And now. Ever noticed how guys seem to fall in love at lightning speed while women take their sweet, emotionally analyzed time?
Turns out, science agrees.
Studies show men often catch feelings faster, but women tend to fall deeper.
There's a plot twist. Despite all the cool guy vibes, men might actually need intimacy more than they let on.
So what exactly is going on here between the battle of the sexes when it comes to falling in love?
Today, we pierce the heart of romance.
Why, why, why do men get lovestruck so early, Yushin?
Well, let's see the analysis.
So researchers from institutions including Australian National University and the University of Canberra recently published a study in the journal Biology of Sex Differences that focused on sex differences in romantic love.
And to explore these differences, the researchers recruited 808 participants aged 18 to 25 from 33 countries, primarily Europe, North America, and South Africa.
Participants were required to be in a relationship for two years or less and score above 130 on a passion love scale, indicating they were genuinely experiencing romantic love.
Passion love scale.
scale. Yeah, that's the first I've heard of that.
What were they trying to find through that study?
Yeah, this study aimed to scientifically investigate common perceptions about how men and women behave differently in love, such as the idea that men fall in love quickly but may become less engaged over time, while women might start reserved but grow deeper in their feelings.
They're using quote -unquote scientific scales.
The study measured several aspects of their romantic experiences, including the number of romantic relationships they had experienced, how quickly they fell in love, the intensity of being smitten or deeply in love, but being influenced by the love in their everyday decisions.
That's how intense that feels.
that's the intensity of being smitten, and obsessive behavior related to their partner, for example, time spent thinking about them daily, the level of craziness when they do not instantly reply your message, whether or not you're buying them expensive, expensive, but not worthy, the price tag kind of presents, something like that.
I think before we go any further, I think we have to take these results with a grain of salt, because it's very difficult to put on a scale how obsessive your behavior might be or how deeply smitten you are you know what i mean like the only way you can answer that question is how smitten are you on a scale of one to ten right oh i'm a seven smitten right now well you know what i mean so you know well let's let this isn't overly scientific and by the sounds of things all right Right.
So then we know what they did.
So what did they find?
Yeah. So first of all, about that kind of the levels of obsessive behaviors where we're talking about, this was a particularly striking difference.
Data suggested we spent approximately 54 percent of their waking hours thinking about their partner.
How big that is, according to your evaluation?
It depends. It depends on the stage in the relationship.
relationship. They were able to put a number to that.
Okay, so women spent approximately 54 % of their waking hours thinking about their partner.
What was the percentage for men?
Yeah, and compared to about 44 % for men when you're just missing them when away or thinking of them first when lonely, and the researchers suggested this might be an evolutionary strategy strategy for women to constantly evaluate potential partners' reliability.
And at the same time, we see analysis indicate that 30 % of men felt smitten before formal dating compared to only seven, well, around 20 % of women feeling that, oh, I'm falling in love with first sight.
So I don't know. I don't know about this research because I think if we get to categorize people, the human species, with gender, then you must be talking about the hormones in their body, different hormones, different body structure, and different environment in the body that result in different type of behavior in the relationship.
It must be that. But at the same time, there are education background, previous life experience.
These would all affect how you you feel, how you react in a relationship.
One hundred percent.
Your circumstances in your life will determine this, I think, right?
You know, they did come up with the result of this study is, yes, men generally fall in love faster than women.
But just without research, do you generally agree with that?
Generally, yes. Yeah, I think so.
You think so? I think I would generally agree with that as well.
Well, but they did admit the scientists and this is the point we want to make here, I think, is that there are other factors to be taken into consideration, you know, like how your career might be going at the time or how old you are or where you are living geographically.
Where are you on the planet?
Those other factors play a role as well.
And if I take my personal relationship with my husband as an example, my feeling is that, yes, he fell in love faster than I did.
And then... What would he say if I asked him that question?
He would say the same thing, definitely.
You would agree? But my point is, at a certain stage in our relationship, I think I love him a bit more.
And then later, I think my wave or my peaking days got quiet down a little bit.
so I'm like, I'm fine, but his passion grows up, and we kind of take turns, but there are definitely really good days and years that we are both very strong about each other.
There are years that we're in a stable relationship, it's fine, but the idea is that there are ups and downs and ups and downs, and the wave or the length of an up and a down could be different, but it doesn't mean men are less committed to the relationship.
It's just a matter of yours wave matching with the significant others.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
This was kind of interesting from the study, I thought.
There's an increasing number of studies too, psychological studies that have found that compared to women, men actually rely more on emotional support from their partners.
And this might be counterintuitive, not what we expected.
They said that men benefit more from romantic relationships in terms of psychological and physical health.
Most men tend to prefer being in a relationship over being single.
And they say there's a good reason for that.
Single men generally score lower on measures of happiness and health.
There was even a 2022 study published in the medical journal BMJ that showed that middle -aged men who remain single for many years or experience frequent breakups or divorces are more likely to show high levels of inflammation.
I don't know how they drew that conclusion.
That's a risk factor for different health issues.
Interestingly though, women showed no such health pattern when they compare.
And what that means is men need women more than women need men.
I like that. Getting into a relationship to keep yourself healthy while independent women do not need that relationship.
We have these kind of conversations and review the results of such researches because they're fun, but also because it helps us understand ourselves a little more, how we behave. But they are general indicators.
they only, they're specific to different genders, which is half of the population, but each and every individual is much, much more complicated.
We need to think about, like we mentioned, our personality, the experience, and also whether or not you have other emotional supports.
Intimate relationship does not confine only with romantic relationship, you can have a really good relationship with your parents, with your kid, with your friends, And those are strong emotional support for your overall psychological health.
So each different or each individual is facing different scenarios.
And we hope with these kind of results, we can help you understand yourself a little bit more.
Yeah, speaking of that, when you're thinking or seeing these stats from a societal perspective, it makes sense, right?
Some men need relationships more and more and are more dependent on them because relationships are likely their only source of emotional support.
A lot of times men, they don't talk about their feelings with their friends, I would say.
I saw some articles saying that because it's kind of a signal of showing out your weakness when we're expressing our feelings.
And then men are generally perceived as having difficulty forming deep, emotionally supportive relationships outside of romantic partnerships.
In that way, when you're having a relationship, that is the only source that you can express yourself or express your emotions, no matter it's about you're being proud or you're just being a little bit fragile.
That's kind of one of the traits, I think, that seems to transcend culture.
um i think that's true for for a lot of people from a lot of different parts of the world every person's different right see if you agree with me on this one though i think this is a universal husband thing okay so when your wife goes if you're married and you're listening if you're a man see if you agree with me roundtable podcast at qq .com when your wife goes away right for a few days yeah the first day oh yeah party time call the boys hang out second day i mean it's pretty fun i guess you know like what should i eat for dinner i don't know third day when are you coming home i think that's the universal
husband reaction to when the wife goes away for a few days allow me to also review maybe not universal but at least in my friend circle common women or wife reaction party time every day no first first couple of days oh i miss him it's nice to cuddle with him and watch movies together and have fun together it's nice to have him around and then it's nice to have a little bit of me time as well and third wow my life is now so so very regular I get to decide what I do and I even have some time to do exercise and the next next day it's maybe I should move house and not tell him where I'm going or maybe
we can live separately and be you know happy spouses during the weekend oh it's a fun it's always a fun topic yeah when we explore this one uh you're listening to roundtable don't go anywhere because I men and And maybe ladies, too.
I am about to save you so much money on your haircut.
You can thank me later.
Happy Place is on the way.
Delivery. Delivery.
Delivery. What is it?
Happiness from Roundtable.
I have been waiting all week to share this life -changing information.
Yes. That important.
okay previously I was going for a haircut across the street at my apartment and the price I thought was quite reasonable it was 88 yuan and I went evil well I thought relatively relatively which is about in the living a cheap life $16 range something like that something around that price which is you know but I think quite reasonable so I was going there for a few months And then I made a new discovery last weekend.
My wife and I were shopping for some groceries.
And it wasn't the first time that we had seen it, but it was the first time that we really paid attention to it.
It was a haircutting place in the basement first floor of the grocery store that cuts your hair for 10 yuan.
That is, for our American listeners, $1 .39.
I was a little apprehensive.
I thought, they can't be good at this, right?
I didn't want to go because I thought they're going to ruin my hair.
Not that I care too much, but still.
But I tried it. He's amazing.
He's an artist. He does this all day.
And my wife and I were talking about it.
Of course he's an artist. He does this all day, every day.
And I assume he's been doing it for many, many years.
So this is my new hair place.
Men, you have to know.
No. Oh, and by the way, he cuts hair for women, too.
Just FYI, although the females I've told about this don't seem overly excited at the possibility.
No, the catch here is that these kind of places, they often cut men's hair and also give men a haircut.
And also because men, usually most men are with really relatively shorter hairstyles.
Well, they need to buzz it.
Yes, they need to buzz it.
I know at the same time, the remains of the hair would be short and tiny and light.
What they have is a vacuum cleaner attached on the ceiling of the place.
No, no, I didn't get to my favorite part yet, which is the vacuuming of the head.
Really? It's a literal vacuum.
And, you know, at a fancy salon...
You was vacuuming your hair?
Yes. 100%. Not my hair, my head.
Yeah, yeah. At a fancy salon, they'll brush away the hair.
No, no, no. This is much more efficient.
It's quite a powerful vacuum as well, and it just attaches to your scalp and all the extra.
No, not oh no. That is my oh no as well.
No. To me, my hair is fragile.
I would like to keep them on my head.
Listen, let me put it to you this way.
if i said to you yushan here are two products and basically they're the same product one is 800 percent more expensive than the other but it's basically the same thing which one would you buy i will still see the quality not only the price well that my sales pitch is finished anyway my My point is I like finding places to save money when I can.
And this is a place where I can and I'm really happy about it.
So if you're listening and you were unaware that those types of places exist, they do exist and they are pretty good quality, in my opinion.
And that is my happy place.
And to be fair, I do agree with you.
They did a decent job with your haircut.
You didn't even know I went to a 10 yuan haircut place.
$1 .39. Are you kidding me?
All right. So, Nia Honglin, what's your happy place this week?
My happy place is a picture book that I've been reading recently.
I realized that when I'm with my son, even I am using my phone to reply work messages, he's at the age at the point where he understands that phone is playable.
So he wants demands to play with my cell phone, which is why nowadays when I play with him, I do not take my phone with me.
In turn, at the same time, he sometimes would just want me around instead of interacting with him, which is why I would now have a book for my own pleasure entertainment.
And this picture book is called Exchange Bodies with Animals.
It offers a revolutionary blend of science and art.
And here's why. It's kind of like a sensory animal encyclopedia because it reimagines comparative autonomy autonomy by morphing human bodies with animal traits.
What I'm saying here is that it would, because we know we all have similar body parts, we would have our palm, our fingers, our ears, and we would have ribs.
These are the body parts we share with some certain animals, but the proportion, the length, the strength would be different.
And it's helping us to understand a animal autonomy better by using a human, basically manipulating the human body into the shape of the animal by giving you pictures that you can understand it.
Yeah, and I had a look at some of the pictures.
This is a kind of a creepy book, but it's also...
It's really creepy.
I like you're reading it with your son.
I love it. It's so fun.
It's quite interesting because I don't think it teaches us about human beings but when we see a human being in the shape or proportion of an orangutan then we see oh this is what a human being's arms would look like if they were proportioned the same way an orangutan's arms are a proportion and it helps you to understand the animal more it's not really about understanding people right it's about understanding yeah right For instance, do you know that a bat's wings are elongated fingers while the hide limbs auto -lock for hanging upside down?
And also for an elephant, you know the elephants have really long nose, but it's not just the long noses.
It's a prolonged nose and the upper lip, which is why elephants can drink through their nose.
So when you imagine that, it's not just the nose, but the upper lip with the nose prolonged together.
I'm imagining a human with an elephant nose.
Yeah, well, yes. And also, for instance, a frog.
The reason that frogs can jump so high is because their thigh, calf and foot are of the equal length.
So you can see the picture and understand the animal better.
It's creepy, but it's fun.
on. Can I recommend some Shakespeare to you?
Maybe not with my son.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
A bat's wings are fingers.
Those are just fingers extended.
Yes. So the wings are just his palm.
Kind of. Finger. Palm is shorter and smaller.
Yeah. I'm going to have to give that one some more thought.
Yes. That seems like a good spot to conclude today's roundtable thank you very much to you know honglin and yushin for being on the show today thank you very much for sharing your time on our program as well you can find us on apple podcast by searching at roundtable china my name's steve we'll see you next time
