Today’s generation roils with gender controversies. Take the search for a significant other for instance. It’s become a complicated business with some startling ramifications; getting to the altar or only dating involves a lot more than Mickey Mouse.
With the increasing number of divorced couples, and as one spouse outlives the other by many years, singles are dating well into midlife and some even into their “golden years.” I know men and women of various ages who date. Men say little about dating. Women, however, speak frankly about it and some express disappointment.
It’s not that her date is a sexual predator, a boor, smokes cigars or chews his food with his mouth open. In fact, he might be charming and clearly interested in her. For these women the ultimate issue is not, “Will he love me in the morning?” but “Why didn’t he call me when he said he would, or meet me where we’d planned?” When the women saw their dates again, and asked them why they hadn’t phoned or shown up, the men lamely replied, ” I forgot.”
This leads many women to conclude that men are jerks.
It may be that these apparently insensitive men are victims. In an issue of The New Yorker, Jim Collins writes of a study that appeared in Nature Genetics magazine. Scientists at the Yerkes Regional Primate Center in Atlanta have been engaged in research which suggests the possibility that “…the hormone oxytocin plays a key role in the ability of male mice to remember female mice with whom they have had earlier contact.” Male mice lacking the oxytocin, code named Oxt-/-, were systematically introduced to female mice four times in ten-minute intervals. As their rite of introduction, mice sniff each other, the way we might shake hands. The male mice with low oxytocin levels, on each new encounter with the females, sniffed them for the same duration of time as they did in earlier encounters. This suggests that they didn’t remember meeting the females before.
If this clinical profile should prove true for men, that their forgetfulness is purely a matter of chemistry, there are significant implications not only for the relationship between the sexes, but for the mental health community and romance literature as well.
Psychologists, romance novelists, Abigail Van Buren(Dear Abby) and Dr. Ruth, once the authoritative voices in matters of love would be displaced. Instead, dating women would turn for guidance to neurobiologists, in whose simmering test tubes rest a woman’s best hope for finding love – and also a good way of spotting the type of man who’ll forget to call her the next day. The gauzy and tender language of early courtship could well turn clinical, even crass. Not that I’d blame her for a minute, but a woman, rather than musing about the sign under which her date was born, or inquiring about the after shave he’s using, might cut right to the chase and ask, “What’s your oxytocin level?”
Mental health practitioners would likely take a hard hit. The types of men that women generally conclude are ‘jerks,’ when rejections make them feel lonely and marginalized, wind up in a counselor’s office. A diagnosis of their behavior would probably show some kind of psychological complex. Therapy would offer the hope that with treatment they could become sweet and dependable guys. But if a shot of oxytocin accomplishes in one office visit what a year of psychotherapy does, the whole mental health industry could be turned on its ear.
A clinical study demonstrating that the kind of men that women call ‘jerks’ are chemically deficient would certainly get a lot of men off the hook. That being the case, I can foresee nothing but a win-win situation for both men and women. A simple blood test would reveal whether or not he’s the kind of man who’ll forget to meet her, or neglect calling her back the next day. A woman could insist that he tell her his oxytocin levels as a condition of the first date. At the least, a man would be obligated to answer her honestly about his oxytocin, in the same way a woman correctly expects a man to answer her query, “Are you married?”
This information would empower a woman, saving her from the disappointment of being led to think one thing by her date only to learn another. A man would be spared the contempt and moral condemnation that his dysfunctional memory would earn him. With all data up front, the couple would be on an equal footing and they could take it from there.
Skeptical about science messing with romance? I wouldn’t sniff at it. Considering the long and troubled history of romantic relationships, it’s sure worth a shot.
Columnist George Merrill is an Episcopal Church priest and pastoral psychotherapist. A writer and photographer, he’s authored two books on spirituality: Reflections: Psychological and Spiritual Images of the Heart and The Bay of the Mother of God: A Yankee Discovers the Chesapeake Bay. He is a native New Yorker, previously directing counseling services in Hartford, Connecticut, and in Baltimore. George’s essays, some award winning, have appeared in regional magazines and are broadcast twice monthly on Delmarva Public Radio.
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