Thursday, 9 January 2014

Women will kiss fifteen 'frogs' before they get hitched...


During January and May when exam season comes around and I’m forced to live in the library, dragged kicking and screaming by the pressures of time (and by those people who finish everything four weeks before their deadlines), I tend to go through a phase every day (or ten times a day) which nearly everyone will know as procrastination.

Today, like any other day, I scrolled through Topshop’s New In section, devoured Company magazine's website and flickered around on Daily Mail. Yeah I know, I had it coming…

Funnily enough I didn’t find this piece of information on Daily Mail, I found it on Msn News but it doesn’t matter because it was everywhere last week and somehow with my head in a pile of books and skinny coffees, I missed it.

I quote, ‘The average woman will kiss 15 men, enjoy two long-term relationships and have her heartbroken twice before she meets 'The One', a study reveals’.

WHAT?!

I’m aware that by challenging this I am running the risk of coming off quite badly, but please what on earth? I think I speak for every woman everywhere when I say that this is just not true.

‘The statistics emerged in a study commissioned to mark the paperback release of the international bestseller The Rosie Project - a tale of one man's quest to find his perfect wife’.

Did these women never play spin the bottle when they were 15?! Some of my friends could and have achieved this in one night. Maybe not the four bad dates but fifteen kisses? Okay it’s a lot but I’m pretty sure it’s happened. Fifteen kisses girls, this is all we are allowed before ‘research’ claims we have to settle for life? If this is true me and my friends would be celebrating our 4th wedding anniversaries right about now, because I’m pretty sure we kissed fifteen boys between the ages of 14 and 17. I mean what’s a kiss anyway? Is it a peck? A full-on tongue down your throat? Or the one that’s sort of in the middle, like a peck but more?

I can deal with the other parts of this statement, they’re believable yeah, two long term relationships, two broken hearts, sounds about right for averages.

But then I scrolled down. And this is only the half of it.

All of the disaster dates, mismatched relationships and awkward one night stands can leave many feeling like they are never going to meet their soul mate.

The study of 2,000 Brits who say they have already met 'The One' found that women will also go on seven dates - as well as a further two blind dates and two dates with someone they met over the internet.

But men will enjoy eight dates, three blind dates and meet three people online.

The study also revealed that men will have six relationships - two of which will last more than a year, while women will have five.

Men and women both face getting cheated on once in their quest to find 'The One' - but the average adult will also be the cheater on at least one occasion in their dating lifetime.

Brits will also go through one long distance relationship before finally settling down.

But it also emerged that almost six in ten Brits reached a point where they felt they were never going to find 'The One'.

And another 59 per cent said they think their path to their 'Happy Ever After' was a difficult one.

Eight in ten adults said they met the one when they least expected it, while more than a quarter said their current partner isn't the type of person they thought they would settle down with.

More than half would even describe their partner as their complete opposite.

Researchers also found that while 94 per cent of women believe in true love, just 88 per cent of men feel the same way.

Errr…is anyone else confused?

In the end I had read so many contrasting statements about the dating habits of men and women that I came to a little conclusion of my own:

Maybe, regardless of sex, we will all have a different number of relationships; sexual partners, affairs and who knows what else? Not all of us will go on a blind date or meet someone over the internet or consider our paths to true love ‘a tricky one’. Maybe some of us would never even use the phrase, ‘path to true love’ (whose with me?)

Maybe categorizing how many bad dates a woman will go on before she has her heartbroken, before she gets cheated on and eventually before she gets married is the most ridiculous piece of research to do. Will we be following this as some sort of guideline now?

No, probs not. 

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