Quote Of The Day: Amerie Breaks Down Why Women Settle And Men Don’t
Posted by: Annika Harris
Filed in:
relationships
8:00AM, Saturday November 7th 2009
“Men rarely settle; they won’t wife up someone they don’t feel is worthy of them. A woman can persistently chase a man, and he may sleep with her, but it’ll never make him love her. Yet a guy that a woman’s not interested in can hound her, and if he’s persistent enough, he’ll wear her down. Women are more malleable. Yet, we’re still the smarter sex. Men can’t handle the truth about women—that we can be as noncommittal, manipulative, and promiscuous as they are.”
—Amerie, whose fourth album In Love and War dropped this week, talks to Complex magazine about cheating and “wanting space.” [Complex.com]
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Pipi
wrote on November 7 2009 @ 08:26 am: [report]
Wow she should have been given the Nobel for this gem. Is it a burn directed at Diddy?
axxo08
wrote on November 7 2009 @ 08:36 am: [report]
coool!
C.Munro
wrote on November 7 2009 @ 10:48 am: [report]
Pfft. Men settle all the time. Usually because it is easier to accept a partner one isn’t entirely crazy about than it is to search for sex while single.
Pinky
wrote on November 7 2009 @ 03:26 pm: [report]
Agree with CMunro me DO settle all the time and many get used and f*cked over too by women.
draymond
wrote on November 8 2009 @ 02:26 am: [report]
Yeah I call BS. Men settle quite regularly. And as for men being able to wear a women down, sometimes they do, but just as often they get restraining orders.
og217
wrote on November 9 2009 @ 07:04 am: [report]
I think the idea here is not that men never settle - they obviously do. Its that they never settle in their heart of hearts. They never really fall in love, stop looking to upgrade, and pass up a chance to jump ship. Women, once they settle, they really get into the spirit of the thing. Guys may stay dormant for a while, but they always have one foot out the door and leave as soon as an opportunity presents itself.
C.Munro
wrote on November 9 2009 @ 10:42 am: [report]
@og217: Is that why three quarters of all divorces are initiated by women then?
‘Cause I always thought loyalty and love were personality things, not gender things.
og217
wrote on November 9 2009 @ 11:48 am: [report]
We can stillmake broad generalizations, can’t we? Otherwise there is just no way to stay sane, if you cannot somehow compartmentalize and group and rationalize.
As for divorces - I think that those are initialized by women because women don’t lose out financially - they keep the house, the cars, the retirement plans even when they sit around and do nothing and never earn a cent. There’s alimony, too plus child support! So the less a woman brings into a marriage, the more she walks away with. And then us women are told by the media and our friends that no matter how fat we get, how asexual, dull, and harpie-like, our husband should be kicked to the curb if he doesn’t do all the chores (after his actual job), take us on romantic weekends, and shower our beds in rose petals. Because sister, you DESERVE to be treated like a queen, by GOD! With such disparate expectations, of course women file for divorces. I’m a queen and he wants sex? And dinner? And expects me to do CHORES when I should be watching Oprah? Oh, hell no.
C.Munro
wrote on November 9 2009 @ 11:52 am: [report]
Good points. I certainly don’t think either gender has more of a tolerance for bad relationships, myself, but external motivating factors are different.
SCRMOM
wrote on November 9 2009 @ 12:00 pm: [report]
@og217: Aren’t you tired of carrying around all of that baggage?
Frederica Bimble
wrote on November 9 2009 @ 12:00 pm: [report]
Malarcky! Individuals - ie; people of either sex will “settle” if they just get downright bored with being alone or looking for someone. Personally, it isn’t possible for ANY man to “wear me down,” that is the mark of a woman with little strength and one who WILL settle on any ol’ man who comes along.
I guess that’s why I’m single! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha….All the perfume, all the flowers and chocolates in the world will never “win” me over - I have to want to be with you from the moment I meet you or see you and there has to be something there because these things don’t necessarily grow out of thin air.
Then again, I talk from my arse sometimes too.
Frederica Bimble
wrote on November 9 2009 @ 12:40 pm: [report]
og217: Ridiculous! If you have THAT many issues, go sort yourself out and stop watching daytime TV. There’s a whole world “out there” full of real people.
Geesh! It sounds like you have some serious self-esteem issues and not only that, you allows others to dictate how YOU should live your life.
Alternatively, you are random troll just looking for a bite…..
Most likely the latter.
brandyalexander
wrote on November 9 2009 @ 12:53 pm: [report]
Was having a good day till I stopped by and read og217. Jesus.
joyy
wrote on November 9 2009 @ 12:59 pm: [report]
oh wow, I really did only start dating my ex because he was so persistent. I figured I should give a guy who was that interested an honest chance ... then realized later that I had been sucked into a situation that more closely resembled a black hole than a relationship. Luckily I wised up and got out before any *real* damage had been done, but that was definitely a lesson I had to learn the hard way. *facepalm*
og217
wrote on November 9 2009 @ 01:08 pm: [report]
No, my husband is just divorced from a useless, parasitic piece of garbage, so the milking of the system is a familiar issue for us. I personally have a career and a happy marriage. But divorces favor women, especially useless ones that think the world and all men owe them for existing and for popping out a litter.
SCRMOM
wrote on November 9 2009 @ 01:19 pm: [report]
@og217: I find the comments in both of your posts to be conflicting. With the first one, you sound like the scorned wife, but with the second one, you sound like the bitter, vindictive new wife. Maybe you have been both at different times. Regardless, you’ve hijacked this post with your own personal issues.
og217
wrote on November 10 2009 @ 12:37 am: [report]
Maybe if you could read (but your biggest accomplishment is being a soccer mom - hilarious!, so that is doubtful) you would see sarcasm, and no contradictions. Women always win divorce cases, clean up financially even if, or especially when, they contribute nothing to a marriage. Thats why men don’t initiate divorces, everyone knows that. The topic was actually brought up by C. Munro. And its perfectly relevant to the discussion of settling. Men settle all the time, but when the opportunity to do better comes along, the men are much more entangled than women because they will lose everything they own in a divorce. A woman who feels she has an opportunity to upgrade can leave her marriage much quicker and lose nothing, really. She’ll retain all the properies, stocks, bonds, etc. so her lifestyle with a “better catch” would actually improve - she’ll have every asset of the marriage plus her new partner’s stuff.
roastchicken
wrote on November 10 2009 @ 12:49 am: [report]
“Maybe if you could read…” Damn, that’s harsh.
SCRMOM
wrote on November 10 2009 @ 09:10 am: [report]
@og217: It sounds like your husband’s ex had a good divorce lawyer. Deal with it.
I’ll clue you in - my screenname was chosen to be tongue in cheek given the nature of this site.
Reason
wrote on November 10 2009 @ 09:41 am: [report]
I do not think that women “settle” any more than men. I think that, more so than men, they simply have different standards for what makes a good husband in the long term. Does he have the qualities to be a good companion, good father and, in some cases, good provider? Where as, I feel that men focus on more shallow aspects of a woman, such as her looks and overall lust and infatuation.
Also, og217, statistically, women financially fare worse in a divorce than men. For every lazy wife, there are two or three user husbands. It seems as though Scrmom is right and your husband’s ex had a good divorce lawyer. Also, it is harder for a woman to “upgrade” with a couple of kids, esp. if she’s aged or gained weight. I think you are a man or a self-loathing woman.
Reason
wrote on November 10 2009 @ 09:44 am: [report]
Also, Og217, “popping out a litter” and raising them well is the greatest thing a person can do for society. You either do not have children or do not understand their importance. And yes, a man should be proud to support his children because he will brag if one day Jr. gets his/her medical degree or becomes President or even has children of his/her own.
og217
wrote on November 10 2009 @ 09:49 am: [report]
Yeah, its super witty. I mean, you aren’t from Idaho and some stay at home mommy or anything, right? You’re a lawyer, or maybe a retired-at-30 Wall Street broker who lives in Paris, right? A total disguise of a screen name, I get it! Clever, verrrry clever!
As for good divorce lawyers - no need. Whoever has no job and a vagina gets 90% of all the money in a divorce case, especially if the non-vagina-endowed partner is sucessful and wealthy. (My screen name isn’t cool and sardonic and all that, but I did attend a law class or two.)
We do live in a world where there is the cult of the gold-plated p*ssy. Women DESERVE things and don’t have to work for anything simply because they are women. Its a pretty sad state of affairs. I’m not a militant feminist, but as a woman I find it pathetic and patronizing.
SCRMOM
wrote on November 10 2009 @ 01:51 pm: [report]
@og217: In all honesty, you sound unstable. You need some professional help with your anger if you are projecting it to strangers over the Internet like this.
triplem
wrote on November 10 2009 @ 06:30 pm: [report]
Ummmm, yeah . . . there’s more than enough “society” to go around as it is—I’d say that, as a world, we’re pretty much okey-dokey on the “go forth and multiply” front.
C’mon, parents, it’s okay, you can admit what the rest of us have long known: you like to attribute all sorts of high-minded motives to your spawning, but in truth, it was just an ego trip to have a batch of Mini Mes running around.
//mostly kidding—no, really, some of my best friends are parents!!
—but that statement just jogged to mind all the “you won’t have babies because you’re SELFISH, because it’s the GREATEST GOAL in life you could possibly aspire to!” crap that so frequently gets shoveled, unsolicited, onto the nonreproducing.//
SCRMOM
wrote on November 10 2009 @ 06:42 pm: [report]
Please…I had babies just to shut my mother up.
DancingGeek
wrote on November 10 2009 @ 06:51 pm: [report]
I walked away from my marriage with a bed, a dresser, a television and a car with 100K miles on it. He got the house and everything in it- mostly because it’s just stuff and I wasn;t fightint over any of it. So let’s not make gross generalizations that women walk away with more than they contributed.
How many personalities does og217 have????
og217
wrote on November 11 2009 @ 01:55 am: [report]
Wow, better and better! “Had a pile of children to shut mother up.” How absolutely awful for everyone involved.
og217
wrote on November 11 2009 @ 01:57 am: [report]
DancingGeek - if you CHOSE to walk away from a marriage with nothing, thats your choice. But if you didn’t want to and went to court to fight for it, you would have gotten everything.
SCRMOM
wrote on November 11 2009 @ 08:41 am: [report]
@og217: No, it’s not really that awful because once my gold-plated p*ssy gives out from having the dozen babies that I’m planning on having, I’m going to kick my successful and wealthy husband out and take him for all he’s got. Really, it’s a win-win for me.
og217
wrote on November 11 2009 @ 08:47 am: [report]
Wow, what a loser you are! Stay at home moos are total wastes of oxygen. Eeew.
Billynda
wrote on November 11 2009 @ 08:59 am: [report]
^^ A very sad, unhappy person. I hope life gets better for you!
SCRMOM
wrote on November 11 2009 @ 09:05 am: [report]
@og217: Waste of oxygen? If it wasn’t for me, who would have given my kids their breakfast of Mt. Dew and Halloween candy? Oh, gotta go - Oprah’s on.
A.J.R.
wrote on November 11 2009 @ 09:11 am: [report]
@SCRMOM:
Remember rule #1 of the Internet; trolls feed on responses. Don’t feed ‘em and they go away, just like babies.
kr070707
wrote on November 11 2009 @ 09:22 am: [report]
@og217: A simple google search yielded me these two articles:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/jan/25/divorce-women-research
http://divorcesupport.about.com/b/2009/09/06/united-nations-studying-discrimination-against-women-during-divorce.htm
The first is a recent study of divorces done in the UK that states: “The general belief that men get fleeced by their divorces while women get richer and live off the proceeds has long been due for exposure as a pernicious myth,” said Ruth Smallacombe, a family consultant at Flip. ‘In reality, women often suffer economic hardship when they divorce. In addition, the resentment caused by unfair financial settlements has many knock-on effects, damaging ongoing relationships with former spouses and a woman’s ability to move on with her life.’...[Prof. Stephen Jenkins, the author of the study] found that, when a man leaves a childless marriage, his income immediately rises by 25%. Women, however, suffer a sharp fall in income. Their financial position rarely reaches pre-split levels.”
The second link is about a UN commitee that met this past July/August that discussed the economic consequences of divorce for women. “Women’s median income drops by 20 percent or so in the United States and 24 percent in the European Union, studies show. But the financial impact on men isn’t as drastic. According to 1996 U.S. Census data, 21 percent of recently divorced women were living below the poverty line, while only 9 percent of men were.”
@SCRMOM: Love me some sarcasm.