Today in Sex: Men Suffer More in Crappy Relationships Than Women Do
When me or one of my girlfriends are having a hard time with our special naked friend, we talk, we cry, and we go out for cocktails and bitch. Maybe we schedule an emergency therapy visit, and probably eat an ill-advised candy bar or wedge of stinky cheese. In short, we deal. And while the waterworks and chocolate-smeared faces may make us look like we're suffering more, apparently our strong, silent, menfolk are having a much harder time of it. 
A study of over 1600 Miamians, aged 18 to 23, surveyed by The Journal of Health and Social Behavior (and translated out of academese by the New York Times), reported, "It appears that young men benefit more than women from support [that they get from their girlfriends], and that they are more harmed than women by strain in ongoing romantic relationships."
The authors hypothesize this to be because young men get most of their emotional support and intimacy from their romantic partners, whereas women are more likely to confide in friends and family.
But what about us ladies? Surely we feel pain too. Well, yes, according to the study, we do suffer, but not over rocky relationships--our suffering comes when we're not in one. Robin W. Simon, a sociology professor at Wake Forest University and one of the authors of the report conceded, "It's a little bit pathetic . . . Even though there's been so much social change in this area, women's self-worth is still so much tied up with having a boyfriend. It's unfortunate."
Not only unfortunate, it's depressing and so grotesquely clichéed. We'd rather be in a shitty relationship than none at all? Ouch. How Scary Sadshaw. Happily, the gender-specific misery disparity lessens with age, though it's unclear whether this is because guys wise up and realize they need more friends than the woman they're schtupping, or because women finally realize that being single is better than being with a jackass.
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