A stereotypical answer might be that the woman is over-analyzing everything she's doing, while the guy is just looking for ways to steer the date back to his apartment. However, the different sexes are actually much more complex than how they're often portrayed in romantic comedies.
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According to a neurological study that was conducted at the University of Pennsylvania, men's and women's brains are definitively different in terms of problem-solving. Researchers looked at over 1,000 adolescent brains and found that male brains are more connected within the two hemispheres, whereas female brains are more connected across them. What that means is that men have excellent motor skills (perhaps why they're so good at video games and parallel parking) while women excel at analytical thinking. So in first date terms, that means we should always pick the restaurant while our male dates park the car, right?
Another way to think about this is that men are more active in how they think, whereas women are more thoughtful or reactive. Let's see if BuzzFeed took these proven differences into consideration when they made this video on how differently guys and girls think on dates.
men and women date
Well look at that, they went with the classic brain reversal for comedic effect! Here, the guy is the one who's overly concerned with how well or poorly the date is going, while the girl only has room for one thought in her brain — how badly her feet hurt.
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It's actually pretty refreshing to see a guy freaking out about a first date possibly crashing and burning for once. Sure, they're both invested in the date going well, but he takes full responsibility for not having a back-up plan when the initial movie idea backfires. Meanwhile, for her, it seems to be all about finding a place very close by where she can sit down and stop thinking about foot pain. I'm sure anyone who's made a bad first date shoe choice empathizes.
However, at the end of the day (or date), we're all similarly neurotic when it comes to making a good impression on someone we like no matter how our brains are wired. Case in point, this second dating video also by BuzzFeed exhibiting guys getting ready for a date versus girls. And before you watch it, yes, we all change outfits a million times before leaving the house to meet someone for the first time.
pre-date
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