Temptation Diaries

After bumping into an attractive alternative, women tend to be even more committed to bolstering their present relationship with the love of their lives.

After bumping into an attractive alternative, women tend to be even more committed to bolstering their present relationship with the love of their lives. But men are likely to view their girlfriend in a more negative light following an unintended, though likely not unwelcome, rendezvous with temptation. Fortunately, a committed man can better withstand the enticement with a little planning ahead, by imagining in advance how to resist the temptation of another woman. Psychologist John Lydon of McGill University in Montreal has found that after meeting an attractive and available man, women were 18 per cent more likely to forgive their ‘romantic partner’ who hypothetically had either revealed an embarrassing trait or lied about why he had cancelled a date. Yet, after meeting an attractive and available woman, men were 12 per cent less likely to forgive their girlfriend’s comparable gaffe. Men seem unable to resist that extra helping of oestrogen, possibly because they interpret their interactions with women differently than their female counterparts. But if men adopted the feminine view of temptation, they could develop this more defensive mindset.