The Mathematics of Love

Men and women both tend to monitor the give-and-take in any relationship, and resentment typically results if the balance gets skewed

Men and women both tend to monitor the give-and-take in any relationship, and resentment typically results if the balance gets skewed

and one person feels he/she has given more than he/she has received. But it appears they differ in the way they do the love math. Men tend to give larger blocks of points (20, 30, 40, etcetera.), whereas women give each act of love one point at a time. For instance, a man might count a Rs 2,000-gift as 20 points, but a woman will count each individual piece of the present as 1 point each. For her, the total sum of points comes from the whole experience. For example, elements of the gifting ambience get 1 point each (say, candles, music, privacy and so on), the card gets 1 point, the flowers get 1 point, the wrapper gets 1 point and the gift itself gets 1 point. This yields conflict since a man thinks he’s earned 20 points and deserves appropriate recognition, and the woman disagrees.