Woman who likes hanging out with gay men

For the final two studies, we wanted to figure out when women were most likely to befriend and place their trust in gay men. For the final two studies, we wanted to figure out when women were most likely to befriend and place their trust in gay men.

And when do these relationships typically form? In many ways, gay men and straight women are a perfect pairing. Specifically, I believe evolutionary psychology and human mating can help explain why relationships between straight women and gay men tend to flourish.

Why do some women fall in love with gay men? With heterosexual men who, by definition, are sexually attracted to womenthe process is longer — and potentially more fraught — because men may be grappling with their own sexual impulses.

For years, friendships between straight women and gay men have been a subject of pop culture fascination. When women read the news article about the increased competition, their trust in gay men was amplified. To test this, we created a fake news article that detailed extremely skewed sex ratios, indicating that women in college were competing over a very small pool of men.

We predicted that this would most often occur in highly competitive dating environments, where a trustworthy source like a gay friend would be valued by women jockeying with one another for a boyfriend. Women like to hang out with gay guys because they’re more attentive.

We then asked the women how sincere they felt the responses were. For the most part, relationships between gay men and straight women are healthy and positive, with one exception I'll get to later. However, this is precisely the reasoning behind my approach.

To further examine why this might be the case, we had women imagine receiving information from either a straight woman, straight man, or a gay man about their physical appearance and the dateability of potential boyfriends.

Gay men shower straight women with the sort of attention straight men simply don't offer. Why are straight women so drawn to having gay men as friends? However, the strong trust that women initially form with gay men can serve as a primer; eventually, this trust could extend to other areas, with the friendship blossoming over time.

In these experiments, straight female participants were shown fictitious Facebook profiles depicting either a straight woman, straight man or gay man. For the first study, I wanted to replicate the finding that women trust gay men more than straight men or straight women.

Other findings — combined with our own — show that there seems to be an extremely strong psychological underpinning for why women are so drawn to gay men. The experiments, published in the journal Evolutionary Psychologydemonstrated that straight women and gay men perceived one another to be trustworthy sources of relationship and dating advice.

Explore the charm, emotional connection, style, and sensitivity that make gay men so irresistible to women—even when romance isn’t on the table.

Why do women like

At first glance, this explanation may seem quite counterintuitive. It's a pretty reasonable assumption on her part that most straight guys aren't going to want to hang out with a bunch of gay guys. Not only were women more apt to trust gay men under this condition, but we also found that they became more willing to make gay male friends.

About three years ago, I initially tested this theory in a series of experiments that have served as the foundation of my research program on gay-straight relationships. Eric Russell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Does that make you biased, probably. It really only had to do with one thing: dating and relationships. Bookstelevision shows and feature length films have all highlighted this unique relationship, noted for its closeness and depth. Recently, my colleagues and I at the University of Texas at Arlington developed a series of four related studies.

We had women read this news article and then indicate how much they would trust a straight woman or a gay man in various dating-related scenarios. In other words, when it came to dating-related matters, there was an almost instantaneous level of implicit trust.

I also recruited gay male participants, and had them complete the same task with the gay men viewing Facebook profiles depicting a straight female, gay male or lesbian female.