British couples are more likely to meet in the pub, while Americans get more dates during the daytime
Great Britain and American share a common heritage, language and no small amount of popular culture, but recently YouGov discovered that British adults were about 30% less likely to have experienced heartbreak compared to Americans. Can the romantic experience really be so different for either half of the 'special relationship'?
YouGov investigated the Anglo-American dating divide with a survey of how dating habits among Brits and Americans compare. Here are some of the findings:
Same number of partners
One broad similarity between both countries is in the number of partners people tend to have.
In both countries the median number of partners people have had so far in their lives is four.
Same game, different venue
However, Brits and Americans do appear to take differing approaches to courtship.
The research shows that British adults are about three times as likely as Americans to have met their most recent partner in a bar or pub (Americans were asked about a ‘bar or nightclub’), where a fifth of British couples met. British suitors are also more likely to be drunk, by a similar multiple (13% of British under-40s were drunk when first meeting their other half, compared to only 3% of American under-45s) and much less likely to have met their partner during the ‘daytime’, perhaps suggesting that Americans prefer the park to the pub when it comes to finding a mate.
And one positive sign for romance on either side of the Atlantic: the majority of people in Great Britain and America believe in love at first sight.
Sole mates
But there are also differences in where the relationship is likely to go from there. When it comes to making a relationship monogamous, there is greater consensus amoung Americans on the appropriate steps a couple needs to take.
While a majority of Americans (55%) say it’s a spoken conversation that makes a relationship ‘exclusive’ – such that it is no longer appropriate to see other people romantically – only a third (34%) of British adults say the same and they are just as likely to say a relationship automatically becomes exclusive after multiple dates.
And in fact, no more than a third of Britain’s would-be lovers select anything – and nearly one in five (18%) say they simply don’t know when it is that a relationship becomes monogamous, almost double the number of Americans (10%) who are in the dark.
It seems the British stereotype of leaving things unspoken, and the American stereotype of spelling it all out, both have some truth to them.
Image: Getty
