Over at USA Today, the article below, by Sharon Jayson, gave me pause. I wonder if it won't do the same for you. I find it interesting that it appeared in a tweet today, after I'd discovered that old picture of myself. It reminded me that we are an ever-evolving study in emotions and desires. We being women and men.

"Men, women flip the script in gender expectation" the article it titled. The first sentence reads, "A new portrait of single Americans, drawn from a major new survey, suggests the attitudes and behaviors of today's singles are quite unlike their counterpart just a few decades ago."

I'm just can't refrain from saying, "Duh!" I mean - really - weren't the attitudes of those long ago singles "quite unlike" their parents' attitudes, also?

However, the article is about much more than that. It's about a fundamental shift in how we, as a society, as a people, think about love, life, marriage, and children.

"Men are now expressing some traditionally female attitudes, while women are adopting some of those long attributed to men," says biological anthropologist Helen Fisher, who helped develop the survey with social historian Stephanie Coontz and Justin Garcia."

The survey was conduced by a market research firm for Match.com.

According to the article, "Data show men are quicker to fall in love and more likely than women to want children: 54% of men say they have experienced love at first sight, compared with 44% of women; among singles without children under 18, more men (24%) than women (15%) say they want children." [pic is my son holding his niece, Frankie, whose picture you see quite a bit in this blog - is he one of these men described here? All I can say is...sort of.]

The rest of the article is worth a read, but I once again have a little disconnect. I do believe men and women have changed their viewpoints on love and marriage, maybe even on children, although I'm not willing to go there, yet. I do want to note that the men I've met in the last few years, the men in the demographic this article is talking about, aren't all that different than their fathers.

Yes, the men who believe in love at first sight are more outspoken now - but, is that the reality? That they feel more comfortable saying it - rather than the reality that they believe it now but did not forty years ago? You tell me.

That young women prefer independence is also no surprise. Seriously - didn't WE boomers stand up and demand such, back in the day? I have always guarded my independence -regardless of whatever relationship I was in. My girls are the same. (there I go again - 'girls' instead of 'women' but when a mom is talking about her kids, girls is a term of endearment more than a recognition of status, right?) They're independent to a fault! Their husbands seem to like it. The husbands, BTW, don't seem to fit into this article's mold. Just saying...

I'd like more opinions on this article. I especially want my guest bloggers to chime in. What do you think, ladies?

The story concludes with a young man saying he not only accepts his date's decision to "pick up the check" once in awhile, but he also admits that women often take the lead in asking him out.

Wow - we were doing that, too. When I was...younger.

Is this new shift in thinking really "new"? Is it different? Does it have staying power? Have we, at last, as the article suggests, buried the "stigma" of being an old maid (young women over a certain age who are not married - and not likely to get married)? Or, are women and men just more vocal about their emotions, today? IS THAT the real story?

You tell me.