parents
The other night, I was out with a friend for drinks, and I had a startling revelation. And I'm pretty sure it wasn't just the martinis.
The people I know who tend to have casual romantic relationships or one-night stands mostly come from homes with single or divorced parents.
The people I know who tend to have committed/monogamous relationships mostly come from homes with married parents.
Basically, the observation is that people tend to use their parents' relationship as a model for their own. That shouldn't really be surprising on its own; what's surprising is that it never occurred to me before.
Of course, there are exceptions, and it doesn't really say anything about hooking up with friends; I don't know where or even if that falls in there somewhere. But otherwise, it seems to be a general truism among the people I know. I don't know enough people who were raised by widowed parents to generalize, but I'd wager that if the parent stayed single or remarried after little dating, the child would follow the married parent model, and if the parent started dating a lot, the child would tend toward the single parent model. That's totally speculation, though.
The people I know who tend to have casual romantic relationships or one-night stands mostly come from homes with single or divorced parents.
The people I know who tend to have committed/monogamous relationships mostly come from homes with married parents.
Basically, the observation is that people tend to use their parents' relationship as a model for their own. That shouldn't really be surprising on its own; what's surprising is that it never occurred to me before.
Of course, there are exceptions, and it doesn't really say anything about hooking up with friends; I don't know where or even if that falls in there somewhere. But otherwise, it seems to be a general truism among the people I know. I don't know enough people who were raised by widowed parents to generalize, but I'd wager that if the parent stayed single or remarried after little dating, the child would follow the married parent model, and if the parent started dating a lot, the child would tend toward the single parent model. That's totally speculation, though.