Are You Part of A Thermostat War?
We haven’t had much of hot summer in Minnesota,but as temperatures climb outside couples may find themselves locked in a battle of the wills – and thermostat.
Researchers who study sex differences agree that when it comes to temperature, it seems women are from Venus and men are from Planet Freon.
This article from the Washington Post collects anecdotal stories of spouses struggling over temperature settings (“I know he’s a miserable wretch if he’s hot, so I just put on my L.L. Bean wool-lined slippers and endure it.”) and scientific studies about women’s intolerance of colder temperatures (“We have lots of data showing that women generally are far more sensitive to feelings of cold.”)
It seems that many heterosexual and same-sex couples settle for keeping the thermostat down low in hot weather since you can always put more clothes on and it’s the lesser of two evils to prevent your spouse from becoming a spontaneous nudist. However, think about what you could be doing with all that money your family is spending on electricity. You could be saving up for a nice dinner out with your spouse, or taking the whole family to the air-conditioned movie theater on a particularly humid day. Is is really worth all that money just to turn your house into an icebox?
I used to be a more or less average female in my temperature preferences but my internal temperature has apparently gone up in the last few years and now I prefer it slightly cooler than my husband does, especially for sleeping. My mother did the same thing: she became warmer as she aged. My father, on the other hand, turns the air conditioner OFF at night in Alabama where he lives in a chintzy double wide mobile home and where the temp indoors reflects outdoor temps fairly well. He sleeps under a blanket! Believe me, it gets quite warm in that house.
Temperature preferences, like everything else about us humans, is highly variable.