Men who engage in excessive and compulsive romantic behavior for unrequited gain are primarily driven by an underlying fear of remaining single. Recent psychological research has identified a key behavior associated with the modern colloquial term “simping,” and found that this dating strategy is highly sensitive to a person’s insecurities about their relationship status. These findings show that Personality Journal.
In recent years, internet culture has popularized the concept of a “simp” to describe a man who shows extravagant or expensive devotion to a romantic prospect. These men often shower their targets with unrequited love, expensive gifts, or endless attention. They differ from universally cooperative partners because their behavior goes far beyond normal warmth and often resembles compulsive intrusions into the relationship.
A team of psychology researchers led by Daniel Ho from Singapore Management University sought to understand the motivations for this extreme romantic pursuit. They wanted to test the idea that this behavior stems from evolutionary pressures that are inconsistent with the modern dating environment.
Throughout human history, men have typically acted as initiators of courtship. Women face higher biological costs associated with childbirth and raising offspring. As a result of these ancestral circumstances, women have historically preferred partners who provide reliable resources and are committed to their long-term survival.
According to a concept called evolutionary incongruence, modern technology presents a vastly expanded dating market that our brains are not adapted to navigate. Instead of competing with a small number of local peers, people now face an almost infinite number of potential competitors online.
This discrepancy places intense competitive pressure on men. Standing out on a globalized stage requires new skills focused on flirting and persuasive courtship. At the same time, changes in women’s economic independence raised their basic standards for male partners.
The researchers suspected that some men used displays of overcommitment as a compensatory strategy. If men feel that they lack overall likability, which researchers refer to as “mate value,” based on characteristics such as physical attractiveness and social status, they may invest excessive amounts of time and money in romantic partners to compensate for this shortcoming.
Ho and his colleagues also theorized that modern single anxiety may be the emotional driving force behind these extreme actions. Society often stigmatizes single people, and men are under intense pressure from peers and family to secure a partner.
To investigate this phenomenon empirically, the researchers designed a series of three studies. The first act of research focused on defining the specific behaviors that characterize this modern dating metaphor.
The researchers recruited a group of 116 adult participants to complete open-ended descriptions of this type of behavior. A second group of 299 participants then rated how accurately these descriptions captured the target concept.
The researchers found that these behaviors, as expected, fell into two main categories: excessive and obsessive. Excessive behavior includes spending large amounts of money and constantly flattering people. Compulsive behaviors include obsessing over the person, being overly defensive of the person, and idolizing the person.
Outside observers generally perceived people who behaved in this way to have low self-esteem and lack a strong personal identity. Observers also viewed them as relatively undesirable romantic partners.
Once a working definition was established, the researchers conducted a second study of 200 men to uncover the underlying psychological predictors. Participants completed a questionnaire assessing their attractiveness, social dominance, romantic experience, and tendency to engage in excessive pursuit behavior.
They also completed a questionnaire measuring their fear of being single. The scale asked participants to rate their agreement with statements about the pain of growing old without a partner, such as fear of having no one to support you.
Self-reported physical attractiveness, social status, and overall mate value did not actually predict men’s likelihood of engaging in these behaviors. Instead, fear of being single emerged as the strongest psychological predictor.
Men who reported high levels of anxiety about not finding a partner were much more likely to report having participated in these compulsive and excessive romantic advances. They also showed lower emotional stability on general personality assessments.
To rule out alternative explanations and establish causality, the researchers conducted a third experiment with 584 single men. They wanted to see whether temporarily increasing a person’s fear of single people would trigger a strong desire for excessive courtship.
Researchers asked half of the men to read and reflect on hypothetical scenarios designed to evoke feelings of loneliness. The story featured a man attending a close friend’s wedding alone, surrounded by happy couples, and facing the daunting prospect of returning home to an empty apartment.
The other half read a neutral control scenario in which they attended a wedding but enjoyed social connections and were looking forward to an active weekend with friends.
This manipulation positively influenced participants’ thinking. Men exposed to negative scenarios of being single reported a temporary spike in fear of remaining single compared to a control group.
Afterwards, when asked about their dating strategies, men in the negative scenario group who already had romantic feelings for their partner responded that they were more likely to engage in excessive pursuit behavior toward that partner.
This effect was not found for people who did not have a specific romantic partner. This suggests that anxiety about being alone leads to extreme romantic behavior only when there is a target that can be actively pursued.
The researchers noted several limitations in their study. Although research has primarily focused on men due to traditional gender roles in courtship initiation, women also experience severe singleness anxiety and face dating pressures.
Future research should investigate whether women exhibit similar behavioral patterns under pressure or whether their compensatory strategies appear to be different. Women may engage in behaviors that focus more on appearance enhancement and emotional labor than on excessive financial investment.
Furthermore, the experimental prompts used to induce singleness anxiety may simply have produced a broadly negative mood. Future research could include emotion assessment to isolate the precise emotion that triggers the behavior rather than general sadness.
The scientists also offered an interpretation as to why self-perceived mate value did not predict behavior in the second study. They proposed that these men may have trouble accurately determining their own desirability and may perhaps view themselves through a biased, overly positive lens.
Alternatively, the behavior may be driven by the attractiveness gap between the pursuer and target rather than the pursuer’s baseline attractiveness. Even a very attractive man may still be obsessive if he pursues a woman he feels is way out of his league.
Finally, researchers questioned whether these extravagant dating strategies actually work in the real world. Although unrequited dedication is often viewed negatively in society, excessive persistence can sometimes be successful if the target values absolute dedication.
The study, “The (Simple) Truth About Men’s Excessive and Obsessive Romantic Behavior,” was authored by Daniel Ho, Kenneth Tan, Norman P. Lee, and Lester Sim.
