I searched through the forum's history and didn't find anything like this, but thought it was an interesting question to ask. I'm certainly wondering.

Do you think men and women tend to generally cope with a break up differently? One gender more successfully? Does one tend to favor a specific method or destructive tendency over another?

This is actually a really good question. I actually took a college class on interpersonal behavior and one of the topics was of course relationships. Here is what I learned:

First of all I am assuming that we are speaking of coping in terms of being the person that was dumped. With that said, my research within this class finds that women have a better time coping with a break-up. The reason for that is because women are allowed by society to maintain relationships where they are free to cry, show weakness, and share their hurt feelings. Men on the other hand have always been taught to never cry, be tough, and not let anything bother them. As a result, men are restricted from developing those social support relationships that allow them to cope with a break-up.

Moreover, a relationship is really the only place where a Man is allowed to share his inner-most feelings, so when he loses that one person he was able to share those experiences with than its much harder for him to handle the break-up. Women obviously still have a hard time coping with a break-up (these forums are proof of that), but they are able to move on quicker and more successfully because they can always return to that social support system that has always allowed them to express their feelings.

There are definitely exceptions to this (e.g. not all women have people that they can turn to and some men are not afraid to cry) but for the most part it holds true because society has placed these boundaries on the two genders.

As for the specific methods men and women use to cope. Well, it varies on an individual basis, but for the most part women will seek counsel from their closest friends and family members while men tend to try and stay active in order to forget about it (in class we didn't go into too many details about this area so I may be a little wrong).

Well, in conclusion women are better at coping with break-ups. Sorry fellas, it's just something we have to deal with. I hope this information helps!

I agree with above. From my personnal experiences (me, friends, family) women have an easier time later on, and can move on faster (sadly)... and have a tendency to be a lot more cold towards an ex.

I totally agree with what was stated above though on the social circles.