What The Hell Is Happening To 30-Something Guys?
Reader Topher sends in an article asking this question from the Frisky:
So, if male, you're a douchbag if you deny a woman marriage and a "demi-god" if you are tied to a woman? Does the author of this article have any idea that her oozing sense of entitlement (read the article to get the gist of it) might be a turn-off? Probably not.
Perhaps if she spent a little more time asking "What the hell is in marriage for 30-something year old guys with self-indulgent types like me, she might come up with an answer for why so many guys in their thirties are single. Throw in the unfair legal battle these same guys have watched their dads, friends, and uncles engage in during divorce and she will know exactly what the hell is happening to 30-something guys. Rather than the regressed or confused "douchbags" she thinks they are, they are simply wise to the ways of the world.
If every time I met a cute, funny, smart, nice, emotionally stable, 30-something man with a girlfriend an angel exploded into a fireball and someone gave me a nickel, I would have enough money to buy a fancy angel graveyard with marble headstones. That is how frequent—and how tragic—this experience has become....
The only thing worse than a cute, funny, smart, nice, emotionally stable and totally taken man is one who’s single and just wants to play the field. What. A. Waste.
You see, he’s just one example of a larger issue that I’ve encountered again and again since becoming single. Otherwise pretty rad dudes reach their 30s without “settling down”—and by that I mean finding a serious girlfriend they could potentially see marrying or being with forever—and suddenly it’s like they regress to teenage boyhood. There’s some kind of bell curve, where guys get more mature and then they peak, and if they’re not in a stable relationship at that point, then they dip back down to the emotional maturity of 15-year-olds. Suddenly relationships give them that same sense of confusion that choosing between playing Super Mario Land or TP-ing the math teacher’s house used to. I know I’m generalizing here, but for the most part, it’s true. If you’re a 30-something dude and this doesn’t describe you, congrats! You’re likely one of the other generalized types I mentioned—somewhere on the spectrum between single douchebag and taken demi-god.
So, if male, you're a douchbag if you deny a woman marriage and a "demi-god" if you are tied to a woman? Does the author of this article have any idea that her oozing sense of entitlement (read the article to get the gist of it) might be a turn-off? Probably not.
Perhaps if she spent a little more time asking "What the hell is in marriage for 30-something year old guys with self-indulgent types like me, she might come up with an answer for why so many guys in their thirties are single. Throw in the unfair legal battle these same guys have watched their dads, friends, and uncles engage in during divorce and she will know exactly what the hell is happening to 30-something guys. Rather than the regressed or confused "douchbags" she thinks they are, they are simply wise to the ways of the world.
Labels: Male Bashing, marriage
posted by Helen at 1:55 PM
188 Comments:
I didn't get married until I was 35, and my future wife's sister commented, "35 and never been married, what's wrong with him?"
Joshua,
Getting married at 35 doesn't seem very old. I read that men who have graduate degrees marry at an average age of 33. Maybe the smart ones stay single until that point.
Maybe that "demi-God" she so desperately seeks is wise to the nonsense her and her ilk spew forth. If they're anything like me, they've been used to go fund dinners and drinks, ignored in favor of other 'better' choices for mates. Now that the shoe's on the other foot, and all that work we did in our 20's to put us on secure footing is paying off, why would we waste it on damaged goods?
I was spot on the average, married at 33. What's the average age of divorce I wonder? I was 41...I'll guess that 8 years is longer than the norm.
As for Frisky's comment....
"he’s just one example of a larger issue that I’ve encountered again and again since becoming single. Otherwise pretty rad dudes reach their 30s without “settling down"....and suddenly it’s like they regress to teenage boyhood."
I think she's onto something, and her loathesome sense of entitlement shouldn't take away fom the merit of the observation.
Giving up on the idea of being a husband and father does something to a man--it shortens his time horizon and this is very significant.
I know this first hand and I see many others behaving this way even if they don't acknowledge it.
alex,
I think you are reading it the same way as the writer, which is to say backwards.
"Otherwise pretty rad dudes reach their 30s without “settling down"....and suddenly it’s like they regress to teenage boyhood."
People aren't regressing. Most of the men who wanted to get married did so in their 20's, so the bulk of the single population in their 30's are ones not interested in getting hitched, and living a lifestyle to boot. Their numbers didn't change, their size of the pie did.
I heard a similar backwards analysis on the radio this morning - it said that married men make more money. This was attributed to the "civilizing influence" of marriage. Probably not...most likely, the men with the potential to make more money are the ones targeted for marriage by women in the first place.
This comment has been removed by the author.
I don't believe it does shorten time horizons. All my single friends in that age range have investments for the long term. Several are going back to school. Don't assume that just because a man hasn't committed to a woman he has no commitments.
In fact, I would say that it's likely that men who are single at that age are more likely to have a long time horizon. They've been thinking about the long-term consequences of marriage, not just the immediate enjoyment of getting married.
Wow,
Reading that Frisky article is several minutes of my life that I'll never get back. Talk about a prime example of why I'll never get into a relationship...
VooDoo...awesome point about "damaged goods," something I've mentioned several times on different posts here. Yeah, I really want someone who's had God knows how many guys inside her. The "alphas" are welcome to them.
I won't talk about the "choices" of men in the article because Helen summed that up quite nicely at the end.
One of the difficulties with this scenario for women is that it's hard to solve without making it worse. Some groups of women have made pacts to "hold out" or otherwise deny men the pleasures of female companionship.
Unfortunately, this just re-emphasizes their control issues and their "cut off your nose to spite your face" approach to solving problems (denying themselves pleasures they themselves want to try to manipulate the man) - the exact reason men are disinclined to commit and marry in the first place.
Funny how the women never wonder what's changed about _themselves_ that men don't want to marry them anymore...
Topher,
=======================
People aren't regressing. Most of the men who wanted to get married did so in their 20's, so the bulk of the single population in their 30's are ones not interested in getting hitched, and living a lifestyle to boot. Their numbers didn't change, their size of the pie did.
=======================
The writer was quite explict in that the very same guys she observed as *rad* in their late 20's had regressed in their 30's....IOW, this isn't about the size of the pie or selection bias per se.
Also, the assumption that these particular observations didn't want to get hitched in their 20's isn't a given....maybe they did want to get married, but they were just far enough down the totem pole that they were looking at the sloppy 2nds (or 22nds) of higher status males.
Also,
=============================
This was attributed to the "civilizing influence" of marriage. Probably not...most likely, the men with the potential to make more money are the ones targeted for marriage by women in the first place.
============================
I'd spend a little time in a 3 world hell hole matriarchy before I became too confident in the idea that the institution of marriage doesn't have a civilizing effect vis a vis a tendency to give men a vested interest in producing at their capacity rather than at to satisfy their needs.
Jason,
====================
All my single friends in that age range have investments for the long term.
===================
I won't presume to know the minds of your friends, but being single and giving up on the idea of a wife and 2.5 kids are two different things. It may very well be that they are hopeful of having a family, so their relatively long-time horizons don't rebut the point.
Regardless, the point isn't that perpetual bachelors are abject irresponsible hedons, but rather that a man will have different motivations if he has (or dreams of having) a family then if he doesn't, all other things being equal.
"If every time I met a cute, funny, smart, nice, emotionally stable, 30-something man with a girlfriend..." Well, it's good that she recognizes that now. Little late, though. What she doesn't realize is that those are, by and large, the guys who were nowhere with women when they were in their 20s. I was one of them. I got roped into a bad relationship/marriage in my mid-20s (no sympathy; I should have known, but I didn't think I would ever do any better), so after I got divorced, yeah, I did a bit of partying and dating around. Inmature? Well, it was the first chance I'd ever had to do some things that I'd always wanted to do: take a few trips, buy some music gear, meet some people, etc. I couldn't do any of this in college because I worked my way through on internships while attending class full time. I did my grocery shopping at 2 AM because that was the only time available for it. There was no time or money for partying, and no woman ever gave me a second glance. Likewise, right after graduation, I was busting it to establish my career (didn't help that my first employer turned out to be a basket case) and pay some bills. Then I met eventual wife #1, and she spent money as fast as I made it, so it took me a while to get out from under that.
I met wife #2 in my mid-30s. She didn't lay a bunch of expectations on me; she just wanted me for who I am. We're coming up on 16 years now.
"Does the author of this article have any idea that her oozing sense of entitlement (read the article to get the gist of it) might be a turn-off?"
This is a question that need not be asked. A sense of entitlement is almost by definition not self-questioning nor in any other sense introspective.
Alex,
You've just created a classic unfalsifiable position. (aka Damned if you do, damned if you don't.) There is no possible outcome that you will allow to disprove your assumption.
Well, I do know the minds of my friends, and they have given up. Or at least, they're not saving and planning for the benefit of some woman and kids. They know that it's extremely likely that they won't have family to take care of them, and need to provide for their future now, while they still have the earning potential.
Yes, a man's motivations do "change", but you made a very specific claim about how it changes, that it shortens his time horizon. You've offered no evidence of this, and I have a significant amount of personal experience to the contrary. Men who don't get married often don't get married because they're thinking not just about the present, but about what happens in a marriage 5, 10, 15 years down the line.
Time horizons are getting longer, not shorter. Instead of just chasing a woman and finding themselves falling into marriage and kids without much thought or choice, men are considering the consequences. In many cases, because they saw how it ended up for their parents.
There’s some kind of bell curve, where guys get more mature and then they peak, and if they’re not in a stable relationship at that point, then they dip back down to the emotional maturity of 15-year-olds.
No.
If anything, I've become even more hardassed about bovine scatology and my willingness to shovel it.
I'm almost to the point of if you screw it up, you don't get a second chance. I'm still thinking that is a little extreme, but maybe next week I won't.
I'm 47 and never been married, so you young whipper-snappers don't feel so bad. And here's a bad joke to brighten your day:
A man isn't complete until he's married, then he's finished.
Giving up on the idea of being a husband and father does something to a man--it shortens his time horizon and this is very significant.
Ah, you maybe onto something. I maybe older and greyer, and not real inclined to get married. But still...I haven't given up the idea of being husband and father.
"I'm 47 and never been married, so you young whipper-snappers don't feel so bad."
I'm 37 and I don't.
And a righteous "Amen" to the last paragraph.
I'm mid-30s, two adorable kids, and being divorced because I'm "no fun anymore" after a decade of marriage, to quote Her.
And getting taken to the cleaners for 2/3 of my net even though she makes 80% of what I make.
Plus a light seasoning of living out of a friend's guest room while She wines & dines her boyfriend in my house and takes them on vacations.
If this is the way things work now, why would any sane man in his mid-30s ever want to get married?
Jason,
=========================
Yes, a man's motivations do "change", but you made a very specific claim about how it changes, that it shortens his time horizon. You've offered no evidence of this...
=========================
I beg to differ that I've cited no evidence....the observations of Frisky, after all, are what started the discussion. (Granted, anecdotes aren't data...)
More to the point, I think it's abundantly evident that giving up on the dream of becoming the paterfamilias does have some initially dispiriting effect on many (if not all) men, and I think it's likely that the general tendency will be towards a greater orientation to the present.
After all, there's a reason that patriarchies built all the civilizations while matriarchies gave everybody grass huts.
Adrian,
If it isn't sad enough, try reading some of the comments on that article page. Why would any sane man want to deal with that nonsense, period?
If this is the way things work now, why would any sane man in his mid-30s ever want to get married?
==========================
And....why would a sane man want to bust his ass to he can climb mid-way up some meaningless corporate ladder to make more money than he needs to support himself?
That is...what the
Alex,
Frisky's observations - more accurately, complaints - are coming from an entitled little narcissist. Nowhere in her screed does she consider what she brings to the table. Again, this is not a failure of men to think ahead. The more men think ahead, the less attractive self-involved women like Frisky become.
The fact that she's having difficulty actually speaks well for the young men of the 21st century.
Jason,
I completely agree that she's an entitled little narcissist--that's why I qualified my first statement by saying that we shouldn't let her loathsome sense of entitlement take away from the merit of the observation. That she doesn't understand the cause of the effect doesn't make her a completely unreliable witness to the effect.
I'm certainly not bagging on men -- I'd sooner become a eunuch then reenter the bonds of hellish matrimony with a 30 something american person from the penisless class. I'm just saying that our descent into matriarchy is making an impact upon both genders.
Alex, and you're wrong about the impact. It's making men more future-thinking rather than less. That's out of necessity.
In the past, you could be an impulsive young man, get your girlfriend knocked up, have a shotgun wedding, and land on your feet because the culture would support you and your marriage. Marriage was seen as a gateway to maturity precisely because so many people entered it for immature reasons.
These days, that gets you nothing but disaster. Immature men who trip and fall into marriage are no longer supported, they're bled out. To have any chance at all, you've got to be clear-eyed and forward-thinking. Marriage is no longer a gateway to maturity, it's a test of maturity. Those who fail fall into a minefield. Men notice this, and respond, becoming more cautious, and taking the long view.
You are exactly wrong. If you yearn for the past, you should be upset that men aren't immature and hedonistic enough. They can't afford to be.
If you yearn for the past, you should be upset that men aren't immature and hedonistic enough. They can't afford to be.
=============================
This isn't about yearning -- I'm saying that we have several thousand years of human history to assess how men behave as husbands and fathers versus as perpetual bachelors.
It's a fair point that many of the young men who foregoing marriage right now are more clear-eyed than their marrying counterparts, but I nonetheless maintain that a predictable consequence of matriarchy is large swaths of males with no vested interest in the broader society...there is already abundant evidence of this in our own society and I suspect this trend is more likely to accelerate than not.
I think there are a lot of women out there that are making a lot of money. They don't want to settle for sloppy seconds, or even just good enough. They are looking for something spectacular in a guy, because if they don't find spectacular then they feel it isn't worth it to marry just for the sake of marrying. There are very few men for the ever increasing number of women that are pulling in some real dough.
Don't jump all over me for what I have said above. I'm just telling you what is going on and why we have odd Frisky articles. Those Frisky posts are incredibly popular with the ladies. Don't expect Frisky to stop publishing them.
I read Frisky's article.
I think I'll dine at Chez Schadenfreude tonight.
Who would marry a self indulgent assholette like the writer. Maybe she could do us a favor and strangle herself with her bra.
@Cham: Frisky should probably get used to posting such items.
Why nowadays does a "acceptable man" suddenly have to be a golden Adonis, worship her every step, and adulantly enthuse with her every whim?
My pet theory is too much damn television and not enough time spent around real people.
In the words of my younger office colleagues: F that noise.
This gal, if she doesn't change, is in for an unhappy and permanently single life. When they start classifying all men in their minds as either already taken or douchbags, their future is not bright. In their anxiety and frustration, they tend to make their judgments far too quickly based on superficial appearances, and so miss out on a lot of good possibilities.
Over the years a number of single women in their 30's and a few in their 40's have asked me plaintively where all the "good" guys are. My advice is always the same: Stop looking! Go do things you really like to do. When you stop frantically looking for good guys and focus just on having fun, the good guys will find you.
Good guys don't like to be gotten. They'd rather do the finding themselves, and there's no woman more attractive than one who is having a genuinely good time doing what she likes to do with friends.
This poor gal is like a hunter in the woods, blowing a loud horn and wondering where all the deer are.
Highlander:
This lady might be ready for life as permanently single, but not necessarily unhappy. She already knows that her prospects of finding Mr. Perfect are slim, and she isn't about to lower her extremely high standards.
She already knows that her prospects of finding Mr. Perfect are slim, and she isn't about to lower her extremely high standards.
These women rarely ask why Mr. Perfect would settle for them. Why would Mr. Perfect in his 30s settle for someone his age when he could, due to being "Mr. Perfect," just as easily attract a tight-bodied, gorgeous, sweet-natured early 20 something?
Do you think the tight-bodied, gorgeious, sweet-natured early 20 something has standards any different from this woman? Those standards are even higher as the women are younger.
The Frisky is apparently full of the presumption that men exist to fill the existential, contradictory and rapidly-changing needs of the modern American woman. If we don't, we have failed society by making the womenfolk unhappy. On occasion, I'll be around an eligible bachelor and hear some chick say "so why are you still single?" Again the presumption that marriage is the default positive state of humanity. My response is why WOULDN'T any "eligible bachelor" be single? The women on the Frisky say "I'm going to play the field while I'm hot enough to do it!"
Cham is absolutely right that the marry-up phenomenon is in effect...as women advance in society, there are just fewer men to marry up to.
Here's my problem: if we're not good enough for them, they can stay single, use a vibrator or join a harem with a non-commital biker boy or something.
But how dare they lecture and shame us men for not living up to their impossible dreams. They are their own problem, their demands are totally out of whack with the supply.
F that.
Way off topic, but a friend wanted to introduce me to a single woman friend of hers the other day. I took her aside and whispered (because I live in an area full of hate-filled "progressives") that I am not a liberal. That ended that discussion. Anyway, back to the topic at hand:
I have a son who is 32 and clueless. He has the emotional maturity of a 15 year old, is in a "band" and barely gets by on his own. He mismanages every part of his life - no education, his car is not registered, he stays up till all hours, drinks like a fish and has absolutely no money saved. I stopped giving him money when he was 18, told him I was not his ATM.
I am thankful he doesn't have any children. He may never grow up - but with any luck I will die before he procreates and dumps his kids on me.
Simple answer...
There is so much free, uh, Pu**y out there why marry early? Now days men can sleep around, go enjoy all kinds of trips, activities, etc.. with their buddies, so why get married in their 20s?
Sixty Grit,
Certainly there are cases like your son. If you obey the law and provide for yourself financially, you're an adult - sounds like he's not.
But I don't think the author is talking about those cases. She'd probably never even meet a guy like him. She's talking about guys in their prime "marrying" age who choose to spend their spare time with their buddies, pursue his passions, or have a girlfriend without planning to get married, or whatever magical dream she's had tucked away since she was a child.
Remember that "immaturity" is defined by her as not wanting to bother with a serious couplehood. Like a man is broken if he's not chasing after some kitty in his off hours.
Never again. When you bitches un-crazy yourselves we'll be back. Until then, just remember - we've got the penises you want (we know that now) and the connected relationships you crave (we know that too).
Know when your position is strong, know when it is weak.
"... why marry early?"
---
Why get married at all?
I'm in my late 40s, never married, and I see two broad groups among acquaintances:
1. Divorced guys forking over money to the ex. Sometimes in drastic and unfair ways.
2. Men who are married to a demanding, pudgy, useless bitch.
Pretty much those two. Sometimes the latter praise their wife and say they are happy - and that's fine - but I wonder why and I know that I could never be happy supporting a demanding bitch. I guess some men just think that is their role, period, so they don't even question the wage slave thing.
I always see people saying, "you just have to find the right one". And then all the family court stuff and superimpositions and expectations of society and all the rest just magically go away. I guess.
But there is a further question that I hardly ever see asked: Is being married to ANY real-life, flesh-and-blood woman worth it?
Some men don't want to be in the harness, and for them marriage is not worth it regardless of the woman. I am very happy living in my own place with a long-term girlfriend (I sense the "talk" is coming up here, followed by the "ultimatum", but I one day at a time).
Some men want a feeling of security and want to trudge to work, get told what to do by the boss, then trudge home and get told what to do by the domestic boss. I guess they should be married, but family law really should be changed so that those types of men don't get shafted in a divorce.
Women are now hyperselective. So networked and employed and self sufficient.
Only the best will do, but what is the best ??
A hot looking narcissistic person ulikely to "settle down"
And if I had a nickel for every "cute, funny, smart, nice, emotionally stable" woman I've met of any age, well, I'd probably have about 4 cents.
...a larger issue that I’ve encountered again and again since becoming single...
wait.
since becoming single.
Yep.
She cratered a marriage and now she's judging someone else ... an entire class of someone else, in fact.
And .... Here is the Bee-yotch
@jay c: you win 461 internets.
Ever since I was 12, my dad has told me never to get married, and if my upbringing was any indication of the joys of matrimony, I will continue to follow his sound advice.
Even now, at 37, when my mom ends nearly every conversation with some jab about finding a good girl and settling down (and I reply with a request to find such a girl, perhaps after a camel has passed through the eye of a needle), my dad gives me a wistful, almost proud, little look.
Sad thing is, I'd _love_ to have someone to do stuff with, and most of my friends have already hived off and started families in other cities and states, so it can get a bit lonely sometimes. But if I'm lonely I can distract myself, and the only one I'm hurting is me. I'd rather be lonely than miserable anyway.
What is also missed are men like me.
I have a pretty bad, but it turns out pretty controllable with a rather cheap drug, case of general anxiety disorder. It kept me as a antisocial homebody through highschool and college. I got help for it in my early thirties, and it is largely under control.
I have a good job as a computer engineer, live in a family friendly neighborhood in a 2100 square foot brick house I am ahead of payments on, and I am across the street from a brand new elementary school. My city is one of the few that are largely unaffected by the current economy.
Unfortunately as I spent my growing years terrified of people, I never developed the skills other people take for granted regarding relationships. When I am around people when I am relaxed, I am described as 'charismatic'. And now that I am on the anti-anxiety pills I find it easier to become relaxed people, but what has not changed is I have no clues as to how to approach women or really date. And the few times I have dated I really don't know what to do. It is like I missed out on learning some important life skills when it comes to the mating dance.
So I am a financially stable (which is getting more and more rare it seems these days), not bad looking, tall (6'6) and when I relax I am charismatic; people like to be around me. But as I missed out on dating in high school and college, in a profession with few unmarried females, and in a family friendly city without much of a singles scene I find I am without many opportunities to interact with women in a non-forced, relaxed setting and do not have any skills to take advantage of such opportunities when they arise.
Lowering my standards will not help. I have, more than a few times, tried dating women I do not feel attracted to in the hopes the attraction will build, but that has only ended badly. Fortunately, having lived alone the last twenty of my thirty-seven years, I do not have the fear of loneliness that seems to handicap many in their choice of mates. So I will no longer even try to date someone I am not attracted to.
While I do get out more and more, I am of the opinion that my lifelong goals of marriage and children are not going to happen. Not because I am immature and don't want to grow up. Not because I am a loser. Not because I am afraid of marriage, though the environment is not the most conducive to marriage for men. But because I do not have opportunity, missed out on certain developmental skills, and 'game' is only of limited use to me.
More and more I am thinking I am going to have to go the mail order bride route. It has an air of inevitability to it for me.
Ah well, the point is, the article is way off base in its pigeonholing of over 30 single men. It is a complex issue with many permutations as to why.
Nah, Helen, there is a problem with young adults who don't grow up as was once expected of them.
I can't say for certain how you feel, but I have long had the feeling you think traditional marriage is obsolete, along with it's duties and purpose (as surmised nicely in the Anglican service).
Men ought to marry, have one partner for life, make children and protect and support them and the woman who has borne them.
I understand you think this is obsolete, but not everyone does.
Knowing what I know about women, if I were a man I would never get married. (Glad my hubby doesn't feel that way. ;-) )
"Men ought to marry, have one partner for life, make children and protect and support them and the woman who has borne them."
----
This is simply what you want. To sit on your butt and have a man provide support and protection. For you.
That's simply a selfish sense of entitlement.
What are YOU giving in return, a crusty vagina?
No thanks.
Frisky's entitlement complex comes directly from the incessant message given to females from the time they are little girls through to university: you deserve happiness because you're so beautiful, intelligent, smarter-than-stinky-boys, etc.
Settling down with a woman who has yet to realize she isn't owed ANYTHING is a recipe for living hell. So, too, I might add for a woman who settles down with an entitlement man.
Helen - you're insight is spot on. Self-indulging women only concerned with what they want which includes cleaning the guy out at divorce time.
Tether - Amen!
Why buy the cow when the milk is free? Most women do not understand this bit of reality...
Victor, I am similar to you in that I have never really figured out how to approach people. I'm fine in the rare instances where they pursue me, but generally that's not what happens in our society.
Going out and getting involved in activities of various kinds, from tea parties to environmentalism (depending on your taste) seems like the best way to go. You meet a lot of people and some will be single. By talking about issues (of whatever kind you are interested in) you can bypass the social awkwardness and do something worthwhile at the same time.
*
Sarah, it sounds odd that you feel this considering that Dr Helen is best known for what appears to be a thriving and highly successful relationship with Glenn Reynolds the Instapundit. So clearly marriage does work for some couples.
The Frisky's article confused me because at first I thought meeting a happy 30something man with a good wife or girlfriend would be a GOOD thing - it shows that happy relationships are possible.
I'm all for having a wife. I'm a lot more concerned about kids - to me, children means:
- Taking my wife's attention away from me
- Destroying our sex life
- Making our family budget look like Godzilla ran through it
all for the sake of bringing someone into a horrifyingly unhappy world dominated by gloom and cynics.
If I have a wife but don't have children, then she has little claim on me if we divorce. Once there are kids she has a hugely expensive claim, and society really can't work unless she can collect on it.
Where's the upside?
D
SarahW sez: "Men ought to [followed by a laundry list of demands]"
--
SarahW, here's what that is: manipulation based on chivalry.
This is sometimes in the form, "A Real Man would ...".
Do you really think shaming tactics and manipulation are a fair way to proceed? Even if the man in question is stupid and easily manipulated by those techniques?
Do you have a sense of justice or empathy with other people or were men just put on this earth to do your bidding?
Sarah -
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Men ought to marry, have one partner for life, make children and protect and support them and the woman who has borne them.
===========================
Why?
"I’m decidedly turned off by indecisive anyway"
So are most guys, especially when it comes to women who can't decide what their last name is. The hyphen business screams "pretentious bitch"; lose it.
"in a family friendly city without much of a singles scene I find I am without many opportunities to interact with women in a non-forced, relaxed setting"
Find a megachurch with a singles program, ideally an adult Sunday School class for 30YO+ singles. If you are describing yourself accurately and are not blackballing women who are divorced, you'll pretty much have women fighting over you.
I read this guy regularly. Makes me wish I had known him when I was dating: http://roissy.wordpress.com/
How pathetic. And I say this on the very day of my 27th wedding anniversary. The stench of entitlement and narcisism in this "debate" is stifling.
"The stench of entitlement and narcisism in this "debate" is stifling."
--
I agree - especially the condescension from that netmarcos guy.
The stench of entitlement and narcissism? Is this something that that is only an attribute of women?
The only difference between now a 50 years ago is that women admit they want a husband in order to better their lot in life. 50 years ago the same was true but women were taught to be much more demure and evasive about their goals.
As for men, I'm surprised that the bugle cry for a lifelong unpaid "helpmate" in the form of a wife seems to be muffled this year, we certainly heard enough about that in years past. Absolutely everyone everywhere rolls out of bed with one thought on their mind: What can I do for me today? Greed is the cornerstone of the human race.
"... lifelong unpaid "helpmate" ..."
---
Cham, you can become quite wealthy being paid in kind and just because you give an attorney a car for his help instead of the equivalent in money doesn't mean he is unpaid.
Getting an equity stake in a business is also a form of compensation, and that's also what these "unpaid" women get. One-half of the shares in the business with alimony options if the business really does well.
Payments in kind, access to the liquid funds and check-out options of 1/2 equity and the alimony option ... pretty good return that these unpaid women have.
In fact, a really good return for the women who simply decide that they are going to watch Oprah, do lunch and then do the pool boy.
@netmarcos, yes yes yes.
Generally speaking (with a few exceptions), American women are crazy, and the more attractive the more crazy. Pop culture and high school has trained them to think they're entitled to everything and responsible for nothing. They generally see men as some combination of handyman, dildo, and ATM.
I assumed all women were like this, then one day I chanced to meet a Filipina consultant here on an L1 visa. We've been married two years now. I thank God every day I never settled for any of the vampires we call women here.
I don't really blame American women for being this way. I lay more blame at the feet of the pathetic male satellites who enable them, forever circling their glow and warping their expectations.
Cham --
"50 years ago the same was true but women were taught to be much more demure and evasive about their goals."
I was there. That is not true at all.
This is really just the endless adolescence hitting the author hard. People don't marry as young as they used to. The problem is that men spending their 20's single come out of it as better candidates for marriage, while women come out worse.
You can get a lot done if you are single in your 20's - education, lots of job experience, moving for jobs, low-paying opportunities, personal interests that require youthful time and energy like playing in bands.
And contrary to alex's statement about "shortening time horizons," a young man can't plan for building a career with a wife and kids - he needs reliable money _now_, even if it costs him the bottom-floor experience that could pay off later.
A single man comes out of his twenties with money and passion, on his way to stability, older and desireable to most legal women below his age, and probably some relationship experience and do-nots.
On the other hand, a woman who has "had her fun" in her 20's come out older, less attractive and with a good chance she'll be vaguely desperate and embittered like this woman is. And her career is generally a null factor at best in a man's judgment of her value.
Those are just the facts of life.
Moose,
Roissy is great. For those interested in PUA, he's great. But for those looking for an LTR, he's also great, because he hones in on warning signs to run away from in people who are not LTR material.
SarahW,
"Men ought to marry, have one partner for life, make children and protect and support them and the woman who has borne them. "
I would like you to do the following: re-write that sentence starting with the noun "women ought to." We can't really comment on your opinion of the duties of men until we know your perception of the duties of women.
Re: Time horizons -- the "time horizon" on savings and earnings for my single friends is their own lifetime. That of my married friends with kids is the longer of their spouse and children's lifetimes. Yes, there is a difference. "Long term" can stretch well beyond your own lifetime, if there's a reason for it to do so.
The writer of the article laments there seem to be no "mature single men" in her own age-target group without ever seeming to wonder about the quality of single women in same age-target group. Including herself. Heh. Those who were looking for family/marriage have already found it, those remaining are by now wary, and require a much higher reward level to change their inclinations. By that age they've already seen all the UNsuccessful marriages in their peer groups, and the seemingly sweet and reasonable women who have been in them and done theiur part to create those marital hells ... and are familiar with the circling marital sharks waiting to bleed them.
20-some years of marriage myself, and still married, to someone bearing no resemblence other than a doubled X-chroimosome to the whiny vulturine who penned that complaint.
Navel gaze much? If anyone marries with the focus on "What do I get out of it" they are a fool. It sounds cliche, but a circle of friends filled with long marriages (and the failed marriage of my parents) easily shows that focusing on making my wife and kids happy provides the most satisfaction. Funny how it works, but my wife seems to focus on how to make me happy. Marriage is not for self-aggrandizement.
Other than calling losers who don't want to bond 'douchebags', the lady who wrote the letter is spot on -- she wants a man for life, not a fuckbuddy for the summer. She is right to feel entitled to a soul mate who is an adult.
Yes, there are nasty (wo)men out there who use the broken laws to rip (wo)men and kids off, if they didn't have that option, these people would be evil in other ways. In general, people are not bad because they can get away with it, but they are bad because ...(drumroll) they are bad.
And if you choose such a bad person as your life partner because you cannot be bothered to look at them properly and get to know them, or because you're greedy and want looks and/or money and let your sexual organs override your brains, then by definition, bad things will happen to you -- as the saying goes: you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.
Ideally we'd all like people to be able to have proper relationships that last a lifetime, and we all complain bitterly a lot because so many people no longer manage to behave themselves in a way that makes this possible. In fact, this lament is a central theme to this veritable blog...!
Wanting revenge on (wo)men in general and recommending that people start stealing decent folks life time as a revenge for what another (wo)man did to them is not a recipe for success.
Nor is paranoia -- life is tough, there are many people out there who thieve, and part of life is to be aware who you're spending your time with, be it spouses, friends or even colleagues. Choose wisely, don't be afraid to send someone on their way gently and kindly the moment you see structural problems in their personality -- learn to love yourself, then you can love others. Above all, don't take on basket cases, there is a reason why those people hate themselves like they do, and it's up to them to fix themselves, you cannot help such folk.
Dr. Helen, we already have enough soul-cripples of both genders and all sexual persuasions who cannot bond properly with others or behave decently, so why add to the general mayhem by telling people to not bother because everyone is going to rip them off anyway?
What we need is role models -- successfully bonded couples teaching others how to live life-long love -- our culture is totally devoid of good examples for people to copy, there is no social or online scene either that supports couples either.
Complaining is important because without being aware that something is broken, it cannot be fixed, but only solutions are doing the job in the end to solve the problems.
I'm in my late 30's, never been married. I don't see myself getting married either. Today's women are too self absorbed. The bias of the court system has made it entirely too risky a venture as a women can clean out your bank account real quick if you don't "worship" her. I find being this age, having a home of my own, a nice truck, and some toys gives me all the happiness I need. There are a lot of young women out there who love to get together with an older man who can show them a nice night on the town or take them on a passionate weekend getaway rather than deal with some of my younger colleagues who are still working things out. The last girl I dated was 24. She had broken up with her boyfriend because he didn't have enough time for her! He was working full time and in engineering school!! I though to myself, how stupid is this girl? Some promising young man is working his ass off to secure a viable future and she's complaining! I quickly lost respect for this one and settled for satisfying my carnal appetite for her body during a few short months. It will never occur to her, the reason I stopped calling. Another case of evidence, I have a long time friend who is married. We all went to high school together. He is notoriously co-dependent but I think he's getting better. There was about a three year stretch where she did nothing but play World of Warcraft and go to work. He would come home from work, do the dishes, do all the yardwork, do the grocery shopping and the cleaning inside the house. She literally sat on her fat ass for THREE fucking years and played that game. Well, her old family cat died, and I've never seen anyothe emotion from this woman other than anger, and she used this as an excuse to pick a fight with him. She actually had the nerve to call HIM selfish, because he needed a crown on his tooth. I about fell over when he told me this and I don't normally inject my thoughts into his marriage but I jumped on this one. I explained everything to him that I just put in this post. He knew he had been a doormat and he must has told her something to set her straight because she is fucking Holly Homemaker now. It's a beautiful thing to behold.
"and the seemingly sweet and reasonable women who have been in them and done theiur part to create those marital hells ... and are familiar with the circling marital sharks waiting to bleed them."
I saw a great explanation on some blog that I forgot to bookmark, it went something like this:
"You know how you laughed when we guys would go in the garage to tinker and drink beer? Well, while we were drinking beer we also told our single friends what your mothers and sisters and friends did to us."
Let me strike one for the good guys, though - despite hardened cynics like Tether, there are good women out there. Nothing like the controlling, greedy people you hear about in most marriage or divorce horror stories. If you are interested in pair-bonding, it is well worth your time to find them.
Here's a hint: don't go hunting for a "diamond in the rough." Behavior is socially reinforced, so you are not likely to find a good one amongst a crop of bad ones (that means their friends OR family).
Allow me to defend single 30-year-old men for a sec.
I divorced at 30 after a brief failed marriage. The new dating scene was COMPLETELY unexpected for me, cause suddenly I was in demand. And it's because women my age now had different expectations.
From my perspective, in their 20s, a lot of women want men who are, in this order, 1) attractive, 2) rich, and 3) sociable. That's all that matters then.
That checklist is drastically different come the 30s, when women want men who are, 1) employed, 2) never been to jail, 3) clean.
I enjoyed more female companionship in that brief single stint then ANY time in college and afterwards.
One date started with a five question quiz. If I answered yes to any, there would be no relationship.
1 - Ever had a STD?
2 - Ever been to jail?
3 - Do you smoke?
4 - Do you like NASCAR?
5 - Do you think it's sometimes okay to hit a woman?
(Regarding question 5, she said she had met more than one man who seriously admitted that 'yes, sometimes a woman needs a slap upside the head')
So while I feel for the 30-something single female looking for a mate, for 30-something men it's a whole new ballgame.
(For the record, I wasn't single long before meeting a wonderful woman with whom I will celebrate 6 years of marriage next month)
Hmmm,
No idea about anybody else and their experiences. But for my part what has warned me off is the experiences of my male relatives and my closest friends.
Except for 3 men all other men I'm close to have been divorced ... and taken literally to the cleaners.
*shrug* I've worked hard all my life and continue to do so. As a computer programmer with 30+ years experience it's a rare contract or job I cannot fill. And I frankly don't find it all that attractive to work my entire life only to lose everything due to a divorce.
Or even murder. How many women have murdered their husbands and then shed crocodile tears as they cried about domestic abuse?
Plus too there really doesn't seem to be any impetus for marriage. I think the best line was the witty dialogue between Rock Hudson and Tony Randall where Tony expounds on the wonders of marriage and Rock replies "why?". And that does seem to be a pertinent question. If the purpose is sex, then why marriage. If the purpose is children then why not do what gay couples do and hire a surrogate mother? Is this really the world and society that feminists were striving for?
It seems now to have been an extraordinary amount of effort to achieve an underwhelming success.
Frankly I've long since come to the conclusion that I'd rather rent.
Let's say you are a man in his mid to late 20's. Do you get married and end up with the mortgage on the large house and the payments for the boring expensive cars, not to mention the 2.1 kids and their college education costs. Or do you remain single, do the things that you really enjoy doing like outdoor sports and international travel (lonely planet budget style), and save up enough money to retire by 40 years old and pull a "Fred Reed" (e.g. retire in some low cost tropical paradise)?
Which is the rational choice here?
Also, sex drive declines somewhat as men get older. This means that having sex becomes less important and doing enjoyable things like hiking and scuba diving become more important as one gets older.
Men who do not marry are not only being rational, they actually have a longer time horizon than those that do get married. I think its the guys that do get married who have the short time horizon because they are not thinking ahead 10-15 years down the road.
"Men ought to marry, have one partner for life, make children and protect and support them and the woman who has borne them. "
People really ask "why" to this?
How about: Because that's how life, humanity, civilization carry on?
Just set a side for a second what He gets versus what She gets.
Without this, we die. (That we don't have it is evinced by the fact that "we", meaning Western civilization, is dying.)
I would like you to do the following: re-write that sentence starting with the noun "women ought to." We can't really comment on your opinion of the duties of men until we know your perception of the duties of women.
Not to speak for SarahW but I suspect she'd say:
Women ought to marry, have one partner for life, make children and protect and support them and the man who fathered them.
It's supposed to be a team with a goal greater than mutual satisfaction.
I mean, that is the point, right?
The author of the Frisky article seems to leave out the main reason why many men are single in their 30's- bad experiences with women up to that point.
Most of the my guy friends who aren't married or dating (myself included-I'm 38) have an extensive history of failed relationships that ended for a variety of reasons. Most if not all have a story (or in my case several stories) of women being unfaithful to them, or as Alex pointed out above too demanding of their time, or just being a plain old bitch.
Sorry ladies, we're single because in most cases it simply isn't worth the time, effort and money that it takes to satisfy a 30-something woman in todays world.
Enjoy dating your 20 something tight-jeaned hipsters who have no job, no money, and no career path while you can. In the meantime, we are going to wait for the small percentage of women out there who don't have unreasonable demands when it comes to meeting a future mate.
Victor/Ed: I recommend fully understanding your goal and intent is seeking partnership (if that's what you seek), and then search accordingly. For example, if you want to have a family and become a Dad, then it makes sense to put greater emphasis on the Mom suitability than the Wife suitability. I fully agree that both are important, but I also have heard I don't know how many women say they want to have children but can't find a good partner when they actually spend all their time searching for the studly-hot romantic ideal instead of a good potential Dad. I'm sure you've heard this before, but traditional places like church tend to attract singles that aspire to develop traditional families.
"The problem is that men spending their 20's single come out of it as better candidates for marriage, while women come out worse."
This, Topher, is exactly why when you read Victorian novels they are replete with "established" men in their late 20s and early 30s being sought by dewey eyed women in their late teens and young 20s. Unfortunately, biology just doesn't evolve and change as rapidly as desires and aspirations do, even if you throw a slew of legislation at it.
I'd love to leave a longer response, but time is short right now.
Bottom line...
When...
...more women start appreciating men, IE catering to them like many men cater to woman nowadays
...the kind of men who DO marry and who DO raise kids and DO support a family
...the kind of men that don't screw around and not the bad boys you chicks think are so "hot"
and when women...
...do so when they are young and attractive, and not all bitter and angry and dumpy...
...then you have a shot.
The worm has turned. You have to EARN the right to be married to him, honey. There are too many other fun and enjoyable things he can do with his time.
Think not? Keeping thinking that...alone.
If you're a 30+ woman and still referring to men as "rad" and "dudes," the common denominator in your failure to connect with a permanent mate might be your own immaturity.
Just sayin'!
What SarahW and blake wrote reminds me of what a wise person told me: Marriage is not a 50% / 50% proposition; marriage is a 100% / 100% way of life.
The sense of entitlement and naked "me-first"-ism from many of the commenters indicates that a poor marriage may be the best they can hope for. Yeah, current laws make things harder on guys, while the opposite was true years ago. Yes, all marriages go through rough spots. A commitment to each other, to the marriage and (God willing) to the children can see one through until it's better than before.
My history: met my future wife at age 26; married her 3 months later. That was over half my life ago.
Community property, community funds, sweat equity, presumptive paternity, these are legal terms that I fully understood at the age of 12. (No fault divorce came later.)
I dated literally hundreds of girls in my late teens, twenties and thirties, but never considered marrying any of them. Why?
Because bad attitude, a sense of entitlement and a pretense to superiority are not worth 50%. It's that simple and that obvious.
Modern women have no one to blame but themselves for the current situation. They got everything they wanted, and now they can use all the money they've earned in their oh-so-important careers to buy their own houses, where they can sit at home alone and play with their Ken dolls while they complain about men.
The problem is not with men or even women, though they're due a larger share of the blame. The problem is with the outdated terms and conditions of the marriage contract, particularly presumptive paternity which goes back over 600 years.
Until the contract is changed, marriage will remain a losing proposition for men. Society will continue to disintegrate, and lonely, unfulfilled women will go crying into their graves.
I think one of the better ways to find a good young man (or woman) is to look for a set of good parents. I'm sure you've all heard the sayings about daughters turning into their mothers and sons into their fathers.
If you can observe the marriage relationship a young person's parents have, and examine the relationship the young person has with their parents, then you have a very valuable insight into what that young person will be expecting out of, and expecting to contribute into, marriage.
Not infallible by any means, but a very good guide.
"She is right to feel entitled to a soul mate who is an adult."
No.
She has a right to _want_ a "soul mate," and if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
She is not right to feel "entitled" to anything.
Of course, her definition of "soulmate" seems to start out with "he does what I want - if I want to go slow he does too, if I want him to commit he jumps to the next stage" so I am not sure if she wants a soulmate or a robot.
Without this, we die.
In the big picture, that's true.
But it's not my problem, and it's not my burden to assume alone, so that others can go have a good time, secure in the knowledge that my children will pay for their Social Security.
I am married, and I've only been married this one time. I got married at 38, to someone who wasn't like the women with whom I'd had failed relationships in my 20s and early 30s.
The hell if I should be married to my first girlfriend (or rather divorced from her) with a few kids to support, so that YOU can have your "civilization." Those who have pointed out the problems with incentives are right on.
"The sense of entitlement and naked "me-first"-ism from many of the commenters indicates that a poor marriage may be the best they can hope for."
I think you are viewing it backwards...we are simply responding to the demands of the marketplace. When the person who is asking for our "commitment" and "sacrifice" doesn't seem very interested in doing either of those things herself, it's normal for us to say "what's in it for us?"
Hexe,
"In general, people are not bad because they can get away with it, but they are bad because ...(drumroll) they are bad."
Not true. Most people are not bad, but incentives matter, and they can drive pragmatic (neither good nor bad) people into bad things because they won't get a punishment for doing them.
"And if you choose such a bad person as your life partner because you cannot be bothered to look at them properly and get to know them, or because you're greedy and want looks and/or money and let your sexual organs override your brains, then by definition, bad things will happen to you -- as the saying goes: you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas."
We get this a lot at Dr Helen. This "you didn't work hard enough to find a good woman" advice would be semi-sound if the market were not replete with poor candidates. Let me use an analogy: if 1% of all the eggs in the market were tainted, you'd be justified doing some extra detective work to avoid salmonella in your omelet. But if, say, 50% of the eggs were diseased, you'd be much better off just giving up the omelet. Not worth the risk.
Given the amount of work to find an even halfway decent partner today (and this goes for both genders), a lot of people are simply deciding the odds are too low to bother. Marriage 2.0 is a tainted institution.
blake:
"How about: Because that's how life, humanity, civilization carry on?"
A society where one gender is consistently denigrated and undervalued is not one I am interested in helping to preserve.
submandave,
"I also have heard I don't know how many women say they want to have children but can't find a good partner when they actually spend all their time searching for the studly-hot romantic ideal instead of a good potential Dad."
I see your point, but I'm not sure this is the best advice. I DO see a lot of women looking to hop on the baby train and seeking men who will be provider/father figures, and their own husband-wife relationship is poorly constructed. There has to be a balance of partner and parent traits, and an understanding that things can and will go wrong and mess up your dreams. Would you marry this person if they became infertile during the marriage, got disabled and couldn't bring home the bacon, etc?
Another huge problem for both men and women when choosing partners is that people are generally poor at differentiating fantasies for themselves from what goals are actually worth working for. So it's difficult to screen partners for being supportive of your goals when those goals are fuzzy.
I had a huge list of want-to-dos when I was 20, some of which I've done and some of which I've taken off the list because I realize they were impractical or not worth it.
One of the advantages of dating/marrying later in life is you have come to understand that all your dreams will NOT come true, so you are less inclined to blame it on whoever you've been spending your life with and more receptive to the idea of opportunity cost as a fundamental principle of life.
There has to be a balance of partner and parent traits
Partner first.
We had a son. He died.
Then what?
If you want to continue in your marriage, you sure as hell had better share "partner" traits. There are no guarantees in life, and children are no exception.
Kurt,
========================
Let's say you are a man in his mid to late 20's. Do you get married and end up with the mortgage on the large house and the payments for the boring expensive cars, not to mention the 2.1 kids and their college education costs. Or do you remain single...and save up enough money to retire by 40 years old and pull a "Fred Reed" (e.g. retire in some low cost tropical paradise)?
.....Men who do not marry are not only being rational, they actually have a longer time horizon than those that do get married.
========================
Saving up money and retiring at 40 rather than putting two kids through college and working to the age of 70 is a classic example of a shorter time horizon.
Saying perpetual bachelors have shorter time horizons (far more often than not) isn't to say that they're immoral much less irrational.
It's just to say that a guy doesn't have to work nearly as hard, for nearly as long, to care for 1 as he does for 4.
BarryD,
That's exactly what I was getting at...I'm sorry for your loss.
My point though was that if having kids is a major life goal, you'll have to consider at least some parent traits in your partner.
Topher,
=======================
I had a huge list of want-to-dos when I was 20, some of which I've done and some of which I've taken off the list because I realize they were impractical or not worth it.
======================
If you're still maintaining a list, you're not in the category of men who have given up on any notions of becoming a husband and a father. Hence my comments regarding shorter time horizons wouldn't apply to you.
@ blake,
"Men ought to marry, have one partner for life, make children and protect and support them and the woman who has borne them. "
People really ask "why" to this?
How about: Because that's how life, humanity, civilization carry on?"
I think Topher answered that very well. I don't feel the need to carry on anything if half of society considers me a "loser" because I'm not making 100k a year (which is what a large number of the female commenters stated on that Frisky post) or because I'm not interested in having kids or a relationship. Why the hell would I go out of my way to court one of those narcissistic whelps?
"Just set a side for a second what He gets versus what She gets."
Tell you what. When she does, I'll consider it. But until then...
"Without this, we die. (That we don't have it is evinced by the fact that "we", meaning Western civilization, is dying.)"
Well, we all die. And all civilizations die. It's called history. Western Civilization is dying because it's become extremely stupid. That rationality and reason that propelled it in the first place is very mostly gone. Why should I get the blame because a shitload of others in the other gender have decided to follow the freudian id ad nauseum?
"I would like you to do the following: re-write that sentence starting with the noun "women ought to." We can't really comment on your opinion of the duties of men until we know your perception of the duties of women.
Women can do what they want. And very often they will. I'm not expending time and effort preaching what they should do. If they can't figure it out themselves, then nothing I say will have a lick of difference, so why bother?
"Not to speak for SarahW but I suspect she'd say:
Women ought to marry, have one partner for life, make children and protect and support them and the man who fathered them."
Well, there's a lot of things in life that "ought to" be happening, but they don't. That's the way it is.
"It's supposed to be a team with a goal greater than mutual satisfaction."
Yeah, I think that team concept pretty much flew the coop back in the 60's. It's like trying to close the barn door after the horses get out.
"I mean, that is the point, right?"
From where I'm standing, nope.
Yeah, it would be nice to have a relationship and perhaps kids, but it's not going to happen, so why even bother worrying about it?
You get what you pay for. This is the type of society that everyone wants (because I see no one making any major effort to change it other than grumbling, and that's never changed anything), so we've got the society that we so richly deserve.
Yikes. A lot of people out there have run into an incredibly long string of really horrible potential or actual partners.
Looks to me like it's a question of what you're looking for. A woman who wants to date guys who seem like they'll be good parents and faithful companions will lose interest in the others before wasting too much time on them. Ditto for the guys. If either the man or the woman just wants to date someone who looks hot or drives a nice car, good luck.
Happily married widows and widowers are famously capable of remarrying happily within a year or two, at just about any age. They know what to look for, and when they find it they aren't bored or turned off.
Blake
================================
"Men ought to marry, have one partner for life, make children and protect and support them and the woman who has borne them. "
People really ask "why" to this?
How about: Because that's how life, humanity, civilization carry on?
===========================
You make a compelling argument for overthrowing the existing mores and systems and reinstituting some system of enforced monogamy / patriarchy. Two problems with this, as I see it:
1) women won't go for it;
2) men won't go for it.
I am a single male, I'll be 54 next month, I've never been married, not even come close. I gave up on dating about 10 years ago, because I got tired of the games and BS. My major complaint with most American women is that while they properly fought for and got equal rights and privileges, they refuse to accept that this comes with equal responsibilities. What do I mean by responsibilities? Well, honesty for one, and keeping up their side of agreements, and talking responsibility for their own actions and expenses. What finally made me give up is that I got tired of my female acquaintances telling me that I was darn near exactly what women claim to want, but I kept getting ignored and rejected. They claim they want a nice, stable fellow, but they chase their fantasies of some rich and/or exciting man. So they fall prey to predatory men who tell them exactly what women want to hear, take what they want and then dump the woman. Then they go around complaining that all men are pigs.
I know that not all American women are like that, because my sister certainly isn't,
neither are my few close (and married) female friends. But far to many of them are.
I've always treated women as my equals, but that means that I also expect the same honesty, decency, and straight up behavior that I expect and get from men.
So I've pretty much accepted that I won't have any deeper relationship with women than friend or acquaintance. Yes, I get lonely and horny, but I won't sell my soul to cure those.
Taking responsibility for one's own actions and expenses is so old-fashioned, though...:-)
I know in my case, my wife left me at 32 and there is no way I'm ready to dive back in. Dunno if I'm really prime catch material, but I'd like to be able to just have a bit of fun for a while before risking it all again.
@ Texan99,
Why is it that when a guy says they're not interested in getting into a relationship someone else automatically assumes that the guy is looking for a "10"?
"You make a compelling argument for overthrowing the existing mores and systems and reinstituting some system of enforced monogamy / patriarchy."
I really don't think most men want this, or care if it's patriarchy, matriarchy or whatever. Most of the men on here, for instance, are not misogynistic or chauvinistic.
We'd just like the women in our lives to be happy, and to be happy being with us.
But that seems to be impossible for the Frisky's writers, as well as many other people we are meeting in our lives. The expectations are outrageous. The petulance is outrageous. Be happy in your life, and you will catch better men than a thousand issues of Cosmo will lead you to.
Topher,
===============
I really don't think most men want this....
==============
See the rest of my comments to Blake where I said:
"Two problems with this...2) men won't go for it."
Blake is absolutely right that monogamy, patriarchy, and civilization go hand in hand. But he's wrong in assuming that people might sacrifice themselves for the sake of society (!).
Alex/blake,
"Two problems with this...2) men won't go for it."
I just don't think most men care what words we use to refer to our social structure. Despite the claims of club girls, men are not inveterate cheaters with universal commitment-phobia. Most men want to work at something worthwhile, be appreciated for it and have a happy partner and maybe some constructive hobbies on the side.
It's just dumb for this author to classify all the 30-somethings on one side or the other of the pendulum.
wtf?
Topher,
No argument that Frisky is a dippy bitch....nonewhatsoever. Her cats probably won't even respect her in her old age.
=========================
I just don't think most men care what words we use to refer to our social structure.
=========================
But whatever we call it, the social structure does matter.
Most (all) civilizations have had some form of incentive(s) for men to enter into marriage -- dowries, patriarchal laws, etc.... The rules changed from incentives to marry to disincentives to marry (vis a vis the family injustice system we have in place for starters).
It should come as no surprise to women that men aren't willing to play by rules which have been dead for half a century.
It shouldn't come as a surprise to women....but it does comes as a surprise because they really are that self obsessed. Hence when the Frisky's of the world complain about men, what they're complaining about is the fact that men aren't playing by obsolete rules.
You guys seem to get riled up easily.
FWIW The Frisky is actually pretty good regarding their treatment of men, relatively speaking. Its demo is actually younger than will be interested in this article, so you're not seeing a representative cross-section in the responses. But the writers tend to be an older set and a few of them are very typical NYC neurotics. Amelia is one of them. There's another, Jessica Wakemen, who is a genuine man-hater. Amelia is just self absorbed and neurotic. It's likely that the reason that she's having trouble finding an available guy is that everyone she knows in onto her MO. She has a bad habit of humiliating her boyfriends through her writing. And she's aggressively !*@&# nuts. Take a look at some of her other articles to see what I'm getting at. This latest article is just another in a string of rationalizations that she's come up with as to why she can't find a good relationship.
"Just saying, I hate that fucking Frisky. The men on here are all, "women this" and "women that," but they're really only talking about "the women I'd be interested in if I admitted I was interested in women."
Well, maybe men are saying "women this and women that" because women themselves are pulling that on men. Like I said, go to the comments section for that article and the women there (and a few lickspittle manginas) are pretty much in lockstep regarding the men
I wanted to get married.
My HS and college girlfriend cheated on me. With two different guys.
My post-college girlfriend left me for a man who got rich and relentlessly cheated on her.
My next girlfriend, who I lived with for three years, got drunk ended up giving me the clap. Then she insisted for several days that I must have given her it before tearfully confessing.
My last steady girlfriend of my 20s decided she wanted to be a lesbian.
Then I got a little gunshy and didn't have a steady gf for five years.
My first girlfriend in my mid-30s lasted five years insisted on letting dogs sleep in her bed.
My gf in my 40s told me more than 18 months into our relationship that she lied to be about (1) being divorced (2) never cheating on her husband (3) being willing to move.
OK, what am I doing wrong here?
bb,
Yeah, I tend to get riled when I see abject stupidity. It is what it is.
If that's an example of 'good' Frisky, I hate to see what the bad is. Like I said, I tend to look at the responses/comments as much as the article itself. There seems to be many "Amelias" and "Jessicas" in the bunch. All the more reason why I would steer way clear of them.
"OK, what am I doing wrong here?"
Uh, by continuing to get into relationships? Jesus, try a new approach to life...
TK,
I can't give any sound advice on most of it, but what's the problem with dogs sleeping in the bed?
OK, I'll admit it: one of the things I am looking forward to about having a dog again is the dog sleeping in my bed. I'm a dog-lover like that. :) But I can understand it would make you feel second place.
Speedwell wrote, "I AM capable of making a man happy."
No, you aren't. Nobody can really make another person happy. You could be very helpful to that end, but you can't make it happen no matter how hard you try.
First Things had an article recently, The Bitter Pill by Timothy Reichert, April 2010. Before easy oral contraception, there was just one game between the genders. But now, with that easy oral contraception, women can choose to be in the mating game, or the marrying game, each game having different rules and levels of competition. The rules and consequences are not pleasant for women. They are sought after in the mating game, and redundant in the marriage game. What men and women want out of relationships is so different, it is difficult unless there is something bigger than the participants. That is, strong Catholics, and Mormons have very strong church and God, family orientations that their relationships are potentially stronger. Depending on the brand of Protestant, there may or may not be as great a chance for success. The author of the Frisky article gives us good reason to understand why she lacks the emotional and intellectual maturity necessary a successful relationship.
What is she trying to say mentioning a "bell curve"? Does she have any clue that most mentions of a bell curve deal with population norms and standard deviation? What is that all about? Does that author talk like a Valley Girl? Perhaps she needs to figure out what she wants from a relationship. If it is to be worshiped like the Goddess she obviously is, then good luck.
Again, reason #4 for poetry: It's cold and lonely here, a) without you, or b) with you. The disadvantages of single life are exaggerated. Cooking for one is easy if freezer containers are handy and used.
No Topher, everyone is entitled to a soul mate, and this dream is also the defining pillar of western culture (or what's left of it).
In fact, you're so angry precisely because you too feel entitled to a 1-1 lifelong relation ship and so far, you have not been blessed with success!
So, in a way, I see no difference between you and the lady who wrote to Dr. Helen, both of you are missing out on something you desperately want, both of you are angry at the reality, both of you need to understand that you want a dream that is as old as our Western culture that grew out of the Anglo-saxon Weltanschauung [1] and that it's tough to succeed here in modern times because many important features are missing from our society nowadays.
[1] Also see: http://librivox.org/germania_tacitus/
"Tacitus’ descriptions of the Germanic character are at times favorable in contrast to the opinions of the Romans of his day. He holds the strict monogamy and chastity of Germanic marriage customs worthy of the highest praise, in contrast to what he saw as the vice and immorality rampant in Roman society of his day[...] In Chapter 7, Tacitus describes their government and leadership as somewhat merit-based and egalitarian, with leadership by example rather than authority and that punishments are carried out by the priests. He mentions that the opinions of women are given respect. In Chapter 9, Tacitus describes a form of folk assembly rather similar to the public Things recorded in later Germanic sources: in these public deliberations, the final decision rests with the men of the tribe as a whole.
Tacitus further discusses the role of women in Chapters 7 and 8, mentioning that they often accompany the men to battle and offer encouragement. He says that the men are often motivated to fight for the women because of an extreme fear of their being taken captive. Tacitus says that the Germans are mainly content with one wife, except for a few political marriages, and specifically and explicitly compares this practice favorably to other barbarian cultures, perhaps since monogamy was a shared value between Roman and Germanic cultures. He also records that adultery is very rare, and that an adulterous woman is shunned afterward by the community regardless of her beauty.
"
Listen to this or read it, and understand your own roots and where your culture and your anger is coming from. Western culture is monogamous in expectation due to the Germanic people who shaped most of our moral compass and deeply rooted it to the point that not even modernity can quite unseat our 'entitlement to a soul mate'.
Milwaukee,
=========================
Cooking for one is easy if freezer containers are handy and used.
========================
I've come to appreciate the appeal single course, single dish meals.
A steak can be cooked on a quality grill in 10-20 minutes with almost zero effort. It's delicious all by itself, or perhaps with a little red wine or maybe a glass of scotch.
Not every meal has to consist of a meat, 3 vegetables and a bread.
"No Topher, everyone is entitled to a soul mate"
This is so silly I'm not going to bother debating the rest of your post.
Who said I was angry? It's Miss Frisky who's angry.
alex,
Seconded...skillets and crockpots are wonderful tools.
I started cooking in earnest when I discovered I could make tasty meals in as much time as it took to go to a restaurant get the carry out and come back home.
Cooking is a skill my generation largely never learned (speaking of depleted marital skills on both sides). It's disappointing, and doesn't bode well for the future of our health. The irony? Cooking well enough to enjoy it is way easier than the Food Network or any of these celebrity foodies would have you believe.
Hexe,
===================
No Topher, everyone is entitled to a soul mate
===================
No offense, but this is abject nonsense. A person is not entitled to something because they want it...if that were the case I'd be entitled to a career in the NBA.
I don't argue your contention that monogamy is a superior means of organizing society--it's no wonder the german tribes eventually kicked the ever living shit out of the nancy boy hedonistic romans.
Nonetheless, you make the same categorical error as Blake above. People won't wittingly sacrifice themselves today for some ephemereal greater good of society. Those germanic and judeo christian monogamous societies rewarded monogamous behavior while punishing the cads and the sluts. Contemporary United States celebrates cads and sluts while grinding a stilletto heel on the testicles of monogamous men.
Try reading Audrey Irvine. She's a a train wreck that you can't help but look. Every time Audrey puts pen to paper I get a little giddy. What will she say?......We learn from Audrey: Ladies need to pretend to be helpless so their man will think he is in charge. Married men should stick to their wives like glue and not talk to single women for any reason.
Then there is the Frisky. The Frisky is a bit over the top for me but I do so love reading the comments. I can only conclude that 90% of the Frisky's readers are men, and boy are they angry. They sure don't like it when the women get together to plot and scheme to get the most from them in the dating arena. After all, the dating men feel they should be the only ones allowed to do that.
Then there are more dating and living instructions for women brought to us by other helpful people. Dr. Helen has her long list of rules of what women should and shouldn't do, and then there is the tome written by Topher. Someone on this comment section, I can't remember who, a few weeks ago said that women should simply find a good man and submit completely to him..... life's challenges solved.
I give up. I gave up a long time ago. I can't keep track of all the rules and directives. There are too many. I wish everyone else the best of luck though, if you can keep it all straight I give you my utmost respect.
"If you're still maintaining a list, you're not in the category of men who have given up on any notions of becoming a husband and a father. Hence my comments regarding shorter time horizons wouldn't apply to you."
What, are you a mindreader? Plenty of people with life lists don't have marriage or children on them.
Cham,
Neither of those top sources is any good, they serve simply as markers of extrema.
Where does Dr Helen keep this "list" of rules and instructions? I never saw it.
"Submitting completely" to one's spouse is not the answer either, and reasonable people know this.
"I give up. I gave up a long time ago. I can't keep track of all the rules and directives. There are too many."
I am sorry to hear your frustration, but now you know how we feel...probably 90% of the rules and directives in the dating world are addressed to men. We aren't the ones with the checklists.
So, if you guys don't feel that anyone is entitled to a soul mate, what exactly is your problem if you don't have one and can't find one? After all you're not entitled! :)
Something clearly is bugging you hard about this romance and monogamy concept, you can't live with it, nor without it...
Let's turn this around shall we? We worked out what you don't like... OK, so, let's hear what actually what would make you happy instead.
Cooking is a skill my generation largely never learned (speaking of depleted marital skills on both sides). It's disappointing, and doesn't bode well for the future of our health. The irony? Cooking well enough to enjoy it is way easier than the Food Network or any of these celebrity foodies would have you believe.
One of the good things to come from my bouts of unemployment during the early 00s was learning to cook for myself. Dunno about the rest of Food Network, but _Good Eats_ routinely has excellent advice on menus, equipment and technique that help to keep costs down.
Then again, you just can't beat a $100 Shun chef's knife ;)
I agree, Hexe, we know what makes him unhappy let's find out what would make Topher happy. I'm all ears.
Hexe:
"So, if you guys don't feel that anyone is entitled to a soul mate, what exactly is your problem if you don't have one and can't find one? After all you're not entitled!"
Damn straight--what we expect, and what's been realistic throughout history, is a partner. Not a soul mate, some mythical perfect spouse who does everything exactly as we'd expect, but a partner willing to put up with minor differences, who complements our qualities, and who's willing to stick it out when times are tough. To honor their side of the bargain as we plan to honor ours.
The "soul mate" nonsense, like "princess" nonsense, fosters a very unrealistic expectation in dating and marriage, and leads to the female mid-life crisis divorce -- "Eh, I thought I loved him, but he doesn't seem like my soul mate, so I'll go find my true soul mate despite having spent years building a life with this guy."
But if women put finding an ephemeral soul mate above honoring their side of the marriage contract, why should men enter into a marriage contract?
Alexamenos has it exactly right--monogamy is the best way to structure society, but people are individuals. The idea is for society to set up its rules and customs to encourage monogamy. At the moment, Western civilization isn't doing that, and people who are dedicated to monogamy have to work against the law and culture.
Topher mentioned cooking. I am posting a link for today's msnbc article about getting men more interested in cooking. This is not my opinion it's just the link for the article.
Hexe,
Since Edgehopper gave a fantastic retort, let me add this.
The word "entitled" means that you expect. Well, life often falls short of expectations. You really honestly think all of those Germanic marriages were soul-mate material? Please! Many of them, if not the majority, were political marriages to cement certain alliances between larger clan families.
Entitled sounds more like a whiny "I want my perfect person and I want it now!" One who is "entitled" to something doesn't want to work at it (i.e. a marriage).
I don't know what world you live in, but most successful marriages don't have 100% bliss all the time. My parents have been married for 40+ years and they've had their ups and downs. But they've stuck it out because they've worked to keep their marriage going. They weren't "entitled" to each other. They made it work through some effort. That's the difference.
The problem is that most women (or men for that matter) don't want to put that kind of commitment into a marriage, hence the slightest bump and adversity and it's Divorce Time! But then, we do have a society based on the freudian id and not long-term thinking, so it's hardly surprising. I can't wait to see the train-wreck marriages that will develop when the vast majority of the Millenials come into play. If it wasn't so tragic, it would be almost entertaining.
Cham,
Spare us the patronizing. I can cook quite well, thank you very much. That's one of those things you do when you have self-reliance.
Gentlemen,
The marriage strike is working!!! IT IS WORKING!!!!
Transfering the costs of misandry back onto women (and manginas/whiteknights) is our duty.
And it is WORKING!!!!
Gentlemen,
3 Truths you Need to Know About Women :
a) Women will never, ever take responsibility for their actions. Don't try to make them, it is impossible.
b) Women have no ability to understand cause and effect. Truly, they are the equals of 7 year old boys in this regard.
c) Shaming language and the state are the only two tools a woman has. Learn how to be immune to both, and keep your money.
blahga,
I'm a little less cynical about the cooking article. Cham is trying to share. It's interesting that most day to day family cooking appears to be done by women while most of the entrepreneurial celebrity chefs I can think of are male.
But your point is well-taken - men hitched to the role of bringing home the bacon will leave it to someone else to fry it in the pan.
"Only 13 percent of home meals are prepared by men"? Sounds like we need a federal subsidy for male cooking!
All kidding aside, my only advice to women whose guys are cooking: don't get in the way. You'll get a papa grizzly defending his temporary mancave!
The article is 90% innocuous, but I can't even read the article halfway without some misandrist line coming out:
"But while you enjoy the homemade cards, ties and gadgets from your loved ones, think about giving something back to the family. Cook more."
Giving back? A father is 50% of the reason the family exists. He's supposed to feel guilty about getting gifts on father's day, like here's your present so get off your butt and get back to work? ANY mainstream media story about men has to knock them in some way! It's like a rule of journalism or something!
"Then there are the “gastrosexuals,” the dudes who see searing tuna as a competitive sport and a way to attract women."
Guilty as charged. With so many people my age lacking any cooking skills my meager abilities are a wow-buster with both genders!
Looks like feminism just can't win: "a new study...found that moms who work full-time are more likely to have overweight or obese kids, with fewer family meals cited as a key reason why."
Speedwell, in all seriousness stop feeling sorry for yourself, and cut out the "shoot myself in the head" drama. You're fat?! Big deal.
Your real issue is whatever caused you to stay with a loser for 12 years. I have two guesses on this. Number one, you don't know the real reason why you did so. Number two, you need a qualified therapist to help you sort out what is going on inside of your head.
There are fat women with husbands who were fat when they got married.
Topher,
Misandry on Father's Day???!!! Surely you are joking!!!...
A point: Last year, for Father's Day, the local newspaper had the audacity (in the special father's day section) to put a couple of feminist articles in there regarding men. Such is that state of affairs in this country.
blahga -
Don't call me Shirley!
kmg writes:
"3 Truths you Need to Know About Women :
a) Women will never, ever take responsibility for their actions. Don't try to make them, it is impossible.
b) Women have no ability to understand cause and effect. Truly, they are the equals of 7 year old boys in this regard.
c) Shaming language and the state are the only two tools a woman has. Learn how to be immune to both, and keep your money."
------
Absolutely. And what men here can do is read those three things through - and practice them in their lives - while denying that they believe it.
Believe it. Just don't tell anyone else that you believe it. But read them through again, they are absolutely true.
Hexe,
=========================
Let's turn this around shall we? We worked out what you don't like... OK, so, let's hear what actually what would make you happy instead.
========================
A good start would be eliminating no-fault divorce and the pervasive presumption of maternal custody. Let a marriage contract be exactly that -- a contract where one party cannot benefit at the expense of the other party by unilaterally breaking the contract.
2nd--eliminate extra-marital child support. It's her body, her choice, her baby...she can pay the bills.
3rd--eliminate corn syrup, sugars and fast food from the female diet. Cottage cheese is unattractive when sitting in a tupperware dish in the 'fridge. It's gawdawful in other settings.
Those are just the first three off the top of my head, I'm sure some other guys around here can add a few more.
blhaga,
==================
I can't wait to see the train-wreck marriages that will develop when the vast majority of the Millenials come into play. If it wasn't so tragic, it would be almost entertaining.
=================
This will be quite interesting. Folks 30 something and older have a much greater residue of pre-sexual revolution cultural norms in our upbringing. We may have been born post 1960, but our parents and grandparents were still largely products of the heyday of the nuclear family.
The 20 somethings? Different story -- they're the first real purebreds of the sexual revolution, born to post-Ozzie and Harriet families.
There's a long, long lag between cause and effect in the bigger social scheme of things...one measured in generations rather than years. When it comes to the unintended consequences of feminism and the sexual revolutions, the millenials are where it really starts.
TK, what's wrong with dogs?
There are more than a few bird hunters who would appreciate that in a woman...:-)
"Damn straight--what we expect, and what's been realistic throughout history, is a partner. "
Erm, call it what you want -- other half, partner, lover, whatever. Let me translate: the women who wrote the letter wants to fall in love big time, and she is stressed because she only finds kidults instead of men.
I don't understand why you guys are getting so phobic over this.
-
"A good start would be eliminating no-fault divorce and the pervasive presumption of maternal custody. Let a marriage contract be exactly that -- a contract where one party cannot benefit at the expense of the other party by unilaterally breaking the contract.
2nd--eliminate extra-marital child support. It's her body, her choice, her baby...she can pay the bills.
3rd--eliminate corn syrup, sugars and fast food from the female diet. Cottage cheese is unattractive when sitting in a tupperware dish in the 'fridge. It's gawdawful in other settings.
Those are just the first three off the top of my head, I'm sure some other guys around here can add a few more."
---
1. The problem is that divorce is legal in the first place. By all means hate your other half as much as you want to and live apart, but people who divorce tend to break up other marriages when they are looking for new love, and it also creates a huge amount of insanities and legal issues. See here: http://librivox.org/the-superstition-of-divorce-by-g-k-chesterton/ Marriage is not only about your own happiness, but also that of your kids (if any) and the people around you.
2. It's may be her body, but the child without a father has serious problems and should not be her property. We used to force the adoption in those cases, which doesn't replace natural parents, but it's better than a single mother with the risk of sexual or emotional abuse at the hands of her collection of boyfriends or a stepfather who has a cuckoo in his nest. A man can only support one family properly(and money is only one aspect here), which is another good reason why divorce should not be permitted.
Of course, there is also the idea that you can allow divorce if there are no kids (and neither spouses is incapacitated), and if there are, the kids go to married adoptive parents with both the original parents paying child support and no visitation rights to keep things simply.
3. I swap you cornstarch, syrups and cottage cheese if you stop drinking beer, stop eating red meat (and eat all your greens, dammit) and start going to the gym 3 times a week. Alternatively, we can just trust each other not to commit suicide with cutlery and to both have some common sense and not expect our spouse to be something they never will be and we don't nag them into submission nor do we ruin their lives with assorted passive-aggressive antics. It seems to work in my marriage, how about yours?
Btw, I have no problem with the current divorce laws other than that the lot of female divorcees is not miserable enough and only men are put off. And I don't want a fault divorce either, spare the ears of the poor judge who has to sit though tedious petty quibbles of fools who cannot behave themselves, which was the actual reason for making it no-fault in the first place. Besides that, all the cost for divorce are usually taken out of the mouth of the children, so alone for that, it should be forbidden at least until the kids are grown up.
However, no matter what rules you make you cannot legislate for sanity, not make laws that enforce blissful marriage. In the end, it's down to people and their good manners to make something of their lives. Again, bad people do bad things, because they are bad, and not because they can. And man has free will, we are not beasts, bad laws do not make anyone do bad things, but bad attitudes do.
--
Topher, I'm still waiting for your list... :)
Hexe/Cham,
I already gave you what you asked for earlier in the discussion:
"We'd just like the women in our lives to be happy, and to be happy being with us."
Since I advocate not getting into a relationship at all at this point in time, I offer little to a "marriage."
Given the situation between the sexes in this country at this point, I see any "laundry list" to make things better as nothing more than a pie in the sky farce. Like I said before, if you think it's bad with the Xers, this will be a skirmish compared to the battleground one will see with the Millenials. Best to stay clear of that minefield.
I am 39. Never been married. It is a con game where I can only be the sucker.
alexamenos,
The problem is, we have to get those changes implemented. No-one will do it for you, especially not if you don't even ask.
As for marriage, actually, it's originally meant to protect people who commit to each other, marriage is also almost always a business partnership. Next, it's also meant to protect the kids.
If you don't want kids, then don't get married, the problem is that most decent women will not be interested in men who don't marry them, as a matter of deeper principle and because there are too many time wasters out there who just want to loaf and sponge.
And so, what happens is that a lot of folk are scared of marriage, and we no longer have a tradition or a society where norms matter, but everyone is expected to work things out from first principles.
Our culture is built in essence on a less savage version of what the Germanic tribes had, and without that ethos, we have nothing -- look around and count children... in Europe, we no longer have any, women don't want to end up single mothers or cannot find a decent competent male without behavioural issues, and males get put off by insane family laws,etc.
And because everyone is discardable, everyone is weary of committing, no-one even tries to get along, as soon as the first small problems turn up, people throw temper tantrums. Nor do abandoned kids learn how adults conduct a marriage --- this is a study that lasts 18 years+... how many of the bitter men here are single kids who didn't have a male role model?
Some of the methods of argumentation used here are very female, which is another reason that many relationships don't work out, because female children without daddies also don't get socialised properly but instinctively women despise men who act like females, and so... you have the train crash you're currently seeing.
It all comes back to divorce been allowed -- I know not allowing it sounds horrid too, but the alternative is a lot worse as we all can see.
Now, your generation is going to have to try and take control back somehow, if you don't do it, then that ethos will be lost, culture and knowledge is not genetic... it can be wiped out in one generation. Read Tacitus and you'll understand that the Germans were who they were because they were themselves and didn't let anyone else define them. Above all, they know who they were, and they loved themselves.
If you guys don't want to get married and thus terminate your bloodline and culture, that's fine too(evolution in action), just don't complain about the women who can't be asked to perpetuate a bust society either. And don't whine about the unfairness of life either -- you guys have a real cushy number, your forebears worked their fingers to the bone in the fields as farmers and warriors, and you squander it all by pouting yourself into old age a bachelors or even worse,by abandoning your kids.
Alternatively you can accept that the current situation is totally beyond the pale and start doing something about it and not drift along pouting helplessly.
Here is a good role model of a guy who knows who he is and what he wants:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDednz5xhG8&feature=related
and:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Evtt-R7Rmdw&playnext_from=TL&videos=8Tg5OWyJwWY
This is how people who will make a change in this world think, act and sound. They don't handwave or pout, but they get on with their mission.
---
Topher: "We'd just like the women in our lives to be happy, and to be happy being with us."
Har har har.
Sory first youtube link was a wrong one, this is the right one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdEIhJ5jkOw&feature=related
enjoy!
"Topher: "We'd just like the women in our lives to be happy, and to be happy being with us."
Har har har."
Really...so I put down a serious, basic desire, and you just laugh it off. Get over yourself.
Put aside the players, who are a very small portion of men. Men who are serious about relationships basically want their partner to be happy. That's why you see men doing things like giving in to pressure to get married or getting a bigger house. It's based on the hope that she'll be happy with it and you can go on with your lives.
(Unfortunately, as the PUAs have found, not only can you not "make" someone else happy, actively trying to squelch a woman's every desire actually hurts your status with her.)
Hexe,
==========================
...it can be wiped out in one generation....
==========================
Yeah, I get this. It's already happened. That LAST generation of which you forewarn has already come and gone.
The remnants of norms from bygone patriarchal, monogamous times are just that -- remnants, temporal spirits that have not yet passed on to another plane.
And for the record, your method of argumentation is quintessentially feminine. I'm not just talking about the excessive reliance on shaming language, but instead the self-absorbed hyper-focus on your wants and desires with precious little regard for what IS. It is, I submit, an intrinsically masculine quality to see things as they are and proceed accordingly. But as for your thinking, in the unforgettable words of Ulysesses Everett McGill, "Truth means nothing to a woman, Delmar. Triumph of the subjective!"
Sure, you would love for society to be a monogamous culture. That's all well and good, but if you were a man it might occur to you that this IS a polymarous, matriarchal society and any plan of action must proceed accordingly. We cannot merely wish the existing norms and power structures out of existence. Your plan of action basically amounts to all of us huddling in a circle and pretending really hard that those dead remnants of days gone by magically spring back to life....you imagine that by wishing hard enough, substance will spring into being out of mere appearance. You suggest that if we act as if things are as you wish them to be, they will be.
Foolish girl, go into the kitchen and grab me a beer. Leave the heavy lifting to the men in the house.*
----
* Of course, in no way do I mean to suggest that women aren't equal to or superior to men in every conceivable way, including but not limited to their cognitive and analytical abilities as well as their ability to pee while standing up.
Alexmenos,
Actually, I never said that anyone would sacrifice themselves for the greater good. I was merely addressing the obvious. No one should have to ask why (except maybe rhetorically).
blake,
gotcha -- cool.
cheers.
First of all, I'm not the same "Joshua" who posted at the beginning of this thread. I'm 39, not married and not bloody likely ever to do so. I'm not a "marriage striker;" if anything I'm in a boat somewhat similar to Victor's (@ 9:41 AM). Still, for the reasons already well-covered in this thread I find myself glad that I have never even had any desire or expectation of marriage or parenthood, and so you won't see me crossing the virtual picket line.
There is one thing that has long mystified me about this entire issue though, and that is the apparent indifference of social conservatives, who, at least at the political level, instead remain fixated on the big, fat red herring of gay marriage. This is beyond daft. The institution of marriage isn't in trouble because gay people want in. The institution of marriage is in trouble because straight people, particularly straight men, are steering clear of it in droves. We are the canaries in marriage's coal mine, and yet social conservatives have, to this point, proven to be no more curious than liberals as to why so many of us are (proverbially) keeling over.
Some of the men here feel that the number of never-married men is on the rise. Can someone give me a statistic or some data to prove this? I'm not saying it isn't happening, I just like to see the evidence to prove it.
"Can someone give me a statistic or some data to prove this?"
----
Why, is your googling finger broken?
No, it's not broken. You seem so sure of yourselves I figure for sure you have some data to back up what you say. I'd like to see it.
Chem: I hope your finger gets better. Don't they have finger doctors in France? When your "favorite search engine finger" gets better, you can look for yourself. Yes, there are statistics out there about percentages of men married, and age at which average man is marrying, and the opinion polls on when each gender should marry. The numbers seem to support the notion that there are fewer men marrying.
What do the the ex-wife and the raging, flooded river have in common? In the end, they both get the house.
I haven't been paying close attention to the topic, but all I recall is individual men claiming that they themselves have not married (and will not marry).
I don't remember a single person claiming that the trend is for men not to marry - although someone could well have said that - and I personally also believe that is the trend.
If someone claimed that on this board, Cham, then harangue him for proof, not all the men on the board.
By the way, I have never married (I'm in my 40s) and never will.
I'm not on any marriage strike, I have simply thought since I was a little kid that the whole thing is really lop-sided against men.
I have no idea at all why men are supporting demanding sit-at-homes, and I have no idea why these types of men seem to even be proud of it. Sometimes the leech even cuts him down and makes fun of him behind his back. Just incomprehensible to me why a man would want that.
Joshua,
I share your concern that social conservatives are totally on the wrong path wrt marriage. They are also not selling a product that young Americans want to buy.
Among people I know, young urban men in particular don't seem to have a lot of interest in religion. I think this is because it's been taken by this "feral man" hypothesis where women are the ideal humans and men have to grovel for their approval. Why go to a club that tells you you suck?
My faith, the Catholic Church, has almost nothing to offer a young urban man in terms of relationship grounding and support, except to subtly shame him and tell he is a flawed being who needs a woman to "civilize" him. The girls bob their heads and then go back to shaking their booties at the clubs.
Not all of us who want marriage improved want women to go back in the kitchen and take orders from the husband. We just want some appreciation and a lowering of the expectations, and religious communities are not helping except in certain slices like the Mormons (which have a highly prescribed marital lifestyle).
@Hexe (in several installments)
Part 1:
"If you don't want kids, then don't get married, the problem is that most decent women will not be interested in men who don't marry them, as a matter of deeper principle and because there are too many time wasters out there who just want to loaf and sponge."
Apparently, you haven't heard of the hook-up culture. Why is it that it's always the man who's a time-waster and sponger, BTW? Women are immune to this?
"And so, what happens is that a lot of folk are scared of marriage, and we no longer have a tradition or a society where norms matter,"
Well, duh, that's what you get when you take a culture and proceed to cheerfully and systematically dismantle it. I can't speak for the other guys here, but I'd be extremely leery of getting into a marriage given the cultural and legal situation.
to be continued...
Part II:
"look around and count children... in Europe, we no longer have any, women don't want to end up single mothers or cannot find a decent competent male without behavioural issues, and males get put off by insane family laws,etc."
Who's effing fault was that? You build an entitlement socialist culture (I guess this is where you get this entitled argument from), turn it into a virtual playground where you don't have to do anything and then you're suddenly shocked as to why you have below replacement rates for your population? Please!
Since WWII, you've collectively done nothing but build this nonsense up with us covering your worthless asses (while bitching about Americans ad nauseum). And now you realize that it was a bad thing all along? So now to continue this nonsense, you have to transplant tons of muslims in to pay for your continued goodies. How's that working for you?
In 50 years they'll own your collective asses. So what the Ottomans and Ummayads couldn't do, you're essentially handing the continent over to them without a shot being fired. Cripes, Charles Martel, Eugene of Savoy and John Sobieski have to be doing continual flips in their graves.
Part III:
"And because everyone is discardable, everyone is weary of committing, no-one even tries to get along, as soon as the first small problems turn up, people throw temper tantrums."
I believe I made this statement previously. It's called entitlement. Women have unrealistic expectations of men, and are (in the vast majority) the ones who initiate the divorce.
"Nor do abandoned kids learn how adults conduct a marriage --- this is a study that lasts 18 years+..."
Uh, try 40+ years. The earliest was the Daniel Moynihan report of 1967. Since then, apparently we've found it super cool to emulate the conditions of the ghetto for our culture.
"how many of the bitter men here are single kids who didn't have a male role model?"
My parents are still married and my dad is a fine role-model. I'm not bitter. I just chose to move on with my life. I don't have time or inclination for female cock-tease games.
"Some of the methods of argumentation used here are very female, which is another reason that many relationships don't work out,"
Huh? Specify please.
"because female children without daddies also don't get socialised properly but instinctively women despise men who act like females, and so... you have the train crash you're currently seeing."
Yeah, that is probably due to the feminists tinkering around with social engineering. Flip the gender roles around and then everyone's suddenly shocked why society is so screwed up.
Part IV:
"It all comes back to divorce been allowed -- I know not allowing it sounds horrid too, but the alternative is a lot worse as we all can see."
I can see the feminists having a field day with this comment. Of course, maybe it won't matter, since they're hell-bent on destroying the family structure to begin with. Something about patriarchy and all that...
"Now, your generation is going to have to try and take control back somehow, if you don't do it, then that ethos will be lost, culture and knowledge is not genetic... it can be wiped out in one generation."
Like Alexamenos said, it's already happened. Many people haven't realized it though. Right now, you have a Western culture that is hell bent on trying to destroy itself. It's so widespread, the roots so deep that most people aren't even aware that it's occurring. Some of us will soldier on though.
"If you guys don't want to get married and thus terminate your bloodline and culture, that's fine too(evolution in action)"
Obviously, it isn't a fine thing or you wouldn't have spent the time you did before this comment disparaging the situation. To be honest, I don't have much stake in a culture that lampoons and shits all over my gender, so why exactly should I care about continuing it?
"just don't complain about the women who can't be asked to perpetuate a bust society either."
Well, since women are the ones running the show now (more or less), it is kinda on their shoulders, isn't it? And why exactly is this the males fault? You're saying that women have no fault, at all for what's going on? Wow, talk about sisterhood in action.
"And don't whine about the unfairness of life either"
Can't really complain about my situation. Life is inherently unfair. That's one of the things one comes to terms with while growing up. Last time I checked, it was Amelia at Frisky who thought it "unfair" she couldn't find a guy.
"you guys have a real cushy number, your forebears worked their fingers to the bone in the fields as farmers and warriors,"
And then the Boomers came...
"and you squander it all by pouting yourself into old age a bachelors or even worse,by abandoning your kids."
I'm not pouting at all. I'm simply not going to enter the insanity that is currently marriage. I've got my life together. Why wait for a woman who can't figure things out? And I'm not exactly abandoning kids if I don't have any to begin with.
Part V (fini):
"Alternatively you can accept that the current situation is totally beyond the pale"
No, but it mostly is.
"and start doing something about it and not drift along pouting helplessly."
I believe I've already done something about it. I'm not going to enslave myself to a narcissistic slut (and get hosed later on because she has to find herself or something). As far as I'm concerned, I find this to be very empowering (as much as I absolutely hate this word).
"This is how people who will make a change in this world think, act and sound. They don't handwave or pout, but they get on with their mission."
Hmmm...having a steady job, making sure I don't go into debt, overall pretty responsibile...you're right I'm doing nothing with my life. But then, I'm not making 100k a year, so I'm obviously a failure (rolling eyes).
TK, I wouldn't want a dog sleeping in the bed either - why the hell do people do that?! I like dogs, but jeez. And I wonder what the hell I'm doing wrong too; I'm probably just a sucker for a hard luck story.
Topher,
=======================
I share your concern that social conservatives are totally on the wrong path wrt marriage.
=======================
Same here.
The Social Cons have very much a Hexe Froschbein view of things -- men should set aside objective reality and behave according to the ideological preferences of hexe and the socons.
blahga -- good stuff
[/lurk]
To Hexe/Cham --
The point being made here, very eloquently (IMHO) by Blahga, Edgehopper and several others, is that what the resentful girls like the Frisky steadfastly refuse to grasp is that guys are doing a business-case analysis on women....and reaching the conclusion that the benefits of marrying any of them are simply outweighed by the cost.
Newsflash: just as women evaluate men for suitability as mates, so do we. And too often, what men see is all cost measured against almost no benefit. You can see this message repeated over and over again in the getting on towards 200 comments on this thread. Guys being the fairly simple and very analytical creatures, you also don't see this expressed with a great deal of emotion -- other than simple frustration that no matter how many times the message is repeated, no matter how it's matched and tailored to address differently-worded questions, it doesn't sink in.
And shaming language doesn't change the business case -- if anything, it underscores the conclusion.
I got very lucky -- I found not a soulmate, but a partner. Edgehopper's description says it all: Not a soul mate, some mythical perfect spouse who does everything exactly as we'd expect, but a partner willing to put up with minor differences, who complements our qualities, and who's willing to stick it out when times are tough. To honor [her] side of the bargain as [I] plan to honor [mine].
If (God forbid) I ever lost her, I seriously doubt I would ever pursue marriage again. The risks are simply too great.
[lurk]
What a self-entitled, arrogant, needy leech. First of all, why does she need "a man" to make her whole?
Secondarily, I do not know that I'd change anything because my experiences got me to the most amazing woman for me, who also happens to be my second wife. You see, my first wife cheated, when we got divorced, guess who got screwed again? I did. The laws are set up in a way across this nation, that right or wrong, the husband is going to get slaughtered in court and potentially get destroyed financially. I know that I did.
So I cannot blame most of the 30 somethings that do not want to get married until later on in life. It is just not worth it.
"guys are doing a business-case analysis on women....and reaching the conclusion that the benefits of marrying any of them are simply outweighed by the cost"
Speaking of business anlysis, I had agreed with the blogger that the personal ad discussed in this post - http://sexonmydesk.ivillage.com/love/archives/2007/10/if-you-want-a-rich-man-deedle.html - was fake, but after reading some of the stuff on The Frisky (which is a great blog IMHO) I'm not so sure.
The Socons are going in the wrong direction with things like covenant marriage. Widespread divorce is a symptom of a corrupted marital institution, and "preventing" divorce (or "punishing" [male] divorcees for the social crime of splitting) is really a backwards idea.
The problem is not that divorce is "too easy." It's that the incentives are all messed up. Divorce should not be made harder - it should be made fairer. And there's no reason a legitimately mutual divorce shouldn't be simple and painless.
(Gawain's talk about the "marriage contract" is sort of obtuse in that it doesn't exist in one document, it's a miasma of state-variant laws, case law, discretion and what the judge had for breakfast.)
Meanwhile, getting a marriage should be made MUCH more difficult...more counseling, more informed consent, mandatory prenups, psychiatric evaluations, health and fertility screenings/disclosures and financial discussions. Maybe a mandatory cohabitation, mirroring the mandatory separation that exists in some divorce proceedings. That process alone would scare off a decent portion of ill-fated marriages.
Failing that, marriage should be decoupled from the state and returned to non-governmental bodies like it used to. Of course, with the atomization and anonymity of modern urban culture, it's almost impossible for the mores of marriage to be enforced by social groups, which is why the activists have pushed to have more governmental intervention in the first place in areas like alimony, child support and estate splitting.
Another reason divorce is F'd up in this country is because the legal profession is F'd up. The legal profession is really more concerned with what's legal and possible for their client than with what's right or just. And we have a huge surplus of lawyers, so they are all competing to be the biggest scumbag they can be to get some business.
The problem is she views men as either douche or demi-god. Talk about unrealistic! And of course, the old "if he's single, what's wrong with him?" defeatist attitude.
Still, I agree that there is some merit in the observation that there are an awful lot of man-children out there these days. I married one, I've dated several, and they have a rather large entitlement complex too.
I think it boils down to encouraging narcissism (which kids naturally have aplenty) instead of encouraging people to grow up - endless coddling and rewarding of mediocre achievements in children comes to mind. I am sick to death of grown "men" who act like entitled babies whose every whim should be satisfied, yet, your simple needs are either not met or met grudgingly. (Seriously, I really am pretty low maintenance as far as women go - introverted loner, can amuse self, don't expect or want to be treated like royalty, etc.).
And it's not that I think I'm perfect by any means, but at least I'm willing to admit where I've screwed up and am willing to put the other person first - I'd just like them to put me first too but just can't seem to find that.
It does go both ways but some people (men and women) are just never satisfied and there's not much you can do with them except leave them to it.
Eleanor,
What's your phone number?
"I am sick to death of grown "men" who act like entitled babies whose every whim should be satisfied ..."
----
Then don't go out with them or even talk to them.
That's exactly the tack I take with entitled princesses. I don't even acknowledge them.
And the funny thing is - I constantly hear women like that complaining about male attention (after they put on a revealing dress), but they also don't like it a bit when you completely ignore them.
To clarify: I don't ignore them because of some kind of game, I absolutely ignore them because I think they are worthless.
And - the superficial beings that they are - they pick up on that and then try to get attention.
Absolutely stupid and time-wasting. Leading your whole life to get attention and then pretend like you don't want any attention (and then wind up having your life paid for by a man). Sickening.
"And - the superficial beings that they are - they pick up on that and then try to get attention."
Tom Leykis had a hilarious dating tip that said dress in a suit, go to a bar and sit alone. He theorized "most women want attention so badly they will wonder why the hotshot isn't talking to them, they'll approach YOU begging you to pay attention to them."
"Tom Leykis had a hilarious dating tip that said dress in a suit, go to a bar and sit alone."
---
Frankly - as I understand "game" - that wouldn't work at all because women want "social proof", they want a man who appears to be social etc. (thus the "wing man" or better "wing women"), and a guy sitting alone in a suit would come across as a loner or creep.
And I'm not sure what the thing is with a suit. That is not impressive.
Eleanor said she didn't like men with entitlement syndrome. I agree, and women with it aren't any better. And they breed with submissive males and make children that have stratospheric self-esteem and turn into dour writers like The Frisky when reality smacks them on the tush.
Tether,
I think the whole idea is mimicry - if you look like the rich guy she wants to get attention from but don't give it to her, she will get flummoxed and initiate. It's not conventional PUA, you are correct. Leykis 101 does not square with much of the PUA tecahing; it's more like a hybrid between the supplicant system and true game, where you try to imitate behaviors rather than undertake a personality change.
The answer is simple. Some on here get close. I am a 41 year old man who is unmarried, yet happily engaged to the woman I love. having said that:
The current state of family law in most states provides for grossly biased protections for the female in a marriage contract and are seriously out synch for modern times. Women today have equal earning power in the labor market, equal education opportunities, and equal respect in society. Further, most family units today are of the two income variety.
Now why on earth would a man risk losing half of his assets (or more) versus the female risking nothing in most cases (and in fact stands to gain substantially in the event the marriage was a mistake)?
Callous? Perhaps. Realistic? Yes. The state is too involved in the marriage contract these days to make it an attractive option for young men. This has very little to do with "playing the field", or irresponsibility.
A bit off topic - but not entirely - if you want to learn about life, or just laugh, then go to your local videotek, rent this movie:
The Big Lebowski
and tell 'em Tether sent ya'.
My dad was a single guy in his 30s who hadn't really dated since the end of the Vietnam war...met my mom who was late 20s and hadn't seriously dated ever, got married six months later, and they're coming on their 30th. (First child was born over a year later, to forestall the trolls.)
Possibly this woman is looking in the wrong places? Try going to charity events or the fire fighter's fundraisers...and talk to the guys who are running the place.
Aw Topher, I don't give out my phone number on teh interwebz, I'm afraid, but here's a little ditty for you instead, lol. And some women feel this way too - relationshits are a pain in the ass.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV7bxC0UVMM
Hmmm.
@ tether
re: The Big Lebowski
Two Gentlemen of Lebowski
A Shakespearean rendition of The Big Lebowski.
Hmmmm.
Perhaps the issue:
1. BBD: Bigger Better Deal
Who has to "settle"? Now everyone is looking out for the BBD. *shrug* doesn't bother me because I'm not in the game.
2. Perhaps the solution is to turn towards the ancient Persian custom of having different levels of marriage including term contract marriage.
You can still have the "death do us part" style marriage. But you can also have a "we're married for 5 or 10 years ... and then we'll revisit the issue". The benefit of the latter is that there is an established review and the issues of property division are set prior to marriage.
For my part I'm sick of American women.
I think that many men have picked up on the condescension that some American women have towards them tied in with the entitlements of having a nice lifestyle, a yielder of children-yet with the woman getting what she wants without his needs being met. Like my friend says, "I didn't get married to have 2 children, be a provider, and have no sex with one woman until death do us part'. I am a teacher going back for a law degree, and I find that many women mask their low opinion of men with a desperation to get married. As a family friend who is a marriage therapist/psychologist told me-'Steve get a pre-nup'. What a volume that short quote speaks about what modern 'feminism' hath wrought!?
I'm a 40's single and successful guy with one bad marriage behind me. My kids have wound up choosing me over their mother because she turned into a real piece of work. I own property. I have had a business, sold it, and am semi-retired - IOW, I work a job to keep busy but have plenty of f*ck you money.
I have my retirement pretty much sewn up.
I have my own standards, I've yet to meet the woman who meets them, and they don't include a huge rack and hard body (Though, actually liking sex, WITH A MALE, and having a libido is in the non-negotiables).
Until then, I am perfectly content being single, enjoying the freedom that comes with it, and dating around.
Why aren't I allowed to have standards?
Frisky needs to woman up, and come to terms with the fact that maybe the problem is her - she has been weighed, and measured, and found wanting.
"A Shakespearean rendition of The Big Lebowski."
---
The Dude abides.
As a coda to this discussion as well as asking the question "what the hell is happening to 30-something single women?" I quote this long passage from a commentor at Roissy's website.
Thor
@Höllenhund:
“They also refuse to be judged by their sexual promiscuity and they are angry if men don’t treat them as LTR material because of that. They think it’s ‘unfair’. On the other hand, they want to get an alpha to commit to them by giving them sex and they are sad when they fail. They get married with beta males and then they are angry and resentful when said males fail to dominate and make them wet. And on the top of all this, they want the nanny state to prop them up by DV laws, sexual harassment laws, female-friendly divorce laws, AA, welfare etc.
I think what most women genuinely don’t understand is that they are encouraging exactly the types of male behaviour that a) they find revolting b) are causing social decline:
- alphas pumping and dumping while avoiding commitment
- resentful betas refusing to protect and pedestalize women, basically avoiding any contact with them
- men under-investing in society by refusing to work the hardest they can plus avoiding marriage
They just never connect the dots.”
Sorry about the long quote. I mostly agree but
want to elaborate:
Several issues here. Part of it is “the tragedy of the
commons”. The actions that are good (however measured)
for the individual are not necessarily good for society
as a whole. Depending on the situation, many people,
(both sexes) further their own goals first. No surprise,
we are humans, not saints.
Another thing is the “play at or near your level” dictum,
which applies to male/female relationships as well as to
sports. If you are shooting for LTR/marriage/kids,
failure to be aware of this will likely cause misery.
Think of it as a points system for nubility rating,
be fairly honest, and shoot for people of the
opposite sex who are at ROUGHLY the same
percentile as yourself.
Now, for men, this becomes obvious soon enough,
without painstaking overthought analysis,
women WAY above the man’s level will simply
ignore him (OK, game can RAISE his apparent level
significantly, but it does not change the nature
of the situation.)
Women, however, are allowed to temporarily
play way above their level (but let’s not get ridiculous)
as an ONS/STR/semiLTR. But the “way above level”
is what causes the man NOT to commit, even if he
is in principle willing to settle down in an LTR.
(Meg Ryan in “When Harry met Sally” :
“It is not that he didn’t want to get married,
he just didn’t want to get married to MEEEEEEE!!!”)
After several rounds of ONS/STR/semiLTR, the
woman laments:
“All men are pigs”
“Men just won’t commit”
“He took my best years”
etc.
Babe, play at your level if you want commitment!
And, no, they don’t find this (the super-alpha) type
of male behavior revolting (except the unavoidable
“fail to commit” as per above), nor do they
(or indeed most people, both sexes) have any
idea about what causes social decline, and, mostly,
they wouldn’t care even if they did.
The concept of “free lunch” is endemic and
almost impossible to root out, absent a major
crash/reset/invasion.
Remember when more than half of the electorate
thinks (rightly or wrongly) that their daily bread depends
on government, we will have passed a tipping point
from which it is very hard to recover, except, again,
after a major crash/reset/invasion.
And in France you have riots in the streets at the
long-term prospect of increasing retirement age
from 60 to 62 years of age. And in Greece, people
riot to keep their government subsidies/jobs/etc
at the old level. The concept that this must somehow
be paid for is a very hard sell.
It is all a part of the “entitlement issues” that
are destroying Western societies.
Thor
TO: Topher, et al.
RE: Heh
It is all a part of the “entitlement issues” that
are destroying Western societies. -- Thor, as cited by Topher
I'm reminded of de Tocqueville...
The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money. -- Alexis de Tocqueville, c. 1831
Looks like he was right.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S About that "crash/reset/invasion" business....
....I expect it's going to happen real soon now.
[The Big Rock cometh. -- bumper sticker]
What an informative article. Frisky is cute but she sounds like she fell of the wagon there. One of my girlfriends was the kind of person that in her early 20's would be a nasty person but once she hit 30 it hit her like a ton of bricks. I however don't feel bad for these people and so when I see a girl in her 20's acting pompous I laugh and think how her life will change like night and day as she gets older.
I think the real problem(as if things weren't bad enough) is that its becoming to the point where even women in their 30s are still getting the same attention due to the aging of the population. Then all hell will break loose because even the undesirable women will be unatainable. Its already like this in certain cities like philly and pretty much the whole northeast. Even the beastliest woman can be satisfied in knowing she constantly has male attention. The disease always comes from the big cities and spreads to a smaller ones.
I live in a mid sized city but if I lived in a big city I would be picketing the streets. I am disillusioned with american women and I am ready to move to another country. And since I've already traveled I already know the grass really is greener on the other side. Except for Europe where it is worse than the US.
Where do these women get off criticising men, they honestly think this is OK. If some women took an honest look at themselves perhaps they wouldn't do it! Some women are heartless and ruthless when it comes to what they want - fool around when they're young and when the bio clocks starts to tick it's all change, they've had everything then they want kids and want to sit around all day and when that's not good enough they indulge in their favourite blood sport - criticising their man and when they realise their look are gone they forget they have a personality still and resent men and become bitter. Men are great, it's about time you realised that! As when we've given amazing things to society Full Stop.
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