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I'm also suspicious of single men (after a certain age) because it suggests that there's something flat out wrong with them. Whether it's inability to find a good partner or lack of willingness to keep one, they're doing something that's going to make me trust and respect them less. I don't know that I've met a man in his 30s that is loyal, smart, and likeable that isn't married. The best you're going to get in most cases is two of the above.
That can easily happen if you're like 5'4" and unwilling to be with someone twice your weight. And that is one of the better things that can happen to short guys looking for partners: I've heard stories about short highly driven competent professional dudes winding up with assholes that...let's leave it at felony child abuse. Plenty of little doctors "married to medicine"; it's a euphemism and we all know it. Don't think that they're worse (or much worse) doctors for it.
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You can have someone who's loyal, smart and likeable but not married because he has the wrong mindset to go into online dating and too little sociability to do it the normal way. A note here is that you systematically won't meet this kind of person offline (because they're not meeting anyone; that's why they're still single!), so assuming they don't really exist because you haven't run into any IRL is fallacious.
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I have one friend who is a great guy, quite smart and funny, and quite willing to help out any of his friends at the drop of a hat. Unfortunately, he has the misfortune of not being all that attractive. He's in his early thirties and single, and I don't think there is anything wrong with him. Some guys just have it hard.
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some people can easily find a good partner but don't want to
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I agree. And i think more men in my age cohort need to hear this. I know a number of single men in their 30s. I cant point to any character defects, but I agree that there must be something there.
Maybe you should be looking for character defects in the women of their cohort.
If the men aren't married, but the defect doesn't lie in them, then by process of elimination...
This seems like the Principal Skinner meme brought to life. Sure, there are plenty of defective women as well, but if they all seem defective, that would suggest faulty evaluation. I am confident that there are plenty of high quality, marriageable women on the basis that many women are, in fact, married and stay married. My confidence is further increased by knowing quite a few of them.
I think this line of reasoning does not demonstrate what you think it demonstrates.
If 0% of the men are defective and 60% of the women are insufferably defective, then the 40% non-defective women get married to 40% of the men, leaving 60% of the men who can't find a woman that's not insufferable.
So you'd still get unmarried men despite there being no problem with them.
The sense that I get is that this can't possibly work that way, because women are the ones who define what "defective" means. By definition, 0% of women are defective, and X% of men are defective as determined by the judgments of the women which play out in whether or not one of the women chose to marry the man. I think this underlies most of the discussion on this topic, and trying to reason why those X% of men might have negative character traits is just a long-winded way of trying to avoid recognizing this. Those men are defective, by definition, but for whatever reason, people in our society don't like to think of ourselves as judging people as "defective" based purely on their romantic success, and so we come up with other reasons to justify this judgment that avoids the obvious answer.
What, Newton and Tesla are defective but the average drug dealer (or Scott's Henry) is an outstanding example of humanity? Somebody might be 'defective' until they receive their inheritance, at which point they become a first-class example of manhood?
The opinions of women should not define what it means to be defective as a man. If you define defective to mean purely what women think, then it loses meaning for any other use we might want it for. Women might not like math nerds with small shoulders but there are many applications that need them.
Yes, I think this is the crux of the matter. "Defective," like most words, isn't strictly defined and has loose boundaries. Whether or not opinions of women should define "defective," I think it does define "defective" for a certain common way of defining "defective." This is somewhat different from the way one might use "defective" when describing "Henry" as "defective" and "Tesla" as "not defective," but since they're the same word, I think there's an impulse to take people who are "defective" by the former definition and fit them into the box of the second definition.
Of course, the choice of the term "defective" is also somewhat arbitrary. It's really just a shorthand for a general cluster of negative affect one might attach to someone.
Why can't we just split the meaning between 'sexually attractive', 'prestigious' and 'talented'. The English language is not short of words, we don't have to recycle. Napoleon had immense talent but less skills with women, he got cuckolded by some cavalry lieutenant. I think the axis of sexual attraction is completely unrelated to actual talent, just as charisma is separated from intelligence or strength.
Women often respond to physical attractiveness, prestige and wit. But you can lack all of these things and still be talented. I suppose you might say that the biological purpose of our genes is to reproduce, that's the sole goal. But we have an entire compensation system to address this issue, talented but uncharismatic men are supposed to acquire money so they can mate by bribing women. Our civilization unconsciously recognizes (or used to recognize) that it's useful to reward ugly talent.
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For how long have you been a committed champion of the longhouse?
Sorry, I think this must be a reference to something, but I don't understand it. I had to Google what a longhouse was and, as I had initially guessed, it seems to be a house that is long. But I'm guessing you're referring to something more specific.
This seems to be the definitive article on the subject.
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Longhouse, as you said, is traditional dwelling used by many tribal peoples, independently invented many times because it is highly practical.
"Longhouse" in internet alt right speak means modern degenerate and unmanly society where women and homosexuals rule and real true manly men are oppressed and persecuted.
"I do not want to sit in office all day, I want to loot, rape and pillage like my ancestors did! I want to collect enemy skulls, not funko pops! They do not let me live like real man, this is so unfair :'-(:'-(:'-("
Why they chose this name is unclear. One would imagine that online manly right that sees civilization as fake and gay would see life of Iroquis or Mohawks as the best life ever.
Would "Bronze Pervert" and his ilk advise the Iroquis to leave the longhouse and build tiny huts for each family separated with picket fences? If so, they wouldn't go very far.
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I firmly disagree with both you and @Walterodim. I myself didn't marry until I was 32, but I assure you (patting myself on the back incoming) that I am both loyal and smart. It just so happened that I didn't meet a woman who would give me the time of day until I was in my 30s. Same goes for a good friend of mine. He's a good man in every way that matters, but he's never found a woman to settle down with. He would love to have one, but isn't having any luck with finding them. Same for a guy I grew up with in my church. He married in his 50s, but he's a good man who is very much worthy of respect. He just never met anyone before then.
The problem with the view you both are espousing is that there is a huge factor of luck in dating. You may simply never meet a person who you are attracted to, who is attracted to you, and who is good marriage material. You can tip the scales in various ways, but ultimately it's not in your control. Casting aspersions on someone when they could simply be an unfortunate victim of bad luck isn't a good thing to do, imo. It also kind of comes across as myopic - maybe you had the good fortune to meet someone who you could marry when you were in your 20s, but not everyone else is going to be so lucky and you should be sympathetic rather than judgmental.
agree. i'd only want a significant other who is interested in the things I care about, which obv. limits my options but nothing is worse than no compatibility and dead air. Instead of relationship it would be more like a business partner.
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In support of you, and contra @Rex and @Walterodim: Citing back to my informal survey of Mottizens on the topic* the norm seems to be about 1-3 strong marriage prospects across one's youth. When I think of my own response when thinking of the question, out of the 4 (I'm dropping one in this context), three of them I met under circumstances that were highly luck based and contingent, they could easily not have happened if I were "sick that day" or whatever. I can very easily imagine having gotten to 28 or so having met with only one strong marriage candidate, and failing to bag 1/1 is a pretty tough standard. It's not hard to imagine being in a position where contingent facts leave someone with few, or even no, real opportunities to get married across a lifetime.
On the other hand, in support of Rex and Walter's points, I gave this example to our friend GettingRadicalised before.
Deciding to propose is like deciding to go all-in during a night of poker. You get a good hand, you can judge the situation based on what you see around you and on the hands you've been dealt in the past, and your knowledge of what a good hand looks like. But you can't know what hands you'd be dealt in the future. Maybe if you fold 10-10 now you might get dealt Q-Q next hand! And you can't KNOW what anyone else is holding, you might go all in on A-A and some dipshit who went against you with 9-10 offsuit and got 9-10-2 on the flop beats you.
Going all-in is scary, you never know, you could lose everything. But Kipling tells us (by implication) that if you can't "make one heap of all your winnings, And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss," then you will never be a man. That's what commitment is, going all-in on a gamble, and fearing commitment is thinking that you just want to see one more hand, another hand, one more hand, and maybe you'll get A-A or A-K on suit, then, THEN you'll bet. But if you never commit, if you're never willing to gamble on a good hand, you'll likely-as-not play all night, folding constantly, losing little bets and blinds and antes, and leave the table with your pockets lighter than when you came in.
So at age, let's say 35, you're judging a group of men on marriage choices, it's like judging guys coming out of a little poker tournament. Guys who never really gambled, who just lost small bets folding all night, will say they had weak hands all night. Maybe they really did just get crap pocket cards all night, and the great RNG in the sky was against them, and any second now they'll get the cards and be ready to gamble intelligently. But maybe when you see a guy who never gambled, he got the same hands everyone else did more-or-less, but he was too timid to gamble, always hoping that he'd get an even better hand, not willing to go all-in until he was absolutely mathematically certain he had the nuts at the table. That might not be a guy you judge highly, he needs more courage, more commitment.
And to carry the poker metaphor, you are highly unlikely to highly judge anyone positively if they walk out with their pockets emptied, the result if you go all-in and lose. Now, part of that might be luck, some might have gotten rivered on a great hand; but on a big enough average the ones who go broke probably gambled too aggressively on a bad hand, or folded too often and got themselves behind and had to go all-in on a mediocre hand to try to get back in the game and failed. These are your divorces and your patently-unhappy marriages. Society judges them, I think, more harshly than those never married at all. So you really are taking a social gamble when you get married, it's not all roses after you propose.
TLDR: To summarize all three points, marriage status indicates whether a man knows when to hold-em, when to fold-em, when to walk away, and when to run.
*Shoutout to @ZorbaTHut for making this easy for me to find, it only had two upvotes but a ton of children
Wow, great writeup. I'm in the middle of deciding this very question with my partner - this helped move me more towards committing. I've been waffling/worrying if it's the right choice, but this framing helped me realize it's always going to be a risk. (Almost) Nobody is 100% sure going into marriage it seems.
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And what about those who draw terrible hands all night long - and choose to leave the game? The 5'4" doctor will wind up at best in a relationship with someone who is only using him for his money; at worst he will be a nurse and caretaker to a wife who is in and out of some kind of institution or other. Hospital, jail, rehab - he takes his pick, but if he wants a partner, the only real question is whether he will be treated as a walking ATM, or a nurse and caretaker.
Is it any wonder, then, that the short men I've known are all - with one exception, and he's a neurosurgery resident with enough charisma for a career in politics - have chosen to "focus on their career" or are "too busy to date"?
I have to lay my cards on the table, I'm an elitist: I fundamentally care less about people who truly get terrible hands than I do about others. We should do what we can to mitigate their suffering, but we can't reorient all of society around their problems.
But I have to be honest, I don't see this as all that terrible a hand. Are there no women with similarly unfortunate sets of features? ((I'll admit to being a romantic, I once spent a month in undergrad trying to set up a date between a brilliant but blind friend and a friend with a 10/10 body and a face that was severely burned in an accident. Match made in Heaven!)) Being 5'4" sucks, I'm sure, but so do lots of other things, things that happen to women. Why does his height entitle him to a woman with attributes that are socially valued at a higher level than his own attributes are valued at? What you seem to be saying isn't "He can't find a partner" it's "He can't find the partner he thinks he deserves." And that tradeoff doesn't have to come in terms of morality or stability, it can come in looks! 5'4" makes you ugly, ok, you are ugly; date an ugly girl. That's how life works, has worked for a thousand generations.
All of which would stretch my poker metaphor well past the breaking point.
Ugliness is one thing. Watching your partner eat herself up to 500 pounds and then wind up in a nursing home age 43 after spraining her ankle is another. Or maybe it is a rehab, and drug abuse. 5'4" guys, unless they are genuinely remarkable, are deciding where they want the ambulances if they want partners. Is it better to be alone your whole life, or to be a nurse and caretaker? Is it better for this guy's female counterpart to date a cheating alcoholic, or to be alone? For quite a lot of people, there are no good options - only less bad ones. I suppose it might not be that bad to have to hire home health aides and stuff if your partner's disabled through no fault of her own. I will grant that. Like. There aren't enough physically deformed people out there for the short guys to marry...
I wonder why we do not simply cut the shit and expect unattractive people to be celibate for life. We need like truck drivers and oilfield workers in the middle of nowhere and shit.
I'm not saying "He can't find a partner" but rather "He can't find a partner that is better than being alone": would you rather be alone for life, or a nurse and caretaker? At some point it isn't about just ugliness but straight-up tragedy. Often made all the more terrible by the knowledge that it could absolutely have been prevented.
Perhaps the poker metaphor is dead, but some guys' best option is walking or running. In the bottom few percent...walking away from the poker table unhurt but with empty pockets ain't that bad. Good arguments to be made for these people not being at the table in the first place. Know when to run.
If you got dealt a great hand, you might aim to leave the poker table flush with cash. If you got dealt an average hand, you might expect to break even if you do your part. If you got dealt a bad hand…your goal is simply to leave the table in one piece. Forget about the contents of your pockets. If you’re walking away unhurt, you’ve done well.
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I feel like the poker analogy is working against you here. Try asking around a table how people would feel open jamming TT with half their life savings and years of their life on the line, whilst only getting to play 3-4 sessions (in this case, marriages prospects).
It's a numbers game. No one wants to cash at a specific tournament, or win a specific cash game. They want to come out ahead over all tournaments and games they play. You put your money in good spots and let the law of large numbers take care of the rest. And there'll will always be those unfavored by Fortuna (or Lady Variance, if you prefer), getting it in with AA vs KKs 8 times and losing every time.
If anything, I'd say slot machines are a more apt allegory, a game rigged against you unless you understand their inner workings.
In the poker metaphor I was thinking tournament style poker night, where it's position rather than chips that matter at the end of the night (how we typically played). Because really, if you want to be a man with a trad family, commitment is the only game in town. There is no moneyball solution, you're gonna have to bet big on somebody, at some point.
I mean we can torture it to death and say maybe it's more like MtG because you get to set your deck up even if luck of the draw comes into it.
But at the end of the day, the survival of a nation requires a huge number of men to take what can be a sucker bet. Marriage is one, it might be a foolish bet but if nobody takes it there are no functional children and the country dies. Joining the military is another; you might get hit by artillery fire before you ever even see the enemy up close, but if nobody is willing to take that chance the country dies.
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Well, I did say you could get two out of the three. I remain skeptical of the personal likeability of people that have never attracted a woman that's good marriage material (or their judgment if they just rule out 99% of women in their cohort as unmarriageable). At some point, it's a bit of a tautology and says more about the sort of people that I like than anything else, but I generally don't enjoy the company of men that have zero success with women.
I object to this being "good fortune". Many women are attractive, honest, and would be good wives if given the opportunity. My experience wasn't being sullenly single until I one day lucked into the woman of my dreams. Treating this as a mere product of luck is the kind of thing I'm referring to with regard to likeability.
Of course, none of these claims are absolutes, but they're the tendencies that I've seen around me. The topic of who is to blame when men fail to find partners has been done to death around this community and I have not been persuaded that they're not doing anything wrong.
I fall into the same category but I don't think that this necessarily maps onto whether a man gets married or not. I've known some total losers who had an arranged marriage, and some real winners who fucked a new girl every other week despite not being married.
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The fact that you don't recognize your good fortune doesn't mean it wasn't there. Yeah, some guys don't know how to evaluate women and are overlooking good women. No argument there. But in at least two of the cases I mentioned (me and my friend who's my age, can't speak for my older friend from church), the issue isn't one of rejecting good women. It's a lack of women who are interested. And like I said, you can tip the scales in various ways (e.g. where you hang out, effort put into your personal appearance), there is no such thing as a guaranteed return on those efforts. You can do everything right, and still have no candidates to even reject or accept.
Which is the very heart of my point. In a world where someone doing everything right to try to attract women can still wind up attracting no women, it's not really fair to blame it on a person individually just because they happen to still be single. Lord knows that lots of men need to get a swift kick in the pants and get told to wake up, but definitely not all. And since it's not all, I don't think one should generalize a rule of thumb like you were talking about. Better to (temporarily) think too well of those who don't deserve it than to judge those who don't deserve it, imo.
I’m also not suggesting it’s fair. But I think @walterodim’s opinion is very common.
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