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Ask Dr. Helen: Single Men in Never-Neverland

2008-02-07
By

Why do today’s men run from commitment – indefinitely delaying settling down in a marriage they take seriously, and having kids? Dr. Helen Smith asks whether they are indeed pampered eternal adolescents more interested in exploding toilets and video games than real life, or if they are simply making a logical choice when “the reward for being an adult in our society is so low, especially for men.”


By Helen Smith

I’ll start out this column with a follow-up to last month’s column on the “47-year old virgin,” I heard back from him about the replies from all of you and this is what he had to say:

I was pleased that there was so much compassion and honest concern voiced by many of the commenters. They brought up many interesting points and in many ways made me feel much less isolated.

He states he will seek professional help and follow up at a later time. Thank you to all who responded and to those who truly seemed to care about helping another reader deal with this complex issue.

Now, I’ll turn to another complex issue from reader Eric who emails about an article by Kay Hymowitz entitled, “Child-Man in the Promised Land,” a rather insulting look at the Peter Pan Syndrome in today’s young men:

Dr. Helen:

Kay Hymowitz obviously spent a lot of time researching this piece on why young men delay marriage. To be honest, some of its themes struck home with me, but there’s one obvious deficiency here that invalidates the entire article. Care to guess what it is?

For all her work, Ms. Hymowitz never talked to an actual man. Sure, she watched the Man Show, read a couple issues of Maxim, read a couple of humor Web sites and quoted plenty of studies on the market potential of video games. And yes, by looking at all of those, I’m sure she could glean some truth about the young American male.

Then again, if I spent a couple of months reading Cosmopolitan and Redbook, catching up on Grey’s Anatomy via the DVD box set, watched the Lifetime Movie Network and re-runs of the Bachelor, I could probably come to some interesting conclusions about American women and write an article about it in a serious tome like City Journal. Unfortunately, I’m guessing nobody would take me seriously unless I actually chose to speak to some real live actual women before coming to any conclusions.

Why does this sort of tripe get taken seriously?

Dear Eric,

Good question. This “tripe” gets taken seriously because the focus is on “why men are bad,” which is the new slogan for the 21st century.

For those of you who don’t know her, Hymowitz is the author of Marriage and Caste in America whose main thesis seems to be that marriage is important to society. I read over her article and was rather appalled at the lack of understanding on the part of Hymowitz as to why men don’t marry. We interviewed her for a podcast on the Glenn and Helen Show and she seemed to be level-headed and understanding–but I guess everyone has their blind spot when it comes to why men don’t toe the line and provide society with what it needs or wants despite little reward and plenty of headache for being a modern day husband and father. Instead, Hymowitz, like so many other writers and naysayers blames men for not marrying because their “default state” is perpetual adolescence:

But this history suggests an uncomfortable fact about the new SYM: he’s immature because he can be. We can argue endlessly about whether “masculinity” is natural or constructed—whether men are innately promiscuous, restless, and slobby, or socialized to be that way—but there’s no denying the lesson of today’s media marketplace: give young men a choice between serious drama on the one hand, and Victoria’s Secret models, battling cyborgs, exploding toilets, and the NFL on the other, and it’s the models, cyborgs, toilets, and football by a mile. For whatever reason, adolescence appears to be the young man’s default state, proving what anthropologists have discovered in cultures everywhere: it is marriage and children that turn boys into men. Now that the SYM can put off family into the hazily distant future, he can—and will—try to stay a child-man……a freewheeling marketplace gives him everything that he needs to settle down in pig’s heaven indefinitely.

Yep, it’s just that freewheeling marketplace or an avoidance of deep attachments or whatever that is keeping men from taking marriage seriously, settling down and having kids. But I don’t think that’s the whole story. What Hymowitz misses is that men are on a marriage strike, not necessarily because they are perpetual adolescents or avoiding deep attachments to others but because the reward for being an adult in our society is so low, especially for men.


It’s really simple Psychology 101 (or Economics 101) — make something negative enough and people will avoid it, make it positive, and more people will engage in that particular behavior.

Nowadays, for many men, the negatives of marriage for men often outweigh the positives. Therefore, they engage in it less often. Not because they are bad, not because they are perpetual adolescents, but because they have weighed the pros and cons of marriage in a rational manner and found the institution to be lacking for them. It’s a sensible choice for some and the video games, magazines, and humor websites that Hymowitz disses are a way to fill one’s time with fun activities that don’t tell you that you suck, are an “unfinished person,” emotionally detached or on your way to jail for fake domestic violence charges. People used to treat men better than this.

Now, Atlas is shrugging and everyone is coming out of the woodwork to explain why. But like reader Eric said, if you want to know why fewer men are getting married, go to the source, go ask some actual men and really listen to what they have to say. You may be surprised to find out how grown-up, adult and rational single young men really are.

***

What’s your take? Do you think today’s single young men are “child-men in the promised land,” or rational adults who are turning to video games and alternative lifestyles because those are more rewarding activities?

If you have a question you would like answered, please leave it below or email me at askdrhelen@hotmail.com. Your questions may be edited for length and clarity. Please note that your first name only or no name at all will be used to identify your question—if you want me to use your name, tell me, otherwise you will be referred to by your first name or as “a reader” etc.

Helen Smith is a psychologist specializing in forensic issues in Knoxville, Tennessee and blogs at drhelen.blogspot.com. This advice column is for educational and entertainment purposes only and does not purport to replace therapy or psychological treatment.

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  • http://www.antipeonage.0catch.com Roger Knight

    At http://www.antipeonage.0catch.com/justicefilesdshseverett.htm
    I have this following the listing for Division of Child Support employee Laurie Sanchez, who has petitioned at least three times for protection orders alleging domestic violence:

    A bit of advice for all you Romeo’s out there. When you find yourself with a lady and it starts to look serious, you might want to scan her name through the Superior Court search engine. And the Name Search.
    If she has a common name you will want to eliminate the Katherine Smiths who are not her.
     When you do that, then you have some background information to consider. A criminal record is not necessarily bad, such persons can learn their lesson and reform.
     Even druggies and alkies can get clean and stay clean. However, a relapse into drug or alcohol addiction can be a wonder to behold! It is truly one of the most amazing things I have ever seen in my life!
    Somewhat surprisingly, not to me but to too many other men, it is a lady’s CIVIL litigation history that raises the red flags. Is she a defendant in a string of collection and commercial cases, unlawful detainers? She ever petition for Chapter 7 bankruptcy when she has a job? Then don’t go with her if you think financial responsibility, spending within your means and BEING CAREFUL with your hard earned money are important to you.
     The real important thing for you to watch out for are the domestic violence petitions.
     Okay.
     No such petitions are no guarantee, there is always a first time.
     One petition, she might have met a Mr. Wrong and she might do just fine with a Mr. Right.
     But THREE petitions? RED FLAG! RED FLAG! RED FLAG!
     If it is with the same guy, all that means is that SHE DOESN’T LEARN A DAMN THING! When men get angry with their women, that is at the top of their list as to why!
     If it is with different guys, hmmm.
     If you are going out with someone with a record like Ms. Sanchez, and you wish to have a happy life with a minimum of problems, and ZERO court problems, RUN!!!!
     Oh yeah, you can say, quite self righteously and with an air of moral superiority:
    “I have never hit a woman in my life and I will NEVER EVER HIT A WOMAN!!!”
     Right.
     Maybe you have never been TESTED. Do you really want to be TESTED?
     Some ladies just have the “knack”.
     Either they have poor taste in boyfriends (and she is going out with you? hmmmm), or they manage to piss them off, or both!
     Do you really want to have a relationship with a lady with a habit of pissing off her significant others?
     Think of all of the “stupid bitch” things she can do that will drive you up a wall!
    You instruct her carefully, assure yourself she understands, to look through the peephole, and if the person is holding a manila envelope or a bunch of papers of the 8.5 by 11 inch variety, DO NOT ANSWER THE DOOR!!!! The “stupid bitch”, after receiving such instructions, will answer the door and accept the papers!
     You are a starting tackle on the best offensive line in football, you win your first playoff game, and you go out to celebrate. What does she do? She embarrasses you and humiliates you in public! You “discuss” this with her in the back alley and the cops haul you off to jail!
     We don’t need this shit!
     And if none of the guys she petitioned against ever hit her, or only raised their voices because they can’t help themselves, then she is a MALICIOUS PERJURER! Or a backstabber! Who needs that?
    Avoid her like the plague.

    Since I posted this type of advice on my website where I list the litigation histories of support enforcers, the Washington Courts Name Search function removed the fifth column listing the type of actions involved, such as criminal non-traffic or civil domestic violence.

    Gee. I wonder why they did that!

  • Zorik

    Marriage these days is not a commitment for the woman because she can divorce him at any time for no reason with few if any repercussions and plenty of benefits (alimoney and child support).

    But for the man it is a commitment because he is the one who becomes her financial slave after the divorce.

    The marriage and divorce laws pander to women, so it’s really women who won’t commit, not men.

  • Luek

    It is so damned stupid to believe that men are not committing to marriage because they are perpetual adolescents obsessed with their own pleasure.

    The REAL reasons men are not committing to marriage is the same as not doing business with an airline which has a well documented crash rate of 50% plus. One would have to be nuts to buy a ticket from that airline!

    Also, men as a social group in Western societies have the same civil rights and legal standing of Russian serfs in the 17th century when it comes to family law and divorce.

    Who in the hell needs that? Not real men!

  • Joi

    It’s really simple Psychology 101 (or Economics 101) — make something negative enough and people will avoid it, make it positive, and more people will engage in that particular behavior.

    Nowadays, for many men, the negatives of marriage for men often outweigh the positives.

    Yep… If I had a dime for every time I heard a man say “the risks are too great.”

  • http://www.decriminalizefatherhood.com DcFather

    It’s really simple Psychology 101 (or Economics 101) — make something negative enough and people will avoid it, make it positive, and more people will engage in that particular behavior.

    True, but the media is still saturated with women-as-victim, and to me it’s the men who buy into it, and are foolish enough to marry or have children in America, who are the ones who refuse to grow up.

    If marriage/divorce were honestly portrayed on a routine basis in the mass media, then far more men would avoid it completely.

    In other words, marriage is made out to be a lot more positive for men and negative for women than it truly is, and it’s that perception, as opposed to reality, that is keeping some men willing to “engage in that particular behavior”.

  • Nick S

    Groovman, you are absolutely right. Women chose to tear up the old social contract between the sexes long ago, but for some reason they still expect men to continue to fulfill their end of the bargain. After decades of women’s liberation, men are now deciding they want some liberation of their own rather than a life of obligation to women.

    Women today demand their own freedom and the right to do as they please, but they don’t want men to have the same freedom. Instead, they believe men should still be obligated to women.

  • fourthwire

    Time and again, men were told that women “were independent”.

    Men who snorted at the ludicrousness of that statement were glared at.

    Men were told that “women don’t NEED men”.

    Men were told that women could do anything, if they weren’t being continuously victimized by the foul patriarchy.

    And so on………..

    Women believed their own press (or at least the words of their self-appointed representatives like Andrea Dworkin and other hard-core men-haters) that they could HAVE IT ALL.

    And many women believed those words.

    They expected to “have it all”, despite the mounting threats and risks to men resulting from their own (women’s) entitlement.

    And now they are discovering the harsh realities that men have increasingly grown wise enough to avoid marriage.

    And the dirty little secret that the feminists did not tell them has come back to haunt women: that men still have a veto vote, effectively to go their own way.

    What women refer to as men’s “eternal adolescence” is simply men refusing to play the sucker’s game by marrying and fathering children, nothing more.

    Take any freetime activity by single women and I guarantee to you that I could make just as good….. or poor a case that those women are enjoying “eternal adolescence” themselves.

    For those American women who still expect men to engage in the risks unique to marriage, sorry, sweetie…. you were lied to….. but hey, at least enjoy the company of your cats.

    You have priced yourself right out of the market.

    You’re the one with the biological bomb built-in, not me. I am not averse to family life in the least bit – fact is that I would love it.

    But watching men:

    - getting financially raped in the so-called family courts,

    - watching men denied visitation rights to the very children that they are forced to support on pain of incarceration,

    - watching paternity fraud enforced on pain of incarceration,

    - watching women so secure in their entitlements that they can pork up, deny their husbands sex, overspend continuously, and still have to do little more than go to a policeman or court and claim to “feel threatened” to have her husband thrown out of his own house with nothing more than the clothing on his back………..

    ……. has put a distinct damper on any foolish intentions of marrying in most Western nations, especially in America.

    And if I DO choose to marry, I will travel to multiple Asian nations and find a woman as mkdn accurately describes: Feminine, Educated, Happy, Appreciative, Beautiful, Sexy.

    I know that his description is accurate because I have lived as an expatriate for several decades, traveling to Japan, Thailand, China, and Vietnam.

    Dr. Helen is correct: “It’s really simple Psychology 101 (or Economics 101) — make something negative enough and people will avoid it, make it positive, and more people will engage in that particular behavior.”

    Women have spent the last 40 years pressing for changes that have turned marriage into a something potentially negative, burdensome, or simple financial slavery and in the cases of William Hetherington and Matthew Winkler, equivalent to loss of freedom or of their own life.

    I didn’t ask for that.

    I don’t like it.

    I cannot change it.

    So like a rigged card game, my best option is to refuse to play the game.

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  • arby2

    I find it interesting that Key H. makes the comment “That adds up to tens of millions more young men blissfully free of mortgages, wives, and child-care bills. ” but doesn’t actually look and read what she has written.

    She herself describes being free of mortgages, wives and childcare as “blissful”. Well, if one could be “blissful” or “divorced with mandatory slavery to support children that you are not allowed to see so that the mother can afford a home you can’t” which choice would you make?

    Ok. Ok. Fair disclosure, I am bitter. But less ridiculously stated, why would any self-respecting, intelligent individual enter into a contract that has a 50% chance of failure, with the understanding that they will likely lose almost their entire contribution to the enterprise to the other party based solely on their gender?

    I have an immediate and complete answer to that question. Children. Men want to be fathers. Most do, anyways. They will enter into these arrangements for this reason. But what does society do to protect the rights of men? This is where the encouragement comes from to enter into all those things that Kay H. talks about.

    However, choice for women, has come at a cost for choice for men. When one now looks at the issues, not only is it a bad transaction, the reward is gone. A man often no longer gets to be a father. The children and access thereof are controlled completely by the other party, and the man is simply a wallet. This is the worst case scenario, but the median scenario isn’t significantly better – ok, the kids don’t hear bad things about either parent, dad contributes money and they hang out for a week-end every couple of weeks. Who can really be a father under these circumstances? Have a meaningful relationship, provide guidance? Forget it. You can try but realistically, you are an “adult friend” with no more influence that your child’s best friend’s older brother. Probably less.

    I will advise my son not to marry or be half-responsible for a pregnancy. I am saddened but it is the only intelligent choice.

  • NotNOW

    Being an adult is supposed to count for something. Otherwise, adulthood becomes a “reductio ad nauseum” of raising the next generation of wage slaves so that they can do the same thing.

    Were anything to happen to my current wife I would not marry again. I am advising my teenage son against it. For men, marriage no longer survives a risk / reward analysis; all risk, little reward. My son owes society nothing, certainly not a lifetime of indentured servitude to a civil law system gone amuck.

    The next generation of men is learning from this one, and I hope they will continue their defining their manhood in terms of what THEY want and need. Men are half the world’s population, yet all aspects of society have become organized in terms of what women and children want and need, leading to the “reductio ad nauseum” I mentioned above.

    Men need a safe and reliable contraceptive like RISUG; men need mandatory DNA testing at birth to establish paternity; men need to kill chivalry, once and for all; men need to totally stop caring about what women want. There is no negotiating from a position of weakness.

    I have many young male acquaintances and all are skeptical of women; they enjoy them well enough, but recognize them for what they are.

  • tommydagun

    Maybe Hymnowitz ought to consider whether this is simply the “new normal”. I get the SocCon hand-wringing moral panic over the latest threat to “families and children” but that really seems like a tempest in a teacup. While she references the mores and expectations of 1965 nuclear families, she ignores, completely, how relatively recent that idealized norm of family life was (basically, it existed for maybe about 30-40 years in the 20th century in the United States) and how evanescent it proved. She also ignores or breezes past the vast underlying social structure of economics and, as has well been pointed out, family law and social expectations.

    So perhaps the 26-year-old single guy playing Xbox, hooking up, renting with friends, reading Maxim and eating fast-food, without much in the way of plans for the picket-fences, 2.6 kids, and settling down is the new model of American manhood. Big deal. There are greater tragedies in this world. People can and should be and do what they want to. If women really want the picket fences picture, they can fight it out amongst eligible men who are willing to provide that and take the concomitant risks and do the work that makes that at attractive option for men.

  • http://thesilentmale.blogspot.com/ SilentMale

    Here is a message for Kay Hymowitz.

    I am a man. No, more than that, I am a real man. I can write computer programs for business applications, drive a forklift, and I wear steel boots to protect me from injury in a dangerous work environment. I earn a very good salary for the work I do and my wife does not have to work at all.

    If the marriage I am in now comes to an end for any reason, I guarantee I will never again enter a marriage contract. It absolutely is not worth it to me. I will discourage my sons from ever getting married. I could hope that in the future this country learns a valuable lesson about equality, but for now, it is not equal and I don’t want my sons to face that risk. As for my daughters, I will make it clear to them that if they get married then they are to always remember that their spouse is a human being and equal because of it.

    Yeah, she could have asked me about why men don’t marry. My answer won’t have anything to do with video games, Maxim magazine, models, NFL, or any other so called adolescent things.

  • amfortas

    Man of any age prefer their own games because they do not like the games women play.

    They don’t like the ‘Blaming’ game; the ‘Shaming’ game; the ‘Mayhem’ game’; the ‘Let’s you and him fight’ game; the ‘Rapo’ game; The ‘Corner’ game: the ‘Courtroom’ game; the ‘Uproar’ game; the ‘Harried Woman’ game; the ‘Figid Woman’ game; the ‘If it weren’t for you’ game; the ‘look how hard I’ve tried’ game; the ‘Sweetheart’ game; the ‘Ain’t it awful’ game; etc etc etc.

    The list of women’s games is huge and most require a captive man. He is pitted against her in every one whether he wants to play with her or not, and often he has to endure the audiences she insist are present to cheer her on – or participate actively in, as in the ‘let’s you and him fight, where he has to play with cops and judges and zozhial verkers.

    Dr Helen, you will have seen most of these games, and others specifically designed to be played in your consulting room, hundreds and hundreds of times.

    Frankly a combat game on the x-box or play station is far and away an easier and more enjoyable option. Heck, he even gets to win once in a while.

  • GVrooman

    Women tore up the social contract between the sexes years ago. Now they are angry at men who believe that liberation is a two-way street. You can’t blame men for not wanting to be bound to an obsolete one sided bargain. Women wanted liberation, now they have it.

  • mdkn1

    Roger is Right On !!!!
    Travel Travel Travel. Asian is the way to go.
    Feminine, Educated, Happy, Appreciative, Beautiful, Sexy.

  • Artfldgr

    i always hated the Peter Pan Syndrome concept…

    i never equated children and irresponsibility…
    the two can quite happily exist apart.

    also, the equivocating child to adult or adult to child because they both may do the same thing. Is saturday night on the town really just grown up dress up for a woman?

    Its not JUST that the bad outweighs the good to the point where sacrifice is not seen as worth it. The laws could almost be as onerous as one wants, if one had a decent and fair partner. And THAT is the key reason at the core.

    there has yet to be any clear discussion of this behavior in full view of each sexes nature (when the decision factors arent being screwed with by state policy).

    One only has to read about women who do not like it when their man does not earn. while there ARE women to which this is not a problem, and or others that keep it out of the issue, the vast majority feel cheated when they dont get the hypergamous signals they want to get.

    this is why they dispair this situation.

    you see, if women loved men the way that men love women (and children), then a woman would be happy to have her husband and support him. JUST LIKE MEN DO. I am married. if my wife chose to sit around and do nothing, what are my options at motivation? i divorce her and end up on the short end? now what happens if i sit around and do nothing? she divorces me, and the state forces me to work, or be bubba jesus will make me his ho and share me for cigs.

    though before the prison thing, men still supported women. gave em enough time to get wrapped up in communist socialism (read pizzy) and create the modern feminist movement.

    the reason that men can support women, and not visa versa is that she needs more resources than she can acquire in order to have children. that might not be 100% true in a modern society, but she and he were not made for a modern society, they adapt to one up to the point they cant.

    he on the other hand, has to be willing to acquire more resources than he can use. its fundemental to his nature on behalf of her. if she depends on him to augment her vegetarian lifestyle, then he has to have more than he needs to have something to provide to her.

    as cave man as it sounds, thats still the majority way everywhere and still womens dream, or else they wouldnt be griping that their potential princes arent coming out of a holding pattern till they let them out. monogamy is a harem limited to one, and whether one or 16,000 one has to be able to have more than what they need themselves to provide. the legal system even reinforces this biological urge, though absurdly.

    men have a drive to get more than they need. they also compliment this drive by not needing much. ask madison ave, they hate the fact that the modern man dont need much (so need to resort to extreme engineered expensiveness to squeeze a bit more out).

    this makes sense no? that if he has to provide, he shouldnt have many interests outside those that can translate to getting more and using less.

    so men like sports… its a ritualized form of combat. no? maybe? in any event the outcomes are enjoyable for them to watch because if these teams were part of their social group, knowing which group was on top would translate to who would have more, get more, and not be dead.

    just as women love to watch the social tupe scenes that would provide them with dirt, or knowlege, and such in critical social scenes that have upwelling and immediate life changing results (for women). all the things she is watching for, is her ‘entertainment’.

    men gravitate to games just as they gravitate to football, but in the game, they can be the player, not imagine they are the player. and they can play over and over in different groups, and die, and have successes just out of sheer numbers. the game is an artificial world, and in that world the guy can gain competency that puts him on the scoreboard (in that world).

    why would that be more fun than real life?

    because in real life he is stuck in a holding pattern while his prospective mates are busy playing around and unwilling to get to the job of life, or the purpose of life, or whatever you want to call it.

    he either converts into the lothario that is at least having fun in the real world (sort of), and if not, whats left to him? nothing he does in the real world will do much. he cant get ahead at school, they are holding him back. he goes to the small business admin, and they want to work with women owned businesses… from the lessons in the news he learns that if he earns someone is going to take it from him. a girl, the state, some liability, whatever bogey man flavor of the month.

    in the other world his body is not overweight… its abilities exceed abilities here, and so he is better there than he is here. he has a crowd of people and they share victories every night. there isnt someone teasing him and so forth.

    the guys actions are just the best response to the girls actions. the girls have an overwhelming play, and so, like the movie war games, the only way to win, is not to play. so naturally we gravitate to that.

    in truth thats the only way to guarantee a win, if you are willing to lose, you can win if you select right.

    ah, but we are back to behaviors. by the time she is interested in him, she is real worldly, and he is just a nice guy… she has been with the best of them and the worst of them and a whole lot more in between.

    the promoted behaviors set the situations at odds, and since the state is so eager to promote it at the behest of people zealously selling it that crow they want family to end, i would say they worked things out in more detail than this quick gloss and figured out what ths shows.

    that the ladies who play this game push large numbers of men into three categories. the successful who are oblivious since their lives havent really changed, the lotarios who now have a kid in a candy store life and will not give that up till they are forced to by circumstance (like the new modern young woman), and the men in holding patterns that see no reason to come out of it since its better than the real world, comfortable, and they have a nice place.

    to this you get someone whose credit is waning from the gate, and who as it wanes compets with the new ones out of the gate (who are now often willing to do things that babalonian whores would refuse – or as one lady in a mag with her claws out said, they aint just prettier, they are dirtier).

    by the time they get the hint that they cant compete any more and the party is ending, the men they would have as mates are set in their ways. you have these men who they are refering as kid men, and you have the guys that they were competing for that dont want them any more (or they can shift to the aging crowd that hangs on to whatever years were the best and can be found at best western hotel bars doing decade reviews).

    the kid men arent kid men. they are men whose needs are small… and the games offer a cheap diversion. which unlike really going out and doing things would ruin how much they could provide. so in a way, the game playing is the same old mating biology game. but since they have nothing to test their limits, working minimally and not buillding anything is what you do. you earn enoung for youreself, your entertainment that keeps you from spending more, and save some… there is no need to push it to earn a fancy car, and more responsibility, a house, and more. for what reason?

    his ancient past was a hunter. hunters dont get to sleep in a bed, and have lots of stuff, and so without her, he usually has much less need for the things that we want when we thing of traditional life.

    so he is just being efficient with the most fulfilling entertainment with the best cost to returns ratio for him.

    belittling him because the technology is also use for games for kids and equating the two is not going to get him to say..

    oh.. your right… i am so juvinile… let me stop this… throw out my beer. kiss my friends goodbye… and get to doing harder work, with less fun hours, to support somone that says they are juvinile. that favors abuse and contempt and looks down and bites a hand they want to feed them.

    nah… they will turn and go back to the game…

    wouldnt you?

  • PolishKnight

    Bolwriter:

    “people” don’t tend to take spouses of similar age to their own. Statistically, it may appear that way because the average age of a man marrying is 26 as compared to 24 for a woman.

    However, the vast majority of those who marry are not anywhere NEAR that age! Most marriages are now 2nd or 3rd marriages up into the 30′s or even 50′s!!! An average age, therefore, is meaningless both in absolute numbers (men 26 and women 24) or relative numbers (2 years difference between men and women)

    Most men can and do marry down in age and quite a range at that. I’m 10 years older than my wife. Some guys are even 20 years older. I honestly don’t know how that balances out. It’s possible, therefore, that there are these 30 year old career women who decide to marry 20 year old hotties they met at starbucks.

    I know a number of couples like this. Hell, I even had a girlfriend who was 20 years my senior when _I_ was 20. She had dated and married a number of younger men. So it’s possible that this skews the statistics as older, sexually aggressive women marry several times…

    Finally, men don’t have a biological or even emotional clock and women do. An unmarried man in his 30′s is primo real estate for prospective women while an unmarried woman in a similar situation is suspect. Men who are successful and strong are desirable while women who are the same way are “independent” and “distant.” I saw this several times where a woman’s success translated into, at best, her being a “challenge.” I get enough of those at WORK thank you very much.

  • roger

    actually – I waited until I was 40 to marry. why? because the women that I had the chance to meet were horrible!! We’d have a couple dates and THEY would suggest we move in together!! Plus, many many were scarred by divorce and emotionally unattractive because of it. As one friend put it, “they hate men”.

    I ended up going over seas and found many many Asian women that were far more attractive due to their femininity and the way they approach men.

    Guys, if you are fed up – try over seas.

  • bolwriter

    This is sensible, but I wonder what the data really show. Are young men really waiting later to marry than in years past? If they are, then young women are too, given that people tend to take spouses of similar age to their own. So why conclude that it’s men who are the perpetual adolescents and not women?







Right.

Man up.

Buy the book now on Amazon.com. Or listen to Ronnie tell a story at escaping-from-reality.com.

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