It’s not that they aren’t interested in monogamous relationships, Hugo Schwyzer argues. It’s that they’re waiting around, in vain, for a sign that she’s ‘the one.’
Last week, Jennifer Doll offered a familiar lament in the pages of the Village Voice: “Dear Single Women of NYC: It’s Not Them, It’s You.” Though her focus is on New York, Doll could have been describing almost any large American city in which the number of single, straight, employed, and emotionally competent men is apparently dwarfed by the number of women who want to meet them.
The “man shortage” is a perennial go-to for articles aimed at women readers; these pieces differ mainly in the degree to which they blame the crisis on women’s ambition, pickiness, or sexual aggressiveness.
Refreshingly, Doll gets that men also desire relationships. She interviews one guy who claims to be looking for marriage:
“I don’t want to be 34 and doing that thing that sketchy New York guys do where they go out and act as though they’re 24. I’ve seen too much of it … It’s a real cautionary tale.” When I told him that was refreshing, he said, “I think most guys feel that way.”
I think we can all agree that guys in their 30s, 40s, and even 50s who behave like overgrown teenagers is not a phenomenon limited to the 212 area code. Middle-class male adolescence is a countrywide phenomenon that can last a quarter-century or more.
Women’s sexual availability often takes the rap for men’s increasingly famous ambivalence about marriage. Pundits offer endless variations on the why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free aphorism. If women would commit to being less sexually available, the argument goes, men would be more willing to commit to marriage.
But that reasoning misses the mark on two counts. First, plenty of women like sex, and not just because it’s so irresistible to men. Second, it doesn’t take into account just how hungry many men are for an enduring relationship. Like the guy whom Doll found so “refreshing,” a lot of men—far more than the stories like hers let on—want more than an endless supply of free milk from new cows.
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Doll’s interviewee is right: most guys do want to grow up. Most of us have winced as we’ve watched men humiliate themselves chasing women who are too young and not interested. What seems cool at 25 is embarrassing at 50. But how do we figure out when the moment is right to “settle down”? Do it too early, and we might be tortured by regret about all the new skin we’re missing. Wait too long, and we’re in danger of becoming the creepy bachelor uncle, the one about whom a niece warns all her girlfriends.
Of course, marriage isn’t for everyone, nor should it be. And being married—or being willing to be married—shouldn’t be the only benchmark for growing up. The marriage rate is falling, and one reason is that more people are finding alternatives that work better for them. But another reason is that too many young people—men especially—have such lofty expectations for marriage (and such fears of divorce) that they set themselves up to never be “ready.”
My dad once told me that the biggest mistake men make is “waiting to be struck by certainty.” Men expect signs. They want a “burning bush” or a billboard on the interstate; they want to hear the voice of God booming, “Marry her!”
Most guys see certainty as the total absence of doubt, and so they keep imagining that settling down is what you do when you’re 100 percent sure about someone. Problem is, it’s damn near impossible to be 100 percent sure about anything. In most ventures in life, we’re 70 percent sure at best. But then again, we don’t expect most ventures to last forever. And so we hedge our bets, we play the field, we wait for the one to come along who will strike us with certainty. And with no biological clock ticking (just the fear of turning into an aging “creeper”), we can spin out that waiting for a very long time.
A friend once told me, “I’ll know I’ve met the one when I don’t want to screw any of her friends, no matter how hot they are.” He would know he’d met his future wife when monogamy would seem effortless. For him, being “struck by certainty” would mean the complete absence of interest in ever having sex with anyone other than his “one.”
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Growing up means letting go of the need for a “burning bush” moment. It means not holding other people hostage to your own indecisiveness and understanding that certainty comes after you make a commitment to something. It’s the result of an action taken, not a prerequisite for taking it.
Again, marriage isn’t for everyone. The willingness to make a commitment is hardly the only proof of maturity. But I’m not concerned here with the men who are certain they never want to marry. The problem is with the ones who very much want to get married but are waiting to be struck by (and keeping everybody else waiting for) that thunderbolt of certainty.
As men grow older, the poet Donald Justice wrote, men should “learn to close softly the doors to rooms they will not be coming back to.” What’s left behind in those rooms? The unlimited options and possibilities we love to contemplate.
The certainty you’re looking for comes only after that door is shut.
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More From Hugo Schwyzer:
Men and the Sexualization of Young Girls
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Why Don’t Men Initiate Divorce?
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Red-Hot Monogamy
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Other Stories From the Good Men Project Magazine:
The Prostitute Who Saved My Relationship
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Are Men Natural-Born Cheaters?
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What Your Marriage Needs to Survive
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Well there are certainly many of us Single Men still hoping to meet a Good Woman to settle down with, but most of the women nowadays aren’t looking for a Relationship anymore.
I find in the Anglo-Saxon culture would find a defect that no Asian culture, women are actually too demanding, they want a perfect man, wealthy, consistent, of the same age, ect … a kind of superman! are actually very childlike and they marry the most out very different from what we actually wanted.
You missed the mark. The reason why so many young men don’t want to get married is because the cards are stacked so heavily against us. We have to court a woman which includes paying for dates and gifts, then paying for an expensive ring, then paying for an expensive wedding and honeymoon, and then *usually* we must serve as the primary breadwinner for the household. This is fine. But after all this we run a very high chance (~60%) that she will “no-fault” divorce us and leave with the kids no matter what we do right. We will be… Read more »
If You Are Having Sex With The Women You Date…….You Will Still End Up Paying Child Support For All Of The Kids You Create By Having Sex With Women You Barely Even Know! I Am Sure That Men Who Are Afraid Of Marriage Are Not Willing To Give Up Sex Ever………..So You Will Still Have To Take Responsibility For Your Actions And Responsibility For A Family. You May Want To Just Be Alone Completely Or Start Dating Men Instead, If You Really Want To Avoid Creating More Responsibility For Yourself By Having Kids With A Woman.
If You Are Having Sex With The Women You Date…….You Will Still End Up Paying Child Support For All Of The Kids You Create By Having Sex With Women You Barely Even Know! I Am Sure That Men Who Are Afraid Of Marriage Are Not Willing To Give Up Sex Ever………..So You Will Still Have To Take Responsibility For Your Actions And Responsibility For A Family. You May Want To Just Be Alone Completely Or Start Dating Men Instead, If You Really Want To Avoid Creating More Responsibility For Yourself By Having Kids With A Woman.
Five Simple Tests to Tell if He’s Ever Going to Settle Down
Read them here at…
http://www.chicagonow.com/male-perspective/2012/01/five-simple-tests-to-tell-if-he%E2%80%99s-ever-going-to-settle-down/
Actually, a lot of the research coming out now is pointing to many men who are willing to settle down – more so at times than women, who are increasingly getting more degrees and are a larger part of the workforce.
So in a way (although I agree with a lot of what you’re saying) this article’s major premise is outdated.
Hugo Schwyzer has absolutely NO authority to pontificate on the subject of “why guys don’t want to get married”. And don’t you believe for one minute, that he doesn’t know what’s happening. He is being willfully obtuse, selling out normal men everywhere, and poisoning the minds of young people with feminist indoctrination. Schwyzer is pissing in the face of the whole male population when he writes this kind of garbage. The MRAs have been explaining for YEARS why men don’t want to get married. All you must do, is listen. It is not at all hard to figure out. So… Read more »
I have never heard of any MRAs nor what they are saying. Care to provide a link?
One apparent assumption in the article that I would like to challenge. Maybe it shows that I’m immature to think this way, but: why is being monogamous and cohabitational the only sign of maturity? Put another way, I don’t think being non-monogamous is necessarily a sign of immaturity, nor is it necessarily a phase to get over so that a person can move to his/her “natural state” of lifetime monogamy. I see many people shacking up and resticting themselves to one partner because they think they’re supposed to or because it will force them to grow up. Some of the… Read more »
Actually, there is, If you had read the article you’d understand why.
Yes, jeffliveshere, any comments that disagree with your feminist world view must be censored. After all, it’s not like you can make a logical argument to counter them.
If you want to know why men will not commit, go visit your local family court.
Spend a few hours watching the faces of the litigants. On every female face you will see vindication and self-righteousness. On every male face you will see despair and humiliation.
Only a crazy man would marry in an environment where his wife will watch “eat, pray, love”, decide to dump him because he is not “exciting” enough, take his children and his dignity, and transform him into a wage slave that has to beg to see his own children.
Pretty simple, eh?
My responses are not showing. I’ll retype this one time.
This brings forth the single, largest fear men have and the Truth Hurts. Good men have been entrapped by this.
“Why Don’t Men Settle Down” Because feminism have destroyed the marriage: “The nuclear family must be destroyed… Whatever its ultimate meaning, the break-up of families now is an objectively revolutionary process.” -Linda Gordon And now that men are refusing to go into this modern meat-grinder called “marriage”, feminists and male-feminists are going nuts trying to shame men into this trap. Marriage in a feminist society is nothing more than indirect-welfare: money passes from the pocket of the man to that of the woman by simply signing this feminist-contract which is marriage. So, as a modern man, an AntiFeminist, i can… Read more »
You should point out that a lot of masturbation is involved in this ‘modern masculinity.’
No worries; these guys are already living in their parents’ basement, getting a woman to consent to sex with them is probably the least of their dilemmas.
There’s nothing “modern” about masturbation and there’s nothing wrong with it either.
I’m a professional and I own my own home by the lake. I have plenty of female friends but I would never let them move in with me. I always have a policy of friends first and fend for yourself.
I moved out when I was 16 and put myself through university, perhaps I’m an anomaly because I don’t like sports, beer, cars or superficial women.
Code green, purple and tan.
http://exposingfeminism.wordpress.com/shaming-tactics/
But you saying “sorry it hurt your fee-fees” isn’t at all a shaming game meant to minimlize the opinion of another adult. Try some self reflection.
Don’t feel the trolls.
Turn about is fair play as they say. Shaming tactics is a staple of feminist debate, refusing to continue to offer reason in response to it is not the same as initiating it.
@Sara
You can feel them if you want to. We aren’t here to judge.
What you’re calling ‘shaming tactics’ sounds alot like ad hominem attacks to me… the problem is that in alot of the cases where alleged ‘feminist shaming tactics’ are used I’ve noticed they’re responses to immature overemotional and unbending attitudes, hateful posts or lack of reasoning. That being sad, most of the people on here seem to be seeking a deeper and fair understanding of the other gender.
I’m not trying to defend ad hominem attacks, but just to remind everyone they tend to stem from frustration…at immature and hateful statements or even trolls.
lmao, I was thinking the same thing.
Really… REALLY? I don’t even know how to respond to you. So what you want is a world where women are relegated to the kitchen and are simply baby machines? Where they can’t vote? Where they aren’t your friend or partner they are simply your possession.
Your conception of feminism is completely misguided.
Anti-Feminist, I’m truly sorry your marriage failed…that can put a chip on anyone’s shoulder. The reasons why it failed is yours alone to know. Marriages have both worked and failed for many centuries for various reasons (ie. adultery, financial issues, abuse etc)…but for you to play the card, “feminists caused ALL OF MY marital problems” is very low and childish. Perhaps some deep reflection is required on your part…I would not doubt that your debasing attitude towards women may have something to do with it? You have put a spotlight on yourself — you’re quite the shining star aren’t you?… Read more »
anit-feminist needs to meditate and work on his mama-issues. textbook dude…textbook.
Levi and Denis – both of those videos where filled with misandry and stereotypes. They don’t even do anything that sincerely helps men! They just feed into those dark places of fear that both men and women can live in. These videos project the same thoughts of hate and contempt toward women that both of you seem to want to fight against when it comes to hate and contempt toward men. Why would you even want to support something like this when you are trying to fight what you think is hateful attitudes toward men? You don’t fight hate with… Read more »
No b*tch or sl*t in the video I posted. It’s not hateful, it’s the truth and the truth hurts.
NAWALT, but a lot are. Sorry it hurt your fee-fees.
“Sorry it hurt your fee-fees.”
Really? Denis, now you’re just acting like a bully.
Yes, he his acting like a bully. Denis – I mixed your name with Levi’s. Go back and read what I addressed to him. That was for you. Your video projected this negitive image of women as being one-deminsional as well as the reason why a man hasn’t accomplished his own dreams. By the way, Your attempt to qualify your comment with “NAWALT”, is thinly guised. No man that believes in the video you posted has a healthy view of women. Further, your last comment about hurting my “fee-fees” is extremely ignorant and condescending. What adult talks like that to… Read more »
It’s a far more fair video than Uncle Tom at GMPM, because it does NOT refer to women as animals.
They are right.
They were esposing beating women. Yes. That is hate.
Good video
Sex Differences: Why Won’t Men Commit?
https://www.youtube.com/user/1menaregood1#p/a/u/1/Va-YTf5Caj8
hxxp://www.menaregood.com
This video is ridiculous / transparent. If you wanted to be a fighter pilot, pro athlete, etc, you would have had to start in on it looong before you got married. It starts off with a broad generalization and makes faulty arguments all over the place. This is one of my major beefs with the MR guys on this site — they whine about generalizations about men, then turn around and use similarly broad generalizations on which to base almost all their arguments. The fact that the acronym NAWALT exists points to how basic / rampant these generalizations are.
Actually the reason men don’t settle down today is quite nicely summed up by this video: http://vimeo.com/19843219
The part you FAILED to mention.
Wow this was nothing but the most ridiculously offensive video…
Funny falling on this post as I just had a marriage argument with my girlfriend this morning (when are we getting married, how many people, when should I start inviting people…) Deep down, I really never cared about getting married. I don’t see the need to get married when I am already committed to the person I am with besides for social reasons (family, religion, etc…) Which by the way, I don’t really care about, but she does :s On top of this, who knows if we’ll be happy 10 years from now, 20 years from now. Why make it… Read more »
For many women who want to get married, marriage is another level of intimacy. I can relate it to sex for men. As a man, you probably want the whole complete sexual experience with your partner. You don’t just want one sexual act for the rest of your life. Picture having a female partner that told you that she is happy to give you oral but she doesn’t want intercourse, or vice versa, she’s happy to have intercourse but she doesn’t want to give you oral. She is putting restrictions on the level of intimacy you could have with her.… Read more »
I wonder what the stats would look like if it were possible to distinguish between “absent” fathers who left the relationship of their own accord, and fathers who are not a presence in their child’s life due to choices/actions of the mother. Do you think it would be statisticaly significant?
According to psychologists Joan Kelly and Judith Wallerstein, 50 percent of mothers “see no value in the father’s continued contact with his children” after divorce (Surviving the Breakup, p. 125). Researcher Sanford Braver notes that “40 percent of mothers reported that they had interfered with the noncustodial father’s visitation on at least one occasion, to punish the ex-spouse (“Frequency of Visitation by Divorced Fathers; Differences in Reports by Fathers and Mothers,” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 1991).” Research recently published by Ohio State University professor Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan and graduate student Elizabeth Cannon indicates the importance of mothers’ actions and decisions in… Read more »
Count my son’s father as among the unwilling. Its a damn shame too, because he could be a good dad if he were actually willing to give it a go. But what can you do? You can’t force involvement. I just tell my son when he asks (with some frequency too) that his father loves him but has made some bad choices. Its a hard thing to try to explain to a 5 year old who just wants to have his dad around.
Wrong. Most men who are not in their kids lives are doing so by choice.
There’s no reliable source for that. It’s just a tourettes like reaction to the cognitive dissonance that was aroused by reading something that contradicted the meta-narrative that “Women=Good, Men=Bad”
“For every loser I’ve screamed at, there have been nice, normal single guys with perfectly acceptable ZIP codes and ages and jobs and habits who never did a thing wrong but for some reason were chucked after the first or second, or maybe even third, date for being boring, predictable, too nice, too normal, not successful enough, or . . . admitted to no one, perhaps not even myself: too available. The scariest of scary words.”
I don’t think that men are the cause of her problems.
While I think this is a great piece, I disagree with one of the principle assumptions it makes. I think that, although society perceives women as ready to to accept the first marriage proposal that comes their way, in truth more women then ever are CHOOSING to wait longer. Women, too, are afraid of pledging to share their life with someone before they are 100% confident. I responded to this piece in depth on Moxy Magazine (http://moxymag.com/2011/02/the-big-risk-%E2%80%93-saying-i-do/) — but basically both parties need to realize that marriage is a risk. And like any risk, there is potential for great rewards… Read more »
This assumes that marriage is the answer to having the monogamous long-term relationship men are striving for. Why does it HAVE to me marriage? For some people there is The One, but for others I think there is More Than One. Studies into the biological side of personalities have shown that now everyone is hard-wired for a ‘settling down’ lifestyle. Some of us need change and evolution in our relationships (romantic, friends, etc) and unless you find someone who you can evolved with and stimulate each other, maybe one person isn’t the answer. Many people realize they “married the wrong… Read more »
Interesting article, and maybe on the mark for some, but not for me. I’m a single male, almost 40, and have wanted to get married and have kids.
“The certainty you’re looking for comes only after that door is shut.”
The certainty I’m looking for is someone who has common interests, values, and aspirations. I simply haven’t found a woman with whom I share these qualities. Hopefully, you’re wanting us to feel some certainty about these.
In my own experience, the question was never one of finding “the one” or love at first sight or meeting Ms. Perfect. To me, when I finally found a woman that I thought I could really committed to, the question was “what if something better comes along?” It took me a few months to come up with the answer: better than what? I am happy, I love her, she loves me, and we are compatible on the key issues that make or break a relationship. Yes, we take a risk to make the commitment. But after more than 21 years… Read more »
That was beautiful Geoff. 🙂
Errrr, that smile face looks a bit sinister but I meant that sincerely. lol
A testimonial to the power of settling. Good for you and your spouse.
Why Don’t Men Settle Down?
Simple answer: They don’t want to.
Why You’re Not Married:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tracy-mcmillan/why-youre-not-married_b_822088.html
That’s a great article. It proves that women know the score but most prefer to ignore it and concentrate on fantasy. Concentrating on a man with character, as the author recommends, has gone out of style but it may make a comeback soon. However, such men are still derided as nice guys, a lower form of life. Since the 1970s, they’ve had difficulty getting a date.
Why don’t men concentrate on women with character?
I don’t want to be part of some guys fantasy harem. None of my girlfriends do either. And most younger women I know have no interest in being financially dependent on a man. I think that might be a generational thing. And honestly, I find younger men (my own age) significantly more attractive than older men. You know, most women are actually attracted to, um, attractiveness, just like men are.
Sure, I can see what you are saying, but I really do think it is something that is becoming less and less relevant, and certainly untrue amongst most of the young women I know. A lot of them are high earners and good savers and simply do not need or want that kind of lifestyle. We don’t secretly want to be taken care of financially. Really. Being dependent on someone financially is incredibly unappealing, and I think it skews the power balance in relationships. From personal experience, I have always supported myself and it is a much more rewarding and… Read more »
I’m inclined to think “the one” has its genesis in the Christian disdain for divorce. The idea of a ‘one and only’ is certainly a bastard child of the goal of marriage solely for personal fulfillment. I strongly suspect that when the generations raised in the aftermath of the sexual revolution are queried, years from now, the ones with solid marraiges did more than their fair share of settling. We’ll hear about how the Romans prized ‘concordia’ in marriage. I guess I should be glad my daughter didn’t suffer from having a 43-year-old father. I suspect the speculation about autism… Read more »
Maybe so, on the autism risk, however it is certainly a viable theory that emotionally unavailable men are not successful reproducing except in relationships with women who do not expect this quality of them. It is harder for these men to marry good women, in other words, or perhaps even to marry at all. So, until they are older and have more money, they cannot attract a mate, and even then, they attract women who are interested in the man’s money & status and either don’t care or can’t see whether he is emotionally available. Also, the emotional unavailability of… Read more »
Sorry, meant to say “whether or not it rises TO THE LEVEL OF a diagnosis of Austism or Aspberger’s, surely plays an environmental role in the development of the child.”
John Badalment’s, “The Modern Dad’s Dilemma” calls the emotional availability of the father “the elephant in the room of child development.”
How is father absence the fault of a woman? I know many men who left/divorced the women they had children with because they wanted their freedom more than they wanted a child. They were all to happy to walk away, pay child support and see their children every so often. Many of them remark that they’re quite happy having different women every night and felt they weren’t capable of making the committment required to raising a child. How is that the fault of the mother? Grant it, not every man is like this, but there are PLENTY of men that… Read more »
@Nikki: The majority of divorces are initiated by women. Women gain the great majority of child custody.
Therefore women are on the whole responsible for father-absence.
Most custody cases end up with shared custody… not sole custody. But it ends up a lot of dads do not even take and make good use of what custody they are awarded.