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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About Hugo Schwyzer
“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 only encourage men not to marry. If you do, most likely you’ll end up miserable without home, money, and with a nasty ex-wife that will use Daddy-State to enforce your oppression via monthly alimony to be paid to your ex jailer. Also, if you have kids, you’ll lose them, and your wife will use them to emotionally blackmail you into giving her more money.
The fact of the matter is that a man must ask himself what is the purpose of “marriage” in a feminist society. The answer is: indirect welfare, giving men’s money to women. You have nothing to gain from marriage in this feminist society, and you have everything to lose.
Also, i want to say another thing: this “good men project” is being lauded by Ms Magazine. Ms Magazine is that feminist outlet that has been founded by feminist and CIA agent Gloria Steinem.
Obviously the feminists are seeing that men are waking up, and they’re running for cover, trying to build a “better looking jail”.
Dont fall in that trap. Dont marry, live your life, be free, and dont let these agents of feminist oppression tell you that if you dont marry “you’re not a man”, that if you dont accept those sick, repelling, obnoxious things that are the women in a feminist society you have no “bright masculinity”. Your masculinity is definied by yourself only, not by some ex-cia agent or some self-hating “man” (any male-feminist is a self-hating man).
Avoid marriage, stay free, live strong.
Thats modern masculinity.
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? (sarcasm)
anit-feminist needs to meditate and work on his mama-issues. textbook dude…textbook.
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.
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.
Actually, there is, If you had read the article you’d understand why.
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 most childish people I know are people who have been married for years. Though this doesn’t happen as much as in earlier generations maybe, there are still people who get married as a primary goal as a way to solve all their problems, which strikes me as being a very irresponsible, immature approach.
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 again, that is why I say that Hugo Schwyzer and people like him are being willfully obtuse: they are pretending not to get it. But deep in their guts they know perfectly well what is really happening. And they are cashing in, building their parasitical careers at the expense of truth, upon a foundation of human misery. At the same time, they are helping to multiply that misery — stashing more and more psychopolitical gunpowder and petrol in the societal basement, toward a catastrophic explosion that cannot fail to occur sooner or later. Yes, truth has a funny way of working it way to the surface eventually. . .
People like Schwyzer are self-loathing because they are loathsome. And deep in their guts they know this. But they project their self-loathing onto normal men, and try to suck as many of them into into the feminist ideological shithole as they possibly can. Misery loves company, and let me tell you, they are bound to get their wish because things are bound to get miserable as hell in the future.
Hugo Schwyzer ought to be deeply ashamed for writing this article, but knowing him, I know that he is morally incapable of it.
I have never heard of any MRAs nor what they are saying. Care to provide a link?
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.
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/
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 left alone and financially ruined paying child support for kids that we rarely get to see.
As a young man who has seen this happen to countless older men, I’ll continue to date women but will never sign the death-sentence that marriage has become. And for what it’s worth, labelling men like me with a “fear of committment” is just a sad and ignorant attempt to shame us into marriage.
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.
There is in reality no lack of men who are willing to “settle down”, in a very extreme and serious understanding of that expression. The problem is that not many women are equal to the level of discipline that such “commitment” requires.
So, chalk it up to women’s “fear of commitment.”
We live in frivolous times, and that spawns frivolous people, frivolous expectations, and frivolous standards all around. No wonder things fall apart.
WHAT????? There is MOST DEFINATELY A LACK Of Men Who Are Willing To Settle Down!!! You Must Be Either Blind, Crazy Or Just Plain In Denial About What’s Really Goin On! Men Are Bastards Who Have Been Ruining The Lives Of Women And Children For Centuries!!!!!!!