Why do people think it's strange to be single and not married but ok to be divorced?

As someone who has no post-nuptial shutoff problems (my wife and I have no kids and she exercises, which helps alot) I am telling you the research does not support your view. I also married a high testosterone high libidoed partner. Read the passage I posted again.

And, males are "sexual active" in their 70's often through PORN AND MASTURBATION! (say it with me!).

And, of course, if you haven't noticed, men quite often marry younger women, but women very rarely marry younger men. This has to do with MUTUAL sexual selection - women like status, men like looks. Status goes up with age, looks go down. There is just a shit ton of research on this, done by evo-psych researchers in labs, not feminists in coffee klatches with a equalist political bone to pick.

I don't have a theory, I have research. I will again direct you toward Susan Pinker, David Buss, Roy Baumeister, or just carefully read the Time article I posted. Are you familiar with oxytocin? Prolactin? You have an exaggerated sense of the causative power of reason.

Women have their highest sexual interest when they are younger, then it slides, then there is a spike just before menepause, then off the cliff. Men peak as teens, then it goes down some to a manageable but high level (thank god), but stays level a long time.

Are women a big market for porn? Do they cheat as much as men or for the same reasons (again, I refer you to Buss and Meston if you wish to challenge your confirmation bias)?

I don't think you get my point. When women NATURALLY lose their libido for biochemical reasons, their rational brain goes casting around for reasons since the actual causes are hidden from their conscious scrutiny (we all do this about all kinds of things).

It is a fact that having kids statistically lowers your interest in sex. It is a statistical fact that exercise and fitness helps sustain it.

themanontherun wrote:

Women in their 30s and 40s are NOT at their sexual peaks, at least not in terms of evolution. They are MUCH more fertile in their late teens through early thirties.

http://www.avoiceformen.com/2010/08/08/womens-older-sexual-peak-atop-a-pile-of-lies/

Peak fertility doesn't necessarily equal high libido.

In fact, for women, fertility often engenders a disinterest in sex for a variety of reasons- emotional (e.g., fear of pregnancy), physical (e.g., anemia, PMS), environmental (e.g., sleep deprivation due to children).

Men can ensure their mate maintains a high degree of interest in sex by satisfying them both in and out of bed.

You, my friend, still have much to learn about women.

For women, peak fertility may mean only modest libido as they don't need a high libido to get pregnant.

Studies also show that the pre-menopausal spike in libido is related to whether or not the woman already has children, as would be hypothesized from an evolutionary perspective.

Another interesting fact - the "mid-life crisis" of men has to do with their wife's age (and declining fertility), not their own age. Men with much younger wives do not experience this phenomenon (see Satoshi Kanazawa's work).

Another interesting fact - women change their mating preferences when they are ovulating, tending to prefer different qualities associated with genetic fitness rather than associated with provider fitness. They also are FAR more likely to cheat during ovulation.

Another interesting fact is that the Pill changes female mate preferences.

Another interesting fact are the staggering, if unacknowledged, cuckoldrey rates - repeated genetic research has shown that between 8% and 13% of all kids are being raised by a father who wrongly believes himself to be the biological father. This is quite consistent with the idea that women have competing mate needs from an evolutionary point of view - good genes and good provider credentials. Of course, our "reason" providdes excuses for what our unconscious hindbrains urge us to do.

mellon wrote:

You left two out: Smarter and Happier than the 56% that try and fail.

well, probably true compared with those who fail.

I think it's perfectly fine to stay single if that's how your life goes. It's crazy to judge people for that when...as you pointed out...so many marriages are terrible.

however, I don't think you can say you're happy with your choice to stay single until at least your upper 40s when the reality that you're going to die sets in hard. Unless you have a great group of family-like friends, or siblings you're very close with, aging alone would be difficult.

again, though, aging with a bitch of a wife and asshole children would be worse!

Another interesting (and not coincidental) fact is that you are single and sexually frustrated. A change in attitude would be more becoming and may help you find a mate.

I am actually married (have been cohabitating since 1998 and married since 2001) and have sex about 3-4 times per week. My wife is both childfree and athletic (and 39 years old - only 1 year younger than me) and naturally high testosterone, high libido. I am not so stupid, however, to imagine this pleasant scenario is going to continue against the grain of the facts about menopause, though I cross my fingers that high activity levels will prove to be a barrier to the general norm of wall-hitting and declining libido at that time.

Can't contend with the arguments and evidence, so you engage in speculative ad hominem.

You are ascertaining some sort of moralizing where there is none. I am talking about broad population statistics, not what any individual can or should manifest. Women much more broadly report both lower "norms" of sexual interest and more dclination with age beyond the pre-menopausal spike. This doesn't mean any one individual has to manifest according to group statistics.

Cougary sluttiness of the Sex and the City sort is quite easy to explain - status seeking, career-centered women who delay childbirth and marriage have unwittingly status climbed themselves out of their ability to attract mates that would be acceptable to them. Women with good jobs who are decent looking won't settle for men who don't meet their 300 point checklist, which largely entails men who are higher status than they are. But men who are high status don't give a crap about a woman's status (as a high achieving woman is going to be a beadache and wom't be as hot as her 25 year old self no matter what) so the women of the cougar sort are aiming a notch or two higher than their marketability can command. So they compensate by giving it up easier to compete with their higher dating value younger sisters (which they were at one time!), driven forward by their bodies rapidly ticking biological clock.

The iron law of mating marketability - anything that suggests youth and fertility is called "beauty" and is calued by men witht he ability to choose. Anything that suggests wealth and status is called "attractive" by women with the ability to choose. So when women, no matter how good looking "for their age" climb to a certain social status independently, their hypergamous needs can't be satisfied by anyone who would have them, so to play the game with 25 year olds, they have to signal sexual availability (which is just as important as fertility to the male offspring seeking hindbrain).

curious mind.. wrote:

I don't get this. People constantly ask me when am I going to get married but never seem to ask my divorced friends or relatives when they are going to marry again.

Getting back to the original question:

Chances are, people who make these comments are jealous of your single life and wish they weren't stuck in their miserable unhappy married life. If they had a happy marriage, which many do, they wouldn't make a stupid insensitive comment like that knowing that finding the right person isn't always easy. Jumping the gun and settling for the wrong person is.

some crazy runner guy wrote:

I'll be completely honest marriage is just like the prom in HS no one really has that great a time but you are still a loser if you don't go.

I'm starting to think this is true.

Seriously?! If those five things are what you think of people who never got married then perhaps you should stop listening to the peer pressure. I never was very interested in getting married and most women gave me enough of a reason not to ever want to get married. None of them had any money, none of them were very good looking, most of them had dysfunctional families, and frankly most of them had pretty SOUR personalities no matter how hard I tried to charm them. This was through my 30s and now in my late 40s I'm actually kind of happy I didn't get married. I'm not a loser I'm an executive with a large medical university in New York City, I'm not immature I help people wherever I can, self centered is kind of repeating itself as I help people wherever possible, I socialize with many people my age older and younger, and no I'm not gay my penis digs vagina!

Besides who needs a someone who just wants to make kid after kid after kid. Kids are expensive, risky, and with the current population on the planet Earth do we need any more?

curious mind.. wrote:

I don't get this. People constantly ask me when am I going to get married but never seem to ask my divorced friends or relatives when they are going to marry again.

This is coded language for "are you gay?" To the people who feel the need to ask this (those to whom the answer is not obvious) your divorced friends seem likely to be straight.

Honestly I feel like people judge divorced people even more harshly. They just feel more free to say things to single people.

With divorced men you wonder if they were a lazy slob, wife beater, cheater, etc.

With divorced women you tend to imagine a flighty person constantly looking for others to make them happy.

If you got divorced then it is legitimately undeniable that you failed at something.

I think it's the opposite these days at least among wealthy, educated circles. Many couples date for years/decades and don't get married until they are much older (late 40's early 50's) and well established in their careers. When they do get married it's because they have attained many of their goals, traveled, saved money etc. leaving them emotionally and financially ready to commit to marriage. To be honest, the couples I know who married later in life have much healthier relationships unencumbered by the stresses of raising children and the associated financial struggles. As for divorce, well, it signals failure especially if there are children involved.

You must be quite proud of yourself. You are definitely full of yourself.

Trolling forum posts that are over seven years old must be some kind of record.

It takes two to marry, and I doubt that any vagina attached to a sensible woman would want to have a long term relationship with a conceited and self centered person such as yourself.

bixby bannister wrote:

Once you reach a certain age, still single indicates either:

- loser

- immature

- self-centered

- loner

- gay

Well, I suppose by some measures I am a loser, but none of the other possibilities you've listed apply. Yet I had one girlfriend I wanted to marry, but she didn't want to conceive children (she married someone else and they've born no children); another wanted a child by me but didn't want to marry me. Another hid her prior marriage and son from me (she was from a distant country), though I didn't marry her for other reasons.

Reading this thread is kind of depressing. With that said, I was going to challenge tomsapple7 to post a pic. So far sounds like he’s not attacting the right kind of gals.

For those commenting on divorce fems as being washed up—far from the truth. Everyone is different and comes from different situations,

I feel confident and secured within myself. I don’t feel desperate to find a mate and if one comes along and we’re compatible then so be it.

I believe if you don’t force the situation in finding a mate, the right one will come along.

Mick Shrimpton wrote:

Some people think it is a sin not to be married

The Catholic Church explicitly stated (states?) that you must either 1) get married or 2) become a priest/nun. Otherwise you are "living in sin".

Mick, that is false. It is noteworthy that you've supplied no citation for your claim of an "explicit" declaration. Further, St. Francis of Assisi, for example, was neither married nor a priest or nun, yet a he is a canonical saint in the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church recognizes that many people lack competence for marriage, that some never find the right match and that some have other callings.

bixby bannister wrote:

Once you reach a certain age, still single indicates either:

- loser

- immature

- self-centered

- loner

- gay

Late 30s...

- feel like a loser

- very much a loner

- not immature, but not really a grown-up because no real obligations