House of Eratosthenes

Another gem I discovered this morning perusing Cassy’s blog, which she picked up by way of Dr. Melissa Clouthier, was yet another fascinating Dr. Helen advice column. Quoting advice-seeker “Jim” in full:

Dear Dr. Helen,

I am 47 years old, never married (not gay) and have very mixed feeling about the notion of being married someday. I have known — socially — many women in my years, and have found many of them striking and engaging, strictly from a character point of view. Yes, many were attractive physically, but that is neither here nor there. I hold the state of marriage in very high regard and have two parents who held high standards to thank for that. But I am not attracted to the thought of being married. I am not against it at all (sometimes I daydream about it); it is just not a priority in my life and much as I would welcome a spectacular woman into my life, I don’t believe it to be very likely.

Here’s my question: Why do so many women find single men to be a social cancer? I am forever surrounded by married women who look at me like I’m a freak who needs to be “bagged and tagged.” What is it about single men that makes married women (never men!) interrogate us as to our continued bachelorhood and seeming refusal to “settle down?”

I will confess to you that most women scare the crap out of me. Sir Compton MacKenzie knew what he was talking about when he said, “Women do not find it difficult nowadays to behave like men, but they often find it extremely difficult to behave like gentlemen.” The female of the species is deadlier than the male. Hell hath no fury…you get the idea.

I know I am not a male chauvinist pig. My mother made an effort to bring me up right. I have known several women, personally, who held position of power and did so with genuine class and integrity. My father made the effort to marry a woman who was, to say the least, not common.

But I am somehow not attracted to being in an intimate relationship with a member of a group of people (here comes the Freudian slip!) who seem to regard me as an accessory. Most women I know want children, but not a husband. They merely see a husband as an accessory, like a GPS, to make having a family a lot less burdensome. I have known too many women who so ulcerate in their desire to validate their uterus that they marry morons who ruin their lives. But I digress.

What is it about being married that makes women find single men so intolerable? You may make of this what you like, but I know I am not alone in my feelings. I would welcome the chance to know how you and your readership feel about the topic.

Some of the comments on this that piqued my curiosity and interest:

Dr. Helen replied,

The first reason is that the sight of a happy single man might be an inspiration to their husbands, for if their husbands are friends with single men, they might get fed some ideas. Let’s say that a husband is kept on a short leash by his wife, but every once in a while the guy gets a reprieve to go hang out with his buddies. The single men who are happy are a shining example of what the husband is missing.

I think that’s probably the low-hanging fruit. It’s obvious there is something to it, or at the very least, the married woman probably doesn’t have the single guy’s happiness in mind when she proclaims he must be bagged-n-tagged…never mind all the babbling bromides she might dish out to the contrary.

Dr. Helen continues:

In addition, the single man has the ability to be out dating all kinds of women and she may fear that he will fill her husband’s head full of fantasies that she feels she cannot live up to. Her husband could wonder what it is like to be free like his buddy and dating a variety of women.

This is slightly different from the first reason, and maybe it’s a stronger motive. A happily married guy isn’t going to look at his single buddy with his free-and-easy single lifestyle, nobody asking him to take the garbage out, drink out of the milk carton, etc. and say to himself “gee, I wish I could live that way.” But when the single guy starts dating the married guy might have some real feelings of wonder about the road not taken. Gals treat guys much better before marriage; it’s just a fact. At least, maybe not so much before marriage, but before that “are you going to go out in that?” moment. When he stops being a wild stallion to be reigned in, and starts being a lap dog to be scolded. Women treat us nicer before that point than they do afterward; and a guy who is enduring the aftermath, looking at another guy who hasn’t reached it yet and is still being treated with greater measures of compromise, respect, and that old feeling of camaraderie, is going to have some wistful feelings about it. Guys who protest otherwise are simply liars.

Dr. Helen has a final suggestion:

Finally, the single man might look like he is having too much damn fun. If other men see this as a possibility — that a single life is a good one — they might not need women so desperately and women who count on sexuality as power over men won’t have as much to work with: if men don’t care if they have a woman or not, they can’t be controlled and/or manipulated as well.

Back when I was single, I found there was a magic formula. Basically, you will slip on through a bunch of good looking women, none of them bothering to give you the time of day, if:

1. You erred too far on the side of demonstrated harmlessness, failing to show talent, strength, assertiveness or ability;
2. You erred too far the other way, behaving too independently, like nobody would ever tame you — and if she did, it would be so much trouble you weren’t really worth the effort.

If a single guy can strike a balance between those two, showing both ability and flexibility within the first fifteen seconds after meeting a lady — the sky is the limit. In other words, women have an instinct, a drive, to meet the wild beast and tame him. You see it in fairy tales. You see it when you aren’t single anymore…the lady is fascinated with what you can do well, but she is just a bit more fascinated with what’s missing out of your life. Not on speaking terms with your family, your car is really old, have a tax bill you can’t pay and haven’t been hooked up with the professional who can help you through a jam like that. Women tend to be enthused about getting hold of that jigsaw puzzle that’s missing a piece or two, and then filling it in. If it’s a complete set they’re less interested, and I imagine this is a predilection that goes all the way back to caveman days. Not so much evolution, and not really a desire to manipulate — it’s just that we all like to be needed.

Dr. Clouthier’s ideas have to do with the woman’s reckoning of what the aging single guy is doing there…and they came blossoming forward in bullet form:

The single men who reach a certain age, seem to get there for different reasons.
1. Socially awkward, inability to deal with women (and/or men), possibly late bloomer
2. Divorced, widowed and not wanting a relationship
3. Divorced, widowed and desire companionship
4. Player–just like playing the field, morphed from stud into kinda pathetic, eternal juvenile
5. Busy guy who just never made time for relationships and finds himself older and single and hasn’t made it a priority

I have to say, if this is really what’s motivating the married women who look down with disdain on the single guys, I find it somewhat…sexist.

Is Dr. Condoleezza Rice socially awkward, unable to deal with men, a late bloomer, divorced, widowed, a player, super-duper-busy? Maybe she is the last of those…a year from now she won’t be Secretary of State anymore, and I doubt she’s going to be coupling-up with someone. Granted, single middle-aged women do face a stigma of their own — it is different from the burden borne by single men — but not greater. From where I sit, it seems people have an uncomfortable reaction, then at some point say to themselves “well that’s what they used to call a ‘spinster,’ and I guess I’m over it.” There’s some speculation about sexual preference on both sides, toward the single woman as well as the single man. But the nagging stops in the girl department. Guys are at the receiving end of a bit more pushing, a bit more rude greetings at social events, a bit more matchmaking, a bit more…anything that has to do with manipulation. The subject of “Jim’s” letter. Being a broken thing that should be fixed. The spinsters can just go on their merry ways, but the bachelors, as the lady said, “need to be bagged and tagged.” And the socially-awkward thing — once the single girl has demonstrated that doesn’t apply to her, nobody ever mentions it again.

Hello, Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte. Haven’t heard of anyone calling you “socially awkward” lately…and I don’t think I will…

Yes, there is James Bond. I concede that point. And like Carrie, Samantha et al, James Bond is a fictional character. One that can be emulated, to some extent. But here’s my point: A single guy who really does try to emulate the single life of James Bond, as Cassy has pointed out, is almost the dictionary definition of the word “creepy.” Not so with the free-wheeling bachelorette who picks up her cues from the Sex in the City girls. She, quite to the contrary…is trendy.

It’s got to do with that thing called “choice.” You hear “woman” and “choice” in the same sentence, and it is the eight hundred pound gorilla. Can’t be questioned. When women choose to be single, it’s a choice…and too many of the folks who shape our social mores and customs, don’t see choice as a responsibility, burden, or recognize any obligation for people to make wise ones. They just see it as a privilege. The obligation, to them, is on everybody else to “respect the choice.” So we’ve entered an age wherein single women aren’t weird, in fact you have to serve some time or pay a penalty if you dare to advance the notion that they may be (even if one among them has given you cause to think so) — but the bachelor has some ‘splaining to do, as Jim has learned.

Cassy has something to add:

When women look at a man who is in his forties or fifties, a lot of things automatically go through their minds. To us, it shows a lot of issues and not very many positives. It may be a personal choice, but women are immediately going to start asking questions. Why is it that this man is unwilling to settle down and commit to someone? When you’re talking about a single man, it isn’t just about marriage. In today’s society, long-term committed relationships are just as readily accepted as marriages are. So it isn’t even necessarily a question of marriage, but of what is this guy’s problem that he’s unwilling and/or unable to commit to a woman? To women, it indicates a lot of problems: immaturity, avoidance of responsibility, fear of commitment.

I think, here, Cassy’s somewhat missed the point of Jim’s letter. Everything Cassy has said, might very well be true in this case and that one, but what is the practical point of violating these rules of etiquette to point it out right to his face? To say nothing of — if this was the motivation, “needs to be bagged and tagged” would imply some other maiden, happily single at the moment, would then be saddled with this bundle of problems. Could women really have so much hostility for each other, that they would push their single counterparts into marriages with guys who fear commitment? That must be the ultimate walking-death on the female side of the gender divide, being married to a fella who doesn’t understand what marriage is.

I think Cassy has hit on what causes the revulsion. If that’s the case, it isn’t logical or rational, because there are so many other bits of human chaffe who would hit the “needs to be fixed” pile at a much higher level than the single bachelor. Just for starters, there’s the starry-eyed schoolgirl who gets hitched up to the classmate who is so much fun to be around, and then after they graduate from the twelfth grade they’re up to their armpits in dirty dishes and diapers and there’s no money to do anything because her stud isn’t reliable enough to hang onto a job. The married ladies, who one would think would have so much to teach her, choose to fixate instead on — the 47-year-old single guy. Why is that? They think he’s more likely to “come around” than the schoolgirl is to admit she’s about to make a mistake, and back out of it? Or is Dr. Helen on to something there?

Cassy continues:

The man who wrote the letter to Dr. Helen sounds to me like he just got seriously burned sometime in his life, and is keeping women at an arm’s length to protect himself (avoidance + fear of commitment = single 47-year-old). These quotes say it all:

I will confess to you that most women scare the crap out of me.

…

But I am somehow not attracted to being in an intimate relationship with a member of a group of people (here comes the Freudian slip!) who seem to regard me as an accessory. Most women I know want children, but not a husband. They merely see a husband as an accessory, like a GPS, to make having a family a lot less burdensome. I have known too many women who so ulcerate in their desire to validate their uterus that they marry morons who ruin their lives. But I digress.

I personally think that’s a large part of the reason that many of these older men stay single: at some point in their lives, they were hurt, and badly, by some stupid bitch and have not been able to let those feelings go. So they keep all romantic interaction with women at surface level only, and tell themselves that they just don’t want to get married.

Having gone through this, I think Cassy’s on to something. But since my own divorce sixteen years ago, I must say I have been consistently shocked at society’s expectation for men to “get over it.”

It is significant, personal, financial damage. You aren’t supposed to get over it. You’re supposed to learn from it.

And for what comes next, I do not want to single out Cassy. She’s not guilty. But it has to be asked — all this passion to “make” the burned men “get over it” so they’ll become more available and flexible for the next generation of marriagable gals who need a supply of male stock from which to select…why does that passion seem to so rarely be channeled into rage and scorn directed toward women who aspire to exploit, humiliate, and generally screw over the men?

Condescension for the man who trusted too much, and is determined to learn from his mistake.

Scolding for the middle-aged bachelor who is determined not to make the mistake in the first place.

But nothing save for sympathetic chortling for the brittle bitch who brags about her two metric tons of cocktail dresses and fifty shoes, showing their husbands who’s boss by hogging all the closet space. Hey look, closet space is a pretty harmless issue. Lack of closet space, I can deal with. It’s the goddamn attitude problem that goes with it that men can’t handle. The closet space issue is just metaphorical.

And when the attitude problem is widespread and growing among countless millions, like dandelion seeds on a spring day, it has an effect on us. We marry later, or not at all. Once it becomes a ritual by which men are ordered to hand over money to women — not to help raise our kids, not to honor commitments we personally made to them, but simply to salve the guilty consciences of total strangers — it becomes an arrangement into which only the fools rush in. And, men being what they are, when society orders us to do foolish things in order to comply, we’re a little bit more sluggish to heed the call than the fairer sex. Some of us are going to be complete hold-outs.

And if marriage is destined to become more centrally focused on settling past scores on behalf of women who imagine their sisterhood to be slighted by perceived wrongs…and less focused on productive things like starting stable households, giving children a good start, dealing responsibly with creditors, etc….there will be more complete hold-outs. The average age of first-time grooms is going to go higher and higher, and women will encounter more resistance in persuading them to “settle down.” The social-stigma method of overcoming this, the scolding, the nagging, the tut-tutting, is going to become more and more flaccid and futile. Men will stay single, until the perceived benefits outweigh the perceived risks. That is simply the way intelligent people behave.

Maybe the time has come to ask why marriage is looked upon as so risky, from the male point of view. The risk of humiliation, the risk of being addressed by your kids by your first name, the divorcing, the ritual legalized theft, the legal fees, the bashing of the credit score, the ostracism in all walks of life. Trust me on this, gals: We aren’t just making it up.

And don’t call me jaded. There are guys out there who are much, much worse.

Single & happy since 1992 and not looking for a wife.

Luckily I could give a rat’s ass what anyone thinks.
- tim | 07/16/2008 @ 12:28
Yes, the “fear of commitment” line is quite funny, now that they have brought back debtors prison for “deadbeat” dads. I’m never going to be in a place where I am held hostage until the people who love me pony up the money to pay my debt. It would be an act of bad faith.
- Robert Mitchell Jr. | 07/16/2008 @ 12:31
The differences in the perception of older never married men versus women is wholly contingent on who is doing the perceiving.

A man ignores another man in that position, because they are not a threat. A man will look at an older never married woman as either datable or not, and proceed accordingly. Not caring is very high on men’s ToDo lists, women not so much.

A woman looking at an older, never married man will do what makes her happy: discover the status, fix him up with a girlfriend, or fix the dude directly. A woman will look at an older never married woman as someone to compete against, and will likely prop up that woman’s broken status, for their own personal benefit. Very Machiavellian.
- wch | 07/16/2008 @ 12:46
To be fair about it, our side does have this saying about single women —

“Sexy, single, sane; you may have two.”

I didn’t mention it because it is so seldom acted-upon. The li’l head doing the work of the big, and all that.
- mkfreeberg | 07/16/2008 @ 12:54

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