It’s a nagging crescendo in my ear. Family is saying it, friends are hinting it: When are you going to settle down? Usually the words they use are along the lines of “Is she the one? You should think about sticking it out with this one. Do you want to be alone the rest of your life? Do you think you can play the field forever?”
Yes, I think I can play the field forever.
Why do people balk at those who choose the lifestyle of the love mercenary, of the wanderlust warrior? Envy, mostly. Sincere concern, rarely. These voices — social pressure that sows self-doubt — will influence most men. Very few men have the fortitude to live the life of Oswald Hendryks Cornelius. Marriage, and probable divorce, is in the cards for most men.
Why do men bother to get married? There’s really nothing in it for them. All that marriage offers a man can be had in a loving, long term relationship. So why? These are the best reasons rationalizations I can think of:
- I have to lock her in because the snatch must flow.
As any dead-eyed married man will tell you, the sex is always hottest until that first bite of wedding cake. Sure, marriage might mean fewer extended dry spells, and a more consistent output of pussy, but the quality of that output is going to take a nosedive.
Fact: Once in a secure relationship (and nothing is more secure for a woman than marriage — the law sees to that) a woman’s sex drive plummets. If you like your girl to move around a bit in bed and actually, you know, enjoy getting jackhammered by your beefy breach, marriage will see to it that she reads a trashy romance novel and sighs with boredom while asking “you done yet, honey?” while you huff and puff your way to another anti-climactic climax.
Fact: Women pack on the pounds after getting married. What good is consistent sex if it’s with a hippo? No wonder so many married men sneak away in the middle of the night to jack off to internet porn.
Fact: Your wife’s pussy will always be the same. Yep, one year, five years, ten years — that pussy looking back at you is like an old, very old, friend — that you no longer want to have sex with. Familiarity breeds contempt. When you’ve memorized the length and location of every pube and the droop of labia draggle, you’re going to ache for fresh meat. For men, variety is the spice of life. If older men maintained the libido of their younger selves you’d see extramarital affairs shoot through the roof.
- If I don’t marry her, she’ll leave me. And then I’ll be alone.
There are two things wrong with this reasoning. One, if you don’t have the confidence to score another woman in case of a break-up, then you don’t have the confidence to keep your current girlfriend attracted to you. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Think you’ll be alone, then you will be alone, even when you’re not. Or: Fear is the mindkiller.
Two, marriage is no insurance policy against being unceremoniously dumped. Maybe it was at one time, but not anymore. A woman loses NOTHING that can compare to what you will lose if she decides to divorce you. Worse, in 2009 America there is every incentive in the world for a woman to divorce at the slightest drop in her attraction for her husband. Financial, legal, social, sometimes even sexual. The god of biomechanics does not take a holiday from reality once you slip a ring on your beloved’s finger.
- I might not do better.
Sure, but then you could lament the same thing in non-marital relationships. Look at your LTR. You might not do better. Look at your fling. You might not do better. Look at your fuckbuddy. You might not do better. Look at that old pic of your college sweetheart. You might not do better.
So… how is marriage going to save you from this fear-induced soul searching? It’s not. If anything, marriage is only going to rub your face in your testicular impotence. If your wife thinks you can’t do better, she’ll begin to treat you like women treat every man who can’t do better — shittily. Except now, she’s got the long arm of the marital law on her side, so you don’t even have the option to find out if you can do better without taking a world class ramming up the ass. As bad as dry spells are, they’re even worse when the pussy you used to tap has closed up shop and taunts you nightly from across the bed.
- She’ll stop loving me if I don’t marry her.
Assbackwards. Women don’t stop loving men for any reason except one — he turned beta. What about cheaters? Nope. Talk to women about their most cherished loves. You’ll notice something. Scorned women harbor their deepest love for the men who gutted their hearts. Not marrying her is more likely to have the opposite effect; the more you resist, the stronger her love for you.
Sure, some women do eventually leave men when it becomes clear to them that they aren’t going to propose. But that’s not the same as losing love for those men.
- She’ll never agree to a non-marital long term relationship.
You’d be surprised how quickly women will agree to your terms when you have her gina tingle on lockdown. And if she doesn’t agree? Find yourself a woman who does. The mere threat of leaving her over this issue will often be enough to bring her around to your way of thinking.
- I’ll just get married when I’m older. Late marriages have a lower divorce rate.
The reason younger marriages fail more often than marriages later in life is because younger people in their 20s have more options in the sexual market. Options = instability.
But don’t crow about the benefits of later marriages. For one, older women don’t have as many prime fertile years left in which to bear children. Two, later marriages often feel more like business propositions than ecstatic vows of love. That is not a good thing.
- I’ll live longer as a married man.
Leaving aside that this statistic may be more myth than reality, what benefit is it to you to live a few extra years shuffling along painfully in well-worn slippers and gazing longingly outside windows at youth frolicking with the joy of health and vigor? My take on getting older: It’s immortality or bust.
- It’s the right thing to do.
Right thing? I don’t give a shit. Good man? Fuck you! Go home and play with your pud. You wanna good life — don’t close! You think this is abuse? You think this is abuse, you cocksucker? You can’t take this, how can you take the abuse you get in divorce proceedings?
- It’s good for society.
You’re right, it is. But since when did society give a fuck about you?
- But I really love her.
Did you not really love her before you dropped to one knee?
- I want to have kids.
This might be the only halfway acceptable reason to get married. If you want the best for your kids, raising them in a broken home is not the way to do it. But even here, women have the upper hand. No matter how much you love your kids, if a divorce happens (50% chance, 70+% chance the wife initiates it) you are going to be paying child support for the new lingerie your ex-wife buys to sexually please her blogger lover.
I don’t see how any man could want kids, though. Kids are a complete fun suck. They don’t get enjoyable until ages 11-13, after they’ve evolved from bratty ingrates and before they’ve turned into brooding ingrates. If men would think long and hard about kids, they’d come to the same conclusion I did: Changing diapers or sex in the woods? The choice is clear.
To all those imploring that I settle down, I say: Don’t hold your breath. Yes, I will get older. But then, I would have gotten older in a marriage, too. Yes, there is a risk I could live out my final, rapidly deteriorating years in solitude. But then, marriage is no guarantee of a life lived loved. A signature on a dotted line and a jointly filed tax return does not protect you from living loveless and solitary. There is also the small matter of my inquisitive eye. Even when I love the girl I’m with, it seems that when I’m out I can’t help but admire another beautiful woman in the vicinity, and to desire her in the most intimate manner. I imagine scenarios flirting with her, making her smile and her eyes sparkle, her legs cross and uncross in sublimated autoeroticism. This urge of mine does not have an off switch.
I know that hedonic convergence does not magically manifest in the gleam of a gold ring. Life is a parade of worry and high wire risk, of love and loneliness, and no socially manufactured arrangement exists to insulate you from your dreaded fears. To imagine otherwise is beta.
[crypto-donation-box]
