Singlehood
It is a mistake to think many generalizations can be made about singlehood vs marriage. Each case is unique and often not the personal choice we think. Each person starts with a certain level of physical attractiveness and a unique personality. In a free society you don't really choose your mate. It starts with your level of attractiveness. Every high school student knows who the choice physical specimens are in the class. If you are not one of them then a certain pool of candidates to be your mate is off limits. That is just the way it is. The further down the totem pole you are on physical attractiveness the least desirable are your choices. Then comes personality attributes. This is more difficult than physical attractiveness because it takes a relationship to judge that, not just observation from a distance as in physical attractiveness. Then add to that the age at which all this takes place and you have the well known adolescent awkwardness at any relationship at all. For most people, not exactly magnets of attraction for either their attractiveness or personality, this whole process is a mixture of agony and fun. Then add sex and now the ultimate complexity to the whole affair has been added.
When we are surprised half of marriages don't last we are being naive. It is more amazing that half the marriages last and frankly, probably half of those that last are more marriages of conveniences than any strong bond of love---no matter how you define love. You know what you have, dread the prospect of starting the mating game over again, fear what is left, worry about your relationship with your kids in a separation, are unsure you have enough romanticism left to succeed getting a new mate, and the financial consequences are scary. SO, the marriage stays intact, in some fashion, of some sort, with varying degrees of independence within the marriage and limited levels of romance or maybe no romance at all.
I suspect that ideally most everyone wants to be married, if for no other reason than to avoid being lonely and fit more easily into the social structure of society. Today social pressure is less, in part due to less real social interaction, gays are less pressured to conform to social pressures, more people balk at the financial costs of supporting a family, and electronic gadgets become more and more a 'mate' by default---the ones we spend the most time with, the ones which most easily adjust to our mood of the moment, the ones that never judge us, and the ones which leave us free to be ourselves. In fact a high percentage of couples today met on the internet. This probably is more effective than the old days of bar hopping or church socials. Let's face it, the old days of 'Youth Fellowship' was more the old fashioned 'dating game' than any religious experience.
Today, there are as many single person households in the U.S. as there are married couples with children. I like to tease my married friends that after the next election instead of a marriage deduction there is going to be a marriage tax. A little haha. Single people and married people really don't mix all that well with a few exceptions. It is just the nature of the two beasts. Most all the social ceremonies and celebrations of various sorts are about married life. A single person could go through their whole life and never have any social celebration that is directed at them. There are engagement parties, marriage celebrations, baby showers, anniversaries, graduations, surprise birthday parties, etc. For just one marriage these celebrations are endless. And all are a good thing, keep some zest in the marriage. But for a single person to support all this requires an absolute endless life of gift buying, celebration attendances, endless travel expenses, and card sending. I have known many a single person to spend their entire social life in support of these married life celebrations. After decades of this maybe these good hearted single persons need some sort of celebration to celebrate their support of all these celebrations.
Thus, by default, a single person has to kind of decide just how much time and money and energy they are going to spend in social celebrations of the lives of others. Some single people thrive on it, others try to keep it reasonable, others like myself sort of just opt to stay away from it. I guess I kind of feel each person needs a life of their own, which includes supporting others, and it just boils down to who these others to support are going to be. If you are married you know where this support begins---with your own family. If you are single it starts with your own personality, your own interests, and your own occupational situation. The support for others, at least in my case, becomes directed at those others who are an integral part of my life. These others become, in effect, the family of a single person. For example, a single teacher who comes in contact daily with the same young people over a period of time, is far closer to them than distant nephews and nieces and cousins etc. There is an old saying that "God's gives us our relatives, thank God we can choose our friends." Since I was young it seems many family units have become incestually stunted. Adolescence used to be a period when the young sort of rebelled against parental domination and once graduated from high school, unless going to college and living at home during vacation periods, it was considered embarrassing to still be living at home with parents. Today, for various reasons, plenty of young people continue to live with their parents seemingly ad infinitum. Worse, parents and child become 'best friends', some sort of incestuous social enclave. The apron strings are never broken. Marriage becomes less likely and God help the mate who finds himself/herself an appendage to this primary bonding to a parent. I don't know if it is bad but it certainly sets such a family apart from interacting with others outside family. Some sort of family values taken to the extreme. It certainly changes the nature of society.
But this treatise is about being single, a subject of which I should be an expert but am not. To be married or to be single does not bestow any expertise on any marriage or any singlehood except that of your own. Therein lies the problem. If one understands their own marriage or singlehood, for example, it becomes easy to judge other marriages or other singlehoods on the basis of your own. We then become intolerant of marriages or singlehoods which differ from our own. If marriage, religion, sex, and dying are not personal, nothing is personal. Unless someone's behavior in any of these areas directly impacts on the welfare of others, I don't reckon anyone, or any group, should deem it their prerogative to control the behavior of others in any of these areas. It takes a certain selfish arrogance to judge others in areas of life so personal. My judgement in these areas is simple: whatever works for others is ok with me. There are more and more people single today in this country than ever before. It does seem odd, with the internet making it easier and easier for people with similar likes and dislikes to meet, that the number of those living together as a couple is going down. Just seems odd. Maybe the ease in which you can find others to relate to on the internet defeats monogamous relationships, and increases the likelihood of divorce. Chat rooms may be more mischievous than thought. Sex, pornography, and nudity were secretive and difficult to gain ready access when I was young. Good Heavens, today you could find the most absurd sexual practices all over the internet,---it is a gigantic business, and can be up in your face just a mouse click away. For the average person, not built like the performers on the internet or no longer young, going from the internet into the bed room becomes an image shock, not to mention the type of sexual activity involved. In the end, whether in the age of my youth or the age of now, sex ends up a big perplexing adieu about nothing EXCEPT---for those too addicted or turned on, it is NO LITTLE THING. It destroys many a marital relationship and many people most critical of the disloyalty involved are often less guilty only by virtue of less temptation. Only those with the same opportunities as Tiger Woods can really be judge and jury, just as bravery on any battlefield can be judged only by those who have ever been on a battlefield. When two people have a relationship, logic dictates that only those two answer to that relationship. The rest of us ought not be be involved.
I started this musing with the idea I would have a lot to say about being single. But now I realize I really don't. My own singlehood has little, if any, bearing on other singlehoods both in reason for it, or any aspects of it. What is, is; what works, works; what anyone's marriage or non marriage status means in the total scheme of life on this planet is certainly an immeasurably small anything---not even a blip on the evolutionary scheme. In terms of feeling important life is really deflating. What we do have, and that is about the extent of it, is the chance to achieve a degree of contentment, a degree of relative success given the cards dealt, and a hope that maybe there is some sort of existence after death. Without this hope, for all that we do, or envision in our future, we would be deprived of the pleasures available to us. It often seems that life is a process of learning more and more until you understand more and more about less and less.
"A million million spermatozoa
And among that billion minus one.
Might have chanced to be,
Shakespeare, another Newton, a new Donne,
But the one was Me." Aldous Huxley
