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A record-high share of 40-year-olds in the U.S. have never been married

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131–140 of 226 posts

Re: A record-high share of 40-year-olds in the U.S. have never been married

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is almost entirely in your head. Just to be clear, I'm not saying to interrupt someone mid-run or talk to someone focused with ear-buds in. If someone is leaving the gym, you can say 'hey got a sec?', If they answer 'no', that is their answer. (Also, people who put makeup and tight pants on for the gym, are looking to be hit on. The people trying to be ignored, will put 0 effort into their appearance and will ha…

"Also, people who put makeup and tight pants on for the gym, are looking to be hit on" This is very ignorant, and dangerously similar to saying people that are raped were asking for it because of the way they are dressed. Not at that level but very much victim blaming. So if someone does not want to be hit on they should do their best to look unattractive and unappealing otherwise they are asking for it? They should…

This is incredibly ignorant bud. Hope you are just white knight virtue signaling for upvotes.

There might be a few people that put make up on and never leave the house, but that is a minority. People wear makeup so they look good for other people.

Nope, people can't just act 'normal' and be avoided. Normal people have conversations.

Anyway, remember its that you can't have a conversation. The rest of the world has no problem.

You've built up having a 5 minute conversation to thinking you are a telemarketer.

Re: A record-high share of 40-year-olds in the U.S. have never been married

#132
post #95

I think a lot of men are starting to do the cost benefit analysis of marriage. If everything goes well you can buy a lovely house in the suburbs, raise 2.5 kids, grow old together with your wife and live happily ever after. If it goes wrong she takes your kids and half your assets immediately, followed by several years of child support and possibly alimony.

I mean, you don't marry someone that is going to do that, right?

It's not like you have a coin flip chance at a happy life or an unhappy divorce. You can influence the odds here. In fact, you can really stack the deck in your favor, so to speak.

Sure, people lie and people change, but it's not like you have to get married after a certain amount of time. You can wait to see what the person is like at their worst and then decide. Yeah, it's a 2 way street and you have to work with their timetable too. But no one is forcing you to just jump into a marriage blindly.

Re: A record-high share of 40-year-olds in the U.S. have never been married

#133
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, what you're saying is that people marry for economic reasons rather than romantic? And when the romantic partnership fails, should people stay together in the economic partnership because they can't afford to split up? That's effectively what we've been doing for the past few decades. And the result is as shown in TFA: a generation of adults who will avoid marriage like the plague, because they've seen how toxic…

Or alternatively, economic conditions are so much better than before that those who would marry for that no longer need to.

From TFA: "Black 40-year-olds were much more likely to have never married than Hispanic, White and Asian 40-year-olds."

My understanding is that economic conditions for Blacks are not significantly better than those of Whites and Asians, and are probably somewhat worse.

Which suggests your hypothesis is not backed by data.

Re: A record-high share of 40-year-olds in the U.S. have never been married

#134

maybe the burden of marriage is just too high to be that perfect husband or wife we’ve all decided to strive to be better, but all we’ve accomplished is to become alone

Good one I heard:

Marriage is not a capstone, it's a cornerstone

Meaning that you build a life together. You don't 'have it all figured out' and then cap that off with a wedding to someone from central casting, riding off into the sunset. You struggle together and make something with someone else. That's a vulnerable place to be, at the whims of another, and that's why marriage is not just a 'super-duper-friendship'.

Re: A record-high share of 40-year-olds in the U.S. have never been married

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source? I can envision a decent proportion of men, at least myself and a few I know, who would find it preferable to have a redundant source of income in the household. Even if a woman ends up becoming a non income earning partner temporarily or permanently, having one who is capable of earning more can be a desirable trait for multiple reasons.

Source? No man I know, friends, relatives, aquaintences has ever given the income of a woman as a reason for marrying them. The primary reason has been looks or personality. Some of them have got married because of family. Never once have I encounterd anyone giving their future partners earning potential as a reason. It might be common in the group of people you mix with but not for me.

Contrary to popular opinion - physical attractiveness and intelligence are highly correlated: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01602...

Higher IQs are correlated with higher incomes, too: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/02/230208125113.h...

Anecdata source of one - but most of my friends from college who could've ended up with many many women ended up with women that had super rich parents, and most of the women that everyone was crazy about ended up with men with rich parents.

None of them claim to have married for money - but from the outside - the odds seem to be that at least some of them probably did.

Re: A record-high share of 40-year-olds in the U.S. have never been married

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Men dont really care about the income of their partner, they're more interested in physical attributes. Maybe women have set much higher standards and the majority of men dont meet those standards. Maybe men just dont want to get married?

Source? I can envision a decent proportion of men, at least myself and a few I know, who would find it preferable to have a redundant source of income in the household. Even if a woman ends up becoming a non income earning partner temporarily or permanently, having one who is capable of earning more can be a desirable trait for multiple reasons.

> Source?

Men. You know any?

> I can envision a decent proportion of men

You can envision it? Anyone can envision anything.

> at least myself and a few I know, who would find it preferable to have a redundant source of income in the household.

"Myself and a few I know"? Are you a man? Then you should know. What's with the awkward response?

> having one who is capable of earning more can be a desirable trait for multiple reasons.

As the OP stated, men are attracted by youth, beauty and physical traits. Women put more focus on money and status. Men are biologically programmed to want women they can breed with. Women are biologically programmed to want men who can provide for them and their offspring. It's why women want men who are taller than them and also who make more money than them.

Sure, it would be nice for a woman to have youth/beauty and money. But given a choice of a woman with youth/beauty + no money and no youth/beauty + money, most guys would choose youth/beauty + no money. I don't remember a single time anyone ever wondered about "how much a woman makes" when it comes to dating.

If you are a man, ask yourself, would you rather have an old ugly female doctor or a young attractive homeless woman. If you are a man, your lived experience should be source enough.

Re: A record-high share of 40-year-olds in the U.S. have never been married

#138

There are a variety of reasons this is happening. Most of which are political suicide to bring up. Se lets all enjoy the descent into a 3rd world state. If you wanna actually find yourself in a relationship, do what I did and travel to other countries. Contrary to the mainstream narrative perpetuated by american propaganda, most women outside america aren't "poor and uneducated and looking for a passport."

> If you wanna actually find yourself in a relationship, do what I did and travel to other countries.

A lot of being single is tied pervasive poverty. For folks living paycheck to paycheck, how might they get to another country and then support themselves there?

Re: A record-high share of 40-year-olds in the U.S. have never been married

#139

What a shame. I know I got lucky with a great wife. Going to share my story, I'm sorry how it comes off. If I was better at writing, I'm sure I could sound humble or something. I also did not censor anything controversial, I hope this can give my single people in their 30s and 40s some ideas. Although admittedly the dating market was different. On growing as a person: My wife really liked one of the homework assignme…

"with only 2 deal breakers(overweight[self control] or bought Apple products[intelligence])."

For me, it was tabs vs. spaces. I mean, come on.

Re: A record-high share of 40-year-olds in the U.S. have never been married

#140
post #130
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are economic conditions better now than they were a decade or two ago?

Well 20 years ago was the dot com crash that wiped out an incredible amount of economic activity in the US. 2013 was still suffering from the after effects of the great recession that caused massive unemployment and a incredible increase in suffering. How are current economic conditions worse than two of the greatest crashes in US history? YoY inflation is drastically slowing and unemployment is at record lows. The e…

> How are current economic conditions worse than two of the greatest crashes in US history?

I'll present most of FL as an example. During those crashes, one could still subsist on 2 typical incomes. FF to today and basic expenses have skyrocketed; it takes 4 typical incomes to live tight. Worse is that expenses are still climbing fast.

The economy may be spectacular for some folks but it pales against the expenses faced by most folks.

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