On why some people end up chronically single
This morning a friend of mine told me that her step-daughter had broken up with her boyfriend. She’s 20 years old.
The girl’s reasoning was that while the guy (about her age) seemed like the perfect man to settle down with, she just didn’t feel ready to do that. She also didn’t like his “timeline”, and that it lead to marriage in a year or two, because right now, she wants to “go on adventures”.
She added that she’d be willing to be in a relationship if it was “casual” (my word) and “fun” (her word), but that the kinds of guys at her age who want “casual and fun relationships”, are also the kinds of guys who are only in it to sexually exploit women (I agree).
Yesterday I was chatting with a bunch of people on Discord, and one girl (age 22) was saying that she doesn’t want a “boring” guy (translation: a guy who’s serious about wanting to settle down with her). She wants a guy who makes her feel “strong emotions” (my words), and a guy who “acts a little bit jealous sometimes” (her words), but she acknowledges that such guys would probably be unstable and cause a lot of drama.
I listen to these stories and just shake my head. It makes me realize that before the age of 25 (and even older for some), most people haven’t fully discarded their short-term, narrow-minded attitude towards life and relationships, and it saddens me.
Then I remember that I was also young and foolish once, so I cut them some slack and don’t lecture them (too much).
Side note: In my early 20s, I was the “boring” but “stable” guy whose heart these kinds of girls liked to trifle with.
I foresee that a lot of these young ladies will end up being the single cat moms, single moms, or both, who will be complaining about the “““dating market””” (I hate that term) on TikTok someday.
Maybe there’s something wrong with me, but never in my entire life, even while I was in relationships, and especially now that I’ve been married since 2017 (at the ripe age of 27), have I ever thought that I want to have a period of my youth dedicated to just be by myself and do what I want.
So, naturally, in an effort to try to empathize with these young people, I try to imagine what could possibly lead them to think and feel that way.
I think that in most cases they come from broken homes, where their parents were divorced, abusive towards them, tried to control them, or a combination of these. They felt trapped, so they wanted to escape, to be on their own and do whatever they wanted without being reprimanded for making poor decisions. They also wanted to get into relationships, but only for the “fun” bits, not all the seriousness and fighting that characterized the relationship between their parents. That’s my best guess.
I can relate to wanting to free myself from the clutches of my controlling mother, but I can’t relate to the desire to be alone and to “go on adventures”, much less to have “casual and fun relationships” without a goal such as marriage in mind.
To me, that all seems like a waste of my youth, which is the period of my life where I have the most energy and freedom to pursue meaning, and to prepare for a cozier midlife down the road. If my childhood was the period for digging up the path, then my early 20s would be the period for laying down the asphalt, so that I could drive smoothly on the road to my destiny in my late 30s, 40s, and onward.
Indeed, I think that “going on adventures” might be easier in your late 30s and 40s, once “the birds have left the nest” and you also have the wisdom to know how to take yourself from point A to point B, as far as your goals and aspirations go, but I digress...
Back to relationships.
I think that a majority of young people today fail to realize that if they wait to “settle down” in their late 20s or early 30s, then it’ll be like for them to arrive late at a feast and nibbling on the leftovers.
Yes. The young people who have goals and a plan for life, who will eventually achieve something meaningful, fulfill their dreams, and raise the family that they always wanted to have, may seem “boring”. They don’t engage in risky behavior, don’t “go on adventures”, and have a gasp “““timeline”””.
However, those young people will also snatch each other up, and later in life, especially after you enter your 30s, you’ll be left with a pool of choices that includes people who are single because there’s something deeply wrong with them, and/or divorcees who come with all kinds of baggage.
I’m not saying that you can’t have your cake and eat it too (lest someone sends me a message saying that they “know someone”...). You can wait until you’re older, wiser, more financially stable, and satisfied that you’ve had enough “adventures” and all the “casual and fun” relationships that you wanted, before trying to find the “boring” guy or gal to live happily ever after with.
However, you’re statistically likely to fail, because the “good, boring options” all get snatched up early. That’s just the reality that we live in. I’m sorry to break it to you.
Far from me to tell you what to do with you’re romantic life, but if you’re in your 20s, then my unsolicited advice to you is to do two things: (1) get the education/training necessary for you to have a skill* with which you can find work that you can financially provide for yourself and a family with, and (2) be serious about finding a life partner.
* A real skill, something that people or companies are willing to pay you money for. That might be something that you only mildly tolerate and not exactly your favorite activity. Do the thing you like on your spare time.
Get married. Have kids early. Start a career. In your 20s you’ll have the energy to do all of that at once and not go crazy from the burnout. After you’re 30, you won’t. Once your kids are old enough to fend for themselves, kick them out of the home. Now, likely in your 40s, you will have both the means, the wisdom, and still some energy left to not only go on all the adventures that you want, but to do so with the love of your life by your side, which should also make the relationship go from “boring” to “fun”.