How Sorry Do We Feel for the Lonesome Single Bachelors of New York? by T. Moore (never married men in their 40s talk about being tired of being single)

How Sorry Do We Feel for the Lonesome Single Bachelors of New York? by T. Moore (never married men in their 40s talk about being tired of being single)

I am not surprised to see some of these 40 something men, who have never married, pine for a 20 something women – some claiming it’s so they can “start families.”

Hey, sexist, ageist entitled never-married male buffoons: women in their 30s and 40s menstruate and can have babies too, if that’s your thing. See the links below on this page under “Related Posts” for more on that.

But I’d also have to point out that many 20 something women have no desire to marry men over five to ten years their senior. Most women are grossed out by dudes who are ten or more years their senior “hitting on them.”

I’m in my 40s and have no desire to marry or date a 60 something or 70 something dude, yet sometimes, these jokers contact me on dating sites, in spite of the fact my age cap cuts off after about 6 or 7 years my age.

(Link): How Sorry Do We Feel for the Lonesome Single Bachelors of New York? by T. Moore (never married men in their 40s talk about being tired of being single)

• (Related link):  More Proof that 40 is the new 30, and Even Men are Doing Life Wrong. Or Something. 
• (Related link): Claim:   A woman over age 40 has a better chance of being killed by a terrorist than of getting married.  Status: False

Excerpts:

• It’s not a trick question: There’s a piece in the New York Times about aging single men in their 30s and 40s who are finally ready to settle down, but bummed that it takes actual effort and stuff.
• What shall we do here? A round of sympathy drinks? Or a heartless, sarcastic boo-hoo?
• First, let’s get to know the men (Link): in the piece:

• Scott Slattery, 35-year-old communications and marketing consultant

  Slattery wants to be a dad but realizes old age is encroaching. “I still want to take care of [my kids] through their entire lives, so I don’t want to be old.”

• There are more: Paul Gollash, the 40-year-old who realized in his late thirties that he was “fed up with being single” and so he suddenly had to hit up all the sorts of places he’d never have gone before to do the dreaded mingling, like cocktail parties and work events.

• Or Alan Yang, the co-creator of the Aziz Ansari Netflix show Master of None who admitted that it wasn’t until his sister had a baby that it struck him that he might want a family of his own.

• Or there’s 44-year-old Paul Morris, who doesn’t want kids, but doesn’t want to be single forever, either. He was out at a bar at 9 p.m. on a Sunday night—trying to be “out there,” and wondering if this was what 44 really looks like.

• ….So, truth be told, it’s easy to mock these guys—careerists out working hard, having fun, seemingly oblivious to the notion that time ticks along for everyone.
• It’s, yes, amusing to see men grappling mid-life with an insight that was tucked into an invisible pamphlet issued at birth to every woman I know. It read: Better lock something down before it’s too late and your looks are all dried up. Women have spent decades fighting this cultural notion of a female expiration date, only to find out that men have one too?

On Being Circumstantially Childless by A. Pearson

On Being Circumstantially Childless by A. Pearson

I never cared if I had children or not. What perturbs me about being childless (or childfree) is how women such as myself are treated as, or assumed to be, selfish, losers, failures, etc. This is also true of churches and Christians.

I’ve read of never married, childless women talk of walking into churches and treated rudely because they do not have children. I’ve had similar experiences in churches. Being childless isn’t bad… what’s bad is how people tend to treat you like a freak once they find out.

Men, by the way, very seldom get the same harassment over being childless as women do – not the same amount and not the same kind. Men seldom get hounded or pestered over if they have kids, or why do they not have them or don’t want any, etc.

(Link): On Being Circumstantially Childless by A. Pearson

Excerpts

• They expected to have babies but found themselves at the end of their natural fertility without having done so. Perhaps it was due to prioritising work, study or travel. Maybe it was due to not having met someone they wanted to have children with.
• Whatever the case, the impact of “unintended” or “circumstantial” childlessness on women’s lives needs to be more widely acknowledged, University of Canterbury researcher Dr Lois Tonkin says.

  “They are in the unusual position of being neither voluntarily childless nor involuntarily childless …  an unexpected consequence of other choices,” she says.

• A GRIEF LIKE MOURNING

  Tonkin, who has a background in counselling, has written a thesis on the subject for a PhD in sociology, examining the experiences of 26 New Zealand women in their 30s and 40s who expected to have children but found themselves at the end of their natural fertility without having done so.

  “Circumstantially childless women very often grieve for the loss of the opportunity to become a mother and for some this grief is likened to the death of someone close,” she says.

  “My study participants often said they felt misunderstood, judged, unacknowledged, ignored and isolated by others around them. Many talked about feeling like a failure.”