Why Staying Single Is A Positive Choice For Men

All too often on men’s websites and in Twitter debates the positive case for men foregoing marriage and remaining single is drowned out by a bunch of nonsensical garbage and deliberate ‘straw man’ fabrication. In fact, staying single and concentrating on more important things is a positive choice for men.

Whenever the topic is discussed, a cohort of ‘pro-marriage’ (or at least, pro-monogamous-long-term-relationship) enthusiasts come to the fore. Often, these people are motivated by an agenda such as having a relationship counselling business, or simply because they are married themselves and are thus heavily invested in the personal choice they have made.

In addition, you also have those who want to ‘Save Western Civilisation™’ at the expense of individual liberties.

The difficultly that all of these groups face is arguing with statistics which consistently show that around 50% of marriages fail, with a much higher rate of failure in traditional, conservative countries like Russia. And let’s not even get into rates of infidelity.

Presumably, were long-term monogamy (and marriage) an innate and ‘natural’ preference for human beings then these figures would be infinitesimal, rather than startlingly high.

As such, what advocates for monogamy and marriage (hereafter referred to as M&M) must do is propagate a false depiction of the bachelor (or playboy) lifestyle as being desperately sad and empty, contrasting this with the full, joyous and meaningful life of M&M.

While there is nothing particularly surprising or inventive about this approach (which comes, after all, straight out of the authoritarian propaganda playbook) it is surprisingly effective, even as it misrepresents bachelor life and M&M life, which, as we know from countless stories of failed marriages, can itself be desperately sad and empty.

The Wounded Man-Boy™

M&M enthusiasts frequently coalesce around around a nonsensical caricature of the bachelor playboy, which nonetheless has some traction: the ‘wounded man-boy™’.

In this imagining of bachelor playboy life, the single man, having been horribly hurt (having suffered ‘trauma™’) as a result of negative past experiences either in his childhood, or with women who have rejected him, is now an ’emotional cripple™’ unable to relate to women or to sustain long-term relationships.

Instead, the wounded man boy™ lives a shallow, meaningless existence, pumping and dumping ‘thots™’ that he meets in clubs, using pre-prepared lines he learned from the internet, experiencing no intimacy (itself a loaded term), having sex with people he barely knows while dying inside, and eating soup in his underpants in his mother’s dank basement at the age of 45.

In contrast, the M&M proponent sits at home with his loving wife and brood of conveniently well-behaved children in his warm, well-appointed house, leaning back in lazy satisfaction, pulling contemplatively on his impressive beard, perhaps smoking a cigar. He has a wonderful, regular sex life with a woman he deeply loves and who deeply loves him back. He has won at the game of life, and nothing can ever go wrong, ever.

Propaganda

You don’t need to be Geobbels to realise that this is propaganda, pure and simple. It is a fictive portrayal of two lifestyles so  ludicrously inaccurate and unbalanced that it would be rejected by the scriptwriters of a Latin telenovela. And yet guys lap it up.

Well, who wants to be the first guy, when you can be happy, like the second dude?

But as with all propaganda, it is not merely misleading, it is dangerous as well. For by presenting M&M as the natural and obviously more attractive choice, it encourages impressionable young men to enter M&M relationships that they might well have been better off staying out of.

By the way, it’s worth pointing out that the Wounded Man-Boy™ meme is nothing new—it is a feminine characterisation of bachelors that has been around for decades (remember ‘Peter Pan syndrome’). It is not a little amusing that this rhetorical toolkit has been co-opted by supposedly ‘alpha’ men on the right in furtherance of their ‘Save Western Civilisation™’ cause.

The Reality Of Bachelor v. M&M Life

As with pretty much everything, when we get past the stereotypes, reality is somewhere in the middle. As most sensible people are fully aware, not every marriage is a cradle of conjugal bliss—quite the opposite in fact. And not every bachelor playboy is a sad, desperate wreak necking Cialis in anticipation of his next short-lived bang.

In fact, in many cases staying single can be a positive choice for men.

The Positive Case For The Bachelor Playboy Life

First, let’s be real: men crave sexual variety. (Yes, women do too, to some extent, but that’s for another article). And that being the case, M&M means that even the lowest sex-drive dude has to make a compromise when he puts a ring on it.

Sadly, the truth is that many men fall in love and get married without ever really addressing the question of whether they will  be happy having sex with just this one woman for the next forty or fifty years. The likelihood is that if given a truth serum they would admit that—if the opportunity arose and they could never get caught—they would cheat on their wives.

Some men enter marriage consciously expecting to cheat at some point, even if ‘only’ with a prostitute. Others don’t think about it consciously but end up doing it anyway. Other guys don’t cheat (or are unable to, at least) but end up living glum lives of desperation rather more acute than that attributed to the bachelor.

Yes, there are solutions to all of this. A man could enter into a polygamous marriage, or he could have some accommodation with his wife where he’s allowed the occasional ‘indiscretion’.

But it’s far easier (and often more honest) for a man to stay single, not get married, and to have an ongoing series of mini-relationships instead.

Another thing is that marriage and family life)brings with it a whole bunch of crap that most men, if they are honest (again), don’t really want to deal with. And when you see the look of death in the married dude’s eyes as he’s dragged around IKEA by his wife you will know exactly what I mean.

For me, as a creative person, IKEA can go to hell. I want to write—I don’t particularly care about having a beautiful home, or buying pushchairs, or wallpapering the spare room, or gardening, or any of those things. And marriage—which is predicated on domesticity—demands that at least part of one’s time is sacrificed to them.

Which leads us on to . . .

Your Mission™

Whatever side of the bachelor playboy v. M&M debate they are on, most guys agree that you should have a mission™ that is more important to you than your relationships with women. I have used the ironic ™ sign here as this is such an overplayed meme, but it is one I absolutely agree with: you should have a mission. In fact, it is essential.

But many men pay lip service to the ‘mission’ idea and then get married, which dilutes their ability to dedicate themselves wholeheartedly to the things they actually want to do.

Now, before you start quoting famous figures who are married and have also achieved great things in culture, business or science, remember that those people are outliers. Yes, Donald Trump is married. But how many Donald Trumps are there in the world, and how many fat fuck married guys who said they were going to build a huge business but then got hitched, were pulled into the drudgery and domestication and abandoned their dreams in the process?

There is a famous quote by the writer Cyril Connolly: ‘There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall.’

He means that domestication naturally gets in the way of  artistry—of one’s mission.

Well, he has a point, doesn’t he?

You see, relationships are about compromise. We all admit that, even the pro-M&M guys. But that compromise is almost always at the expense of one’s mission.

This is the main reason I split with my ex girlfriend. We were living together for a while (yes, this wounded man-boy™ has actually lived with a woman!) There were various issues underlying the split, but what really drove me crazy was the fact that my writing—my mission, my dream—was always and unquestionably in the firing line at the expense of the relationship.

Well sorry, but fuck that. As I said to my ex at the time, I only have one go on this planet. That being the case, why should I be expected to put anything in front of my ambition: either a girlfriend, a job, an apartment, or even a child?

Either your mission™ is important to you or it is not. If it is important you should be prepared to sacrifice everything for it . . . even if doing so doesn’t make you ‘happy’.

This is what amuses me about the M&M advocates—they talk a good game about being ‘alpha’ and pursuing your mission. But the very next minute they are pushing marriage, and by extension domesticity: pushchairs in the hall, nappies, painting the ceiling in the kitchen, choosing fabric for the sofa. All that bollocks.

For me, all of these things are in another galaxy from my mission which is not (despite what some people might think) having anonymous sex with ‘club thots™’ but rather, sitting alone in a room at the keyboard working on the craft of writing.

Would I have more time or less time to do that in a marriage or LTR?

I’ll leave you to do the maths.

Yes, there are exceptions. Yes, there are compromises to be made. Yes, some women will support a driven writer or artist or businessman more than others. But overall, it is the single man who has complete autonomy. It is the single man who can work all day and all night if he chooses. It is the single man who can book a month in a foreign country for focussed work without having to check in with anyone. The married guy, or the guy in the serious LTR simply doesn’t have those options.

And this—the ability to work single-mindedly on one’s mission—coupled with the fact that most men, if they’re honest, don’t really want monogamy at all, but a variety of different women, means that staying single is a positive choice for many men.

That it is the right choice for many men.

Yes, we all need affection, and we all need sex. That is why learning game is so important. If you approach consistently then you can easily find girls with whom to have mini-relationships, or who are happy to meet up for sex on the regular without much commitment.

In the meantime, you have all the freedom in the world to pursue what is, in the end, far more important—your life’s work.

And before we get started with the ‘lonely old man’ nonsense, I know plenty of guys in their 40s, 50s, 60s and beyond who are quite happily single and who are enjoying free and productive lives.

The pro M&M propaganda is loud, pervasive, but ultimately misguided. If you seriously believe that M&M is unproblematically the ‘right’ life path, then, quite frankly, you are a moron.

At the same time, I don’t make the claim that the bachelor / playboy life is perfect, either. But if forced to choose, being honest about your sexual desires, and if your mission really is as important to you as you claim, then it’s clear which is the better, more positive option for a many guys.

To find out more about the challenges of modern dating for men read this. 

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