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Are unmarried men taken seriously in business and life?
I listened to Charles Haywood’s latest essay on entrepreneurship and he bluntly suggested that single men are not taken seriously in business. This is something I’ve long suspected, but rarely heard articulated. The only other time I can think of hearing this in media is Alec Baldwins character in The Departed saying something to the effect that you need to be married to: “let your bosses know your not a fag and that at least one woman can tolerate you”.
It seems completely obvious to me and was a source of anxiety for many years. I married in my mid 30s. It’s also completely antithetical to the dominant narrative and I reckon you’d find countless news and opinion articles arguing the opposite.
I also wonder how kids factor into this. I recall reading an analysis of honor culture and the three Ps: provide, protect, and procreate. I don’t have enough background to fully explain this theory but the just of it is that in order to be a man that is fully accepted in a honor culture, you must be competent to excel in one or multiple Ps. I suspect that this is linked to my original question and that having a wife and kids demonstrates competence in all of these dimensions.
I'm also suspicious of single men (after a certain age) because it suggests that there's something flat out wrong with them. Whether it's inability to find a good partner or lack of willingness to keep one, they're doing something that's going to make me trust and respect them less. I don't know that I've met a man in his 30s that is loyal, smart, and likeable that isn't married. The best you're going to get in most cases is two of the above.
I agree. And i think more men in my age cohort need to hear this. I know a number of single men in their 30s. I cant point to any character defects, but I agree that there must be something there.
I firmly disagree with both you and @Walterodim. I myself didn't marry until I was 32, but I assure you (patting myself on the back incoming) that I am both loyal and smart. It just so happened that I didn't meet a woman who would give me the time of day until I was in my 30s. Same goes for a good friend of mine. He's a good man in every way that matters, but he's never found a woman to settle down with. He would love to have one, but isn't having any luck with finding them. Same for a guy I grew up with in my church. He married in his 50s, but he's a good man who is very much worthy of respect. He just never met anyone before then.
The problem with the view you both are espousing is that there is a huge factor of luck in dating. You may simply never meet a person who you are attracted to, who is attracted to you, and who is good marriage material. You can tip the scales in various ways, but ultimately it's not in your control. Casting aspersions on someone when they could simply be an unfortunate victim of bad luck isn't a good thing to do, imo. It also kind of comes across as myopic - maybe you had the good fortune to meet someone who you could marry when you were in your 20s, but not everyone else is going to be so lucky and you should be sympathetic rather than judgmental.
Well, I did say you could get two out of the three. I remain skeptical of the personal likeability of people that have never attracted a woman that's good marriage material (or their judgment if they just rule out 99% of women in their cohort as unmarriageable). At some point, it's a bit of a tautology and says more about the sort of people that I like than anything else, but I generally don't enjoy the company of men that have zero success with women.
I object to this being "good fortune". Many women are attractive, honest, and would be good wives if given the opportunity. My experience wasn't being sullenly single until I one day lucked into the woman of my dreams. Treating this as a mere product of luck is the kind of thing I'm referring to with regard to likeability.
Of course, none of these claims are absolutes, but they're the tendencies that I've seen around me. The topic of who is to blame when men fail to find partners has been done to death around this community and I have not been persuaded that they're not doing anything wrong.
I fall into the same category but I don't think that this necessarily maps onto whether a man gets married or not. I've known some total losers who had an arranged marriage, and some real winners who fucked a new girl every other week despite not being married.
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