Don't Be Like Me

There was a time I was unmarried, child-free, and living a darn good life. [This entry is bumped up from October 2016 as it is still relevant. The updates included below were added a while ago, and things have not improved.]

To be sure, I was working a lot. I had a full-time job, a part-time job, and I freelanced. But the part-time job and the freelancing were mostly about having fun and interacting with my friends. Since I had budgeted my living expenses based on just my full-time job, everything else I earned went directly into savings.

And saving I was. And investing. I was on track to be able to retire very comfortably.

I was renting. Sure, it wasn't owning, but it also meant that no problem with the property was my problem - it was the landlord's, and I had the easy option of moving if I needed to. As it was, I was living a short drive from my full-time job.

I was hanging with my friends and spending time ALONE (which I very much enjoyed) in my free time and otherwise doing what I wanted to do.

As long as I showed up to work, filed my taxes, paid my rent, paid my utilities, and paid my credit cards, which I easily paid off every month, I was meeting my obligations - and I had no trouble doing any of that. I had no mortgage, no property taxes, no homeowner's insurance, no car payments, no school payments, no medical bills beyond insurance and a small co-pay for doctor visits, no student loan payments.  I didn't even need exercise equipment or a gym membership because one of my jobs kept me in shape.

I was fully able to shop for and prepare my own food, take care of my laundry, and keep my place clean.

Basically, my biggest problem was scheduling. If I wanted to do something that was going to take place when I normally worked, I needed to ask for the time off well in advance. Or have a good enough track record to take a sick day.

I had also gotten the hang of dealing with women so as to avoid spending any more time, money, energy, or emotion than necessary. There were women who were all wrong for me, who tried to get their hooks into me, and I limited interaction to what I wanted. I went on dates, and didn't sacrifice my wallet or myself in doing so.

It was a carefree life.

I decided I was open to marriage and fatherhood, if I found the right woman with whom I could do these things. (Before that, I was under the assumption that I should seek to marry and raise children.)

My mistake was believing that such a woman could possibly exist.

It's Amost His Time

There are two basic models of "relationships" that "work" for men.

The first is the all-in, marriage-minded one. Granted, this fails most of the time as either she divorces you, or cheats on you, or kills you, or becomes indifferent towards you, or unbearable to live with. But for a few people, usually people who are both enthusiastically following a conservative religious framework together, it "works" in that they stay together and won't admit to entertaining a desire to have a different life.

The other is the Leykis 101 life or something very similar to it, in which a guy is just enough of an aloof jerk that women will hook up with him for a while without expecting much from him. Guys can get just about all of the sex they want without any of the stuff they don't want (paying her bills, dealing with her friends and family, etc.)

If not one of those, a guy "should" be full-on MGTOW and stay out of the mess entirely. Because otherwise, you get people like this guy who wrote to Dear Abby.

Let's look at the letter from SOMEBODY'S BOYFRIEND IN MICHIGAN.