By Ken Knight
A single man is not “expected” to remain single past the age of 30, that is a given even in this more “enlightened” age. It is also a given that a man who makes it past the age of 30 (even more so 35!) is “expected” to have fathered children. Ask anyone who is a parent of a man over 30 and that is typically what they will say, not to mention the man’s peers.
Any straight dude who has made it into his 30s and 40s without having been married with children or at least begotten some rug-rats of his own somewhere in his 20s knows the “stigma” others around him toss his way from time to time (though it is only a “stigma” to them). “What, you’re not married?” “You don’t have any kids?!!”
are just two of the usual questions asked a bachelor in his late 30s, 40S, and beyond, usually followed up by behind-the-back chatter about “something must be wrong with him” and other defamations once the “Lone Ranger” is out of ear-shot.
Of course, one doesn’t have to look too far to discover that the persons talking in contempt of a childless bachelor over the age of 35 are more-often-than-not ones who have themselves been through a tediously soul-wrenching, bank-robbing DIVORCE and/or CUSTODY BATTLE! Thus begs the argument that those who hurl whispered insults toward their single and childless brethren are more ENVIOUS than you might imagine and that they hold “Lone Rangers” in “contempt” only because they technically see a childless bachelor as a sort of “traitor” to the social order! Yes, if you are single and childless over the age of 35 and have made a name for yourself, afford nice things like a cozy condo, hot car, and possess disposable-income that most married men do not, then you have in the married man and woman’s eyes “betrayed” what is “expected” (unlike them).
I fit into the “Lone Ranger” category myself and have heard the words of “betrayed” friends and family over the years who “expected” me to have wife, kids, huge mortgage, and later a divorce and split of the marital assets as well! Only trouble is, for as urgent as it may feel to explain to your detractors about the pitfalls of Marriage 2.0 and the fact the institution is collapsing in on itself, they do not want to hear it and subsequently label you as having an “attitude” if you try to explain it to them (seems divorce and bankruptcy are this “expected” life as well, hmm?). I have to ask how many men have fallen into the snare of self-pity and overreaction to peers and family expectations for them to have a wife and kids, not to mention the “Broham” (male camaraderie) factor of one’s friends
expecting their buddy to have a girlfriend on his arm every time he turns around or they’ll see him as “not getting any” and treat him accordingly with snide remarks and fag jokes?
(If anyone else here recognizes the pain-in-the-ass it is to keep a new girlfriend in your stable at any given time, you might agree that it gets OLD pretty damn fast).
Would it have helped a man like George Sodini who was “not getting any” well past his 30s up to the onset of age 50 and did what he did out of raw frustration over what he was “expected” to have in life? Doubtful, because of the difficulty of explaining how to step beyond what your family and peers “expect” you to have and what YOU want in this one and only life of YOURS, sports-fans. Telling some other guy about how he shouldn’t give one squirt of piss what society-at-large thinks about him “not getting any” and that having a small harem of girlfriends will become far more problematic for him in the near-future than it looks like in the Movies….might be easier to talk a frog out of getting wet!
Of all the “shit-tests” family members, buddies, and especially women have given us all over the years, I have a much simpler and honest one to consider for oneself:
- Do you enjoy personal liberty to come-and-go as you please?
- Do you enjoy not having to “answer” to anyone while at your own home?;
- Do you enjoy eating/drinking/smoking whatever the hell you like?
- Do you enjoy owning the kind of car or truck you prefer for yourself?
- Do you laugh at other guys who are cuckolded and/or controlled by a wife?
- Do you enjoy your disposable-income?
- Do you avoid controlling, manipulative, and duplicitous women?
- Do you feel good in your own skin and need no “validation”?
“Yes” to all of these questions places you square in the center of the “Lone Ranger” Aesthetic my friends, and it is really that simple for bachelors over the age of 35 as well as younger brothers who haven’t made the decision yet to go solo or get a female partner to share your horse and buggy. This is the simple test, ask yourself what do you LIKE and then reflect on what you’d be willing to sacrifice in the long term.
Sure, the engaged and married jerk-offs may envy your freedom and imagine a guy like you getting laid “on the fly” as most of us lifelong bachelors tend to do, those same peers of yours will separate themselves from you in short order. It is then that you point your finger and laugh in their honor, because they have far more to lose than you do, and in today’s feminazi divorce-courts, married men do lose more than you ever will, and even Mr. Engaged guy gets hammered if he breaks it off with Susie Sucksalot who sues her Ex for “pain” caused her in the break-up, not to mention any money promised, etc. etc.
Yeah sure Broham, sign me up for that program pronto!
“Expectations” are just that, and having flown through the “expectations” of family and friends over the years without changing one damn portion of who I am for “them”, I can fairly say that despite some difficulty one may discover in living life as a “Lone Ranger” who has his own horse and buggy under his sole proprietorship, the above questions mark the expectations of the only one who really counts in this life…..YOU!
Ken Knight is a Feature Contributor at Mondo-Video.com and is the Author of “THE MIDNIGHT SHOW~Late Night Cable TV Guy-Flicks of the 80s” among other titles.
