What happens to people who don't settle down?

toronto87 · 2019-01-22T14:21:31+00:00

The married people start hanging out with each other and you aren't invited. You find new friends or get lonely. Once a year or so some event happens that you get invited to, and the married couples try to hide that they see each other regularily and the swingers married couples doubly so.

GradualDecomp · 2019-01-22T17:04:55+00:00

I'm 35 and unmarried. I expected my social life to die down by my age, but it hasn't at all. I'm more socially active now with more friends than in my twenties. Life is pretty good for me and my friends, who are mostly also unmarried. The biggest changes in my social life are the fact that we all have more money, and my friends are a much more diverse group than when I was younger, especially in age. I have a close friend who's a 22 year old Instagram model, and a close friend who's a 72 year old record label exec.

If you stay single, your life might be rad and fun, or you may be excruciatingly lonely and depressed. If you get married, you might feel totally fulfilled and happy, or miserable and filled with regret. No matter what choice you make, there will always be the lingering question of whether or not you did the right thing.

Uncommon_Sensed_1234 · 2019-01-22T14:23:41+00:00

As long as the person matures as an individual and doesn't try to act young s/he will move on to find a group of similarly aged singles. Otherwise, as you get older you have to be careful with partying with a too young group.

Nothing is quite as pathetic as seeing a 35 year old guy who thinks he is still 20 hanging with a bunch of college kids, who are too nice to tell the old guy it's time to go out to pasture because his time has come and gone.

The above applies to women too.

But yes, as your friends get married and have kids the single friend gets left behind. So if you plan on staying single, it is important to continue self-development and not just continue to live in the bygone days of youth. Most people will leave their partying ways in favor of more mature adventures bit still cut loose.

goatismycopilot · 2019-01-22T15:04:48+00:00

Married people especially those with kids plan their social activities around more kid friendly things. Gradually, the married people are involved in their own worlds because raising children is time consuming. As the kids get older it changes but most people get bored of the party lifestyle, the exception being people who have large amounts of disposable income and time.

azngirl7689 · 2019-01-22T14:31:25+00:00

They get new friends. You can’t make a square fit into a circle. People drift apart sometimes.

Electra_Cute · 2019-01-22T14:13:57+00:00

It would prove as difficult to predict what is going to happen to a person who does not "settle down", but there is one safe assumption: they will be unmarried.

couldbemage · 2019-01-22T15:33:51+00:00

My friends group is like the guys from King of the Hill. Married or not doesn't matter. Sure, less time together in our forties, but still has many of the same people, and includes both single and married guys. But we're not fundamentally boring people. I think the settling down thing is a boring people thing. We do stuff. We didn't replace parties at Dave's with dinner parties.

lefactorybebe · 2019-01-22T14:28:18+00:00

Idk, I'm kinda getting toward that point now. Most of my friends are in serious LTRs, and one is actually married. Things haven't changed too much, we still hang out with the ones who are single often. But yeah, I have found myself out with the couples more and more often, it's almost easier in a way.

When we all get together we'll still party and have a good time. We just don't party as consistently, but that might just be due to age. Like we used to be able to go hard all the time, no problem. Now, if we have a crazy Friday, Saturday will be spent quietly in the back of the bar with only a drink or two cause we're not really feeling the greatest lol.

I think having kids is what will really change things, parents will hang out with parents, childless couples with childless couples.

Edit: the friends I have who are still single are going out and partying more than the couples. However, most of my single friends also have less demanding jobs than my coupled friends. The couples will go out for dinner and stuff, and then call it relatively early cause we're fucking tired and have to get up early lol. I meet up with the singles on the weekend, and hear that they've been out drinking every night that week, getting up to various shenanigans.

blackedoutfast · 2019-01-22T15:52:32+00:00

the first ones to get married start getting divorced and want to go out and party again

passepar2t · 2019-01-22T18:35:56+00:00

They bum around the world, trying to get themselves killed in new and exotic locations, as the number of publications that'll pay a living wage for their articles dwindles and dwindles. Eventually, they find themselves on a rooftop of some skeletal high rise in Southeast Asia, contemplating the concrete abyss below, a cell phone to their therapist in one hand and a handful of morphine in the other. Then they come to a decision.

md8716 · 2019-01-22T15:29:22+00:00

You start drifting apart and find new people. Except these new people usually have a lot of baggage, so that's what you bond over. Or, if you're an introvert, you just stop making friends and spend more and more time alone, focused mainly on work (or hobbies if you have them).

Utilization of escorts/prostitutes can also come into play here due to the fact that it's actually more efficient to make more money and pay a hot girl for sex than it is to go out and game women all night (ain't nobody got time for that).

You won't be hanging at the same places, though. You're too old to keep hitting the same scene -- the kids are too annoying and the venue is too loud. Most likely hanging out at cougar bars and classier joints if you're white collar, or the same ol hole in the wall bar if you're blue collar.

Luckily, once the first wave of divorces hits your friend group, you get some of your buddies back. Once the second wave hits, you'll have them back for life.

aretourner · 2019-01-22T18:37:56+00:00

They explode on their 35th birthday.

[deleted] · 2019-01-22T22:23:01+00:00

The single ones are good to know cos you know they'll be down to hang out if you need to get out of the house. Plus you can talk about something that isn't about kids or furniture or other boring shit. So they're valuable friends .

They don't usually stay single single though. It's draining to go out to clubs and whatnot all the time when you get past your youth. Plus it gets harder to pinpoint where single women your age will be, and you don't want to go to a bar where everyone is already taken. I'm 35, my single friends all have a girl or two that they will hook up with at the weekend, and they'll just use tinder etc to find a new one if needed. They also tend to travel more. My single friends are always going away somewhere for the weekend (skiing for example) and going for long holidays abroad whereas married people get stuck in their house.

You do more stuff like hanging out in one bar or at someone's house rather than partying though . People realise that going out full throttle is a waste of money, and people get more frugal as they get older.

Finally, hangovers do not get better with age. If I drink too much I'm looking at two day recovery time minimum, so I do need to be careful now .

Nodoxxintoxin · 2019-01-22T23:16:45+00:00

I worked tending bar in New Orleans while getting a degree. The entire culture is centered on bars and everyone goes, young and old, single and married. And yes, people often bring kids too. Most married people past age 30 show up after work and leave before the band starts. And single ones in their 30’s usually look for other singles in their 30’s to date or just hook up with, while the 20 somethings stay to dance.

The guy who helped me buy my first multifamily house at age 28 was an old closeted gay dude who was a bar patron and bank president. When he died in his 70’s he left a bunch of money to his bar family for his wake....and 5 million to charity.

I’m sure it‘s very different other places. If you want to be old and single, New Orleans is the place to do it

Pastelitomaracucho · 2019-01-23T05:30:37+00:00

The go on holidays, buy nicer things and have more free time.

Willow-girl · 2019-01-22T15:46:31+00:00

You will be the bachelor/bachelorette that other people invite to holiday parties out of pity.

philomexa · 2019-01-22T15:38:38+00:00

Eventually most people will pair off and have kids (and if they have no kids, they'll fill their lives with classy DINK stuff like dinner parties and wine tasting), effectively closing rank around their families and socializing with other families. The few remaining singles will splinter apart. Some will fill the void with traveling and relentless self improvement, others will succumb to inertia and addiction.

The singles that continue self improvement will probably pair off in the post divorce/retirement sexual market, the remaining singles from THAT pool are usually the truly miserable types who have some glaring personal issue that makes them incompatible with humanity.

Those people generally die alone from a heart attack shortly after their 59th birthday in some shitty studio apartment (surrounded by take out containers while ESPN/Hallmark Channel blare through the TV). They won't be found for weeks (because no one cares about them) until the smell of their rotting corpse alerts the neighbors.

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chubby_leenock_hugs · 2019-01-23T01:41:00+00:00

I don't settle down and I don't like parties.

I assume I will just continue to live this life until I'm forced to relocate myself to some retirement home and then I die.

[deleted] · 2019-01-23T04:32:58+00:00

I can tell you what happens to all people who live long enough to enjoy old age, and it makes no practical difference how they got there. Plenty were married and then well, they are alone again and live just as alone as the lifelong bachelors. Or maybe their children visit once a year. Or not. Everyone has their own path and you need to pick yours and be happy with your choice, irrespective of the outcome. That is the only way to live well.

KikiYuyu · 2019-01-23T12:49:09+00:00

It really depends on the person and their situation, I guess. There's not a singular outcome. Some people will thrive, others will do fine, others won't feel so great.

poppy_blu · 2019-01-23T12:58:17+00:00

Partying is replaced by family friendly gatherings

Bars are replaced by dinner parties

Girls/guys weekends take six months to schedule because everyone’s saturdays and Sundays are crammed with practices, games and recitals

When you’re up at 2 am it’s not because you’re just leaving the club it’s because you’re changing your 400th diaper of the week or because you ate Mexican and are looking for the tums

Honestly I have a core co-ed group of friends from college (20 years ago) that I still hangout with quite a bit. Some have drifted away, others have been adopted by the group. What I do notice is that after marriage, women are usually the ones that make more of an effort to maintain the social ties outside of the marriage. Not a surprise to anyone I’m sure.

dicklord_airplane · 2019-01-23T13:55:18+00:00

Im probably going to continue partying until i die sad and alone.

ThePillRealist · 2019-01-23T14:54:29+00:00

It's not when they settle down as in marriage, usually. It's when they have kids. Married couples, sans kids, hang out with their single friends a lot, in my experience. The kids basically remove them from the cocktail bar/restaurant/party universe many singles in the 25-35 range live in. Once that happens, they move away from the big cities and their social life becomes kids' birthday parties and other parents.

slavicgypsygirl · 2019-01-23T20:46:56+00:00

I am 26, only like dating & have a life that is completely unrelatable to most people :)

EmpoweredGirl · 2019-01-25T01:24:40+00:00

Kids are really best had while your biology will allow it, and there is an old saying "you regret what you didn't do over what you did", so keep that in mind. Although I would say if you really knew what you were doing, you can choose to settle down or not and be fine. However for your generic unwise person, it's probably best to eventually get a family so you don't end up lonely and depressed. Having a couple of deep relationships that you can have with a spouse or kid will have more meaning to most people than having 5-10 averagely close friends. Though you can have both!

[deleted] · 2019-01-22T16:46:15+00:00

What happens to people who don't settle down?

Cats happen. Or more probably, they just never get married/LTRs and use some substitute.

Does the group just get much smaller but the partying continue?

These groups usually just die as people meet less and less or maintain just one or two close friends which drink beer together at sundays... that is it.

Title	What happens to people who don't settle down?
Author	_zyzyx
Upvotes	6
Comments	56
Date	January 22, 2019 2:10 PM UTC (7 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/ain6ds/what_happens_to_people_who_dont_settle_down/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/what-happens-to-people-who-dont-settle-down.257672 https://theredarchive.com/post/257672

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