Men: Never date or marry single mothers

[Comealongwithme]

Less than 50% of people over 40 are married and there are more single men than women.

I see.

[Hulu]

I see.

You dont need to quote me to say I see.

[Comealongwithme]

You dont need to quote me to say I see.

Hmm.

[JamesBond007]

Men today are lucky if they marry at all.

You are clearly smoking crack cocaine.

You couldn't pay me to marry unless it was an absurd amount of money I could hide in offshore tax haven accounts. Only 2.72% of women are marriage material e.g. not fat, not leftist/socialist/feminist, doesn't have a worthless degree e.g. liberal arts, not financially delinquent , not a single mom, doesn't have STDs, isn't mutilated e.g. tattoos or body piercings etc....

And while you may be tempted to merely multiply these variables together to get the remaining percent of the female population without a major deal breaker this number is misleading because of the co-correlation between these 8 deal breakers.

For example, it may shock you to find out that a feminist with a worthless degree might also...

have 4+ tattoos

have financial problems

be on antidepressants

and also be fat.

Let's say you do all the work, ask out 1,000 girls a year, hit the gym, and maybe even get lucky and find yourself your one true love. And let's say you get extra lucky and she's not only a unicorn, but you guys decide to marry. You're sitting there on your wedding day with your best friend delivering his speech, looking lovingly into each other's eyes, giddy with excitement about what the future brings including the crotchless panties she bought for that night. The future is nothing but bright. But before you start feeding each other wedding cake and pontificate about what you're going to name your children...

but not so fast what are the chances that marriage is going to last, let alone be a happy one?

It is no secret that 50% of marriages end in divorce today. It is also no secret that between 70-80% of the time it is the woman who initiates the divorce. And while successive post-Baby Boomer generations of men have tried to mitigate this risk by cohabitating, only 50% of cohabitating couples remain together, presenting the same effective divorce rate.

However, remember our goal was not “to not get divorced.” It was to be “happily married” and this presents an even bigger challenge.

Because while you at least have a roulette's chance of staying married, remaining happily so is even more elusive.

Here reliable data and research are hard to come by. What qualifies as a “happy marriage?” Is it both spouses reporting being happily married? What about measuring error where you ask a husband in front of his wife if he's happy? Do people lie to themselves and tell pollsters they're happy? What about Herman and Ethel who were married for 40 years when Ethel decided to file for divorce on the 41st year? There is simply no reliable way to measure what percent of couples are happily married. Still, the best data that could be found comes from a “Psychology Today” article that cites two statistics from two books. One estimates the percent of happily married couples to be 17% while the other is more optimistic at 40%, averaging to 28.5% of couples being happily married.

But keep in mind 28.5% is not the chances of your marriage being happy. You have to account for the fact that 50% of marriages end.

When you factor that in, your chances at a happy marriage are half that chance – 14.25%. And though that's not terribly good news (depressing actually) it does provide us the final number we need to calculate the statistic we've been working towards these past three chapters - “The Percent Chance You Will Be Happily Married,”

aka

“What You're Going to Get.”

This “benefit” or “what you're going to get” was not that you would be happily married. Like a lottery ticket it was a chance you'd be happily married and that chance is .00076283%.

That's it.

That's all.

This is what the pursuit of women is all about.

When you pursue a woman, you get a .00076283% CHANCE of success.

But while infinitesimally small, keep in mind what this statistic does and does not say. It does NOT say you stand a .00076283% chance of ever being happily married. It says that if the “Average Joe 5” asks “Average Jane 5” out on a date there is a .00076283% of that particular instance ending up in a happy marriage. And if it doesn't that's alright, because there's a pool of 44 million more women between the ages of 18-35 to choose from. In other words that .00076283% chance is “per event” or “per girl” a guy asks out. And as discussed before, it's within men's power to take action to increase their overall chances of being happily married, the least of which you can do is ask more girls out.

The Return On Investment of the Pursuit of Women

In having both the price men pay for the pursuit of women, as well as what they get in return, we now have the two variables necessary to calculate ROI.

The price men pay can be anything on the low end from $260,000 in explicit costs, to a more theoretical (though no less real) cost of $9.6 million in lost economic potential, to an intangible “everything” when you consider all the mental, psychological, and emotional costs men are expected to pay.

What men get in return is cryptically calculated to be a 4.5 in 1,000 chance of being happily married, which can be optimistically increased to a 15% chance of being happily married if a man decides to dedicate a lifetime of part-time work to this endeavor.

Because the return is not financial, we cannot get a numerical “percent rate of return” as you would in finance or investing. But this does allow men to calculate an internal ROI to see if the product is worth the price.

“Is a 4.5 in 1,000 chance at being happily married worth $260,000 in cash?”

Or, if you take a more comprehensive approach to cost:

“Is a 4.5 in 1,000 chance at being happily married worth your entire life?”

And the answer is, “Probably most certainly not.”


Because while we can talk about microscopic chances of success, costs going into the millions, and the countless decimal points that result, what we’re really talking about are theoretical mathematical numbers that we're asymptotically approaching. Numbers like 0 and infinity. And though we can cutely pull statistical numbers from the behaviors of the female population, and actuarially derive what theoretical chances of success this translates into for men, it’s much more simple and practical to bluntly translate all of this into plain English:

You effectively stand NO CHANCE at being happy in your pursuit of women.

AND

That pursuit will cost you EVERYTHING in life.

Thus the real ROI of the pursuit of women is: 0/∞= 0%.

And the price is $∞, aka “your entire life.”

In short, from an economics perspective, you are a fool to dedicate your life to the pursuit of women and, frankly, you really ought to find something better to do.

[Insuperable]

I'd never date a single mother, not to mention marry her. Perhaps sleep with her one or two times. Now, if I have kids and she has kids and we are both divorced or widow/widower that is a totally another matter.

[Dušan]

Men today are lucky if they marry at all.

Dont be desperate.
Enjoy life as it is, and freedom.

Who is not happy with himself alone, will not be happy in couple either.

[JamesBond007]

Men today are lucky if they marry at all.

[rothaer]

Men: Never date or marry single mothers

But it's more meaningful than dating non-single mothers. Also, from a particular age on mothers are more promising and have shown functional than non-mothers.

Why avoid dating single moms? You are already aware of their position on abortion: they won't have one.

Why not? Why do you obviously rule out the possibility that they wanted to have that child?

Don't take a chance with paying child or spousal support. Her children will always come first in her life not you.

Do you think this is different to a mother that only you have impregnated? It's not. Stop dreaming.

Why support another man's mistake?

You mean another man's success. It's not a mistake, lol.

How do you know she's not looking for a support figure or someone to support her financially?

Well, you can assume she partly does. Women without children do that as well. But why not?

Consider all of it, and you'll see that the deck is stacked against you. She has already made one error.

Well, I doubt the child was an error, but guy may have been. Such errors all couples do that do later separate.

She will not attempt the Hail Mary. The last guy didn't stick around. Why should you?

This also applies to every couple that has separated. Maybe you stick around because you like her?

This isn't to say that some of them aren't very nice, have been screwed over by ex-husbands, or would be very great mates. But if you're just looking to get laid, they are a definite off-limits. More than likely, you're hooking up with a woman who wants another try at something she messed up the first time.

Exactly. This "something" is also called relationship.

With the hostility of today's legal system towards men, you just don't want to take the chance.

Not you but others do take the chance and that way they get those women (and not you). There is no free lunch.

Even if they weren't the children's biological fathers, the courts have required some men to pay child support to their ex-wives. For many years, this financially destroys the men, making it impossible for them to start a new life with another lady or enjoy their earnings.

It seems somewhat petty to pick some atypical cases and then complain about the injustice.

[Hulu]

In short, from an economics perspective, you are a fool to dedicate your life to the pursuit of women and, frankly, you really ought to find something better to do.

See, you are just proving my point, that if you do get married despite all of this you should consider yourself lucky, even if she is a single mother. Then again I didnt marry a single mother myself but the point still stands.

[Hulu]

By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.

Socrates