Most middle-aged single men I know want to be in relationships, which may come as a shock to women who assume that these guys are merely womanizing frat boys in grown up bodies.
As it turns out, running the streets like packs of wolves gets old fast [literally and figuratively].
Back in the day [not long ago], I ran the streets 6 nights a week, every night another opportunity to meet THE ONE, even if the woman I happened to wake up with the next morning was everything but.
I was lost in the labyrinth of what if, which fueled those familiar brain chemicals I couldn’t live without.
It’s a funny little game men play with themselves when they reach a certain age and their empty homes feels like Purgatory.
Men like me hate going to bars, and the only reason we do is because the alternative [staying home alone] is far worse.
It’s hard on the soul to cast a line night after night no matter what the pretense happens to be. After a while it becomes a preoccupation that settles in like a virus that bleeds us of relevance and meaning.
Men tend to drink more, pay less attention to things that might otherwise be important to them, and generally speaking, burn the candle at both ends for months or years without payback.
Once a man finds himself in a healthy relationship, he discovers emotional support, physical and emotional intimacy, and deeper social ties to family. These factors alone drop blood pressure and relieve the low level anxiety that burns like a brush fire from deep inside the soul.
Robin Simon, a professor of sociology at Wakefield University, writes in Psychiatry Weekly that positive interpersonal relationships are better for men on many levels. “…Marriage provides social support — including emotional, financial, and instrumental support. Also, married people have greater psychosocial (or coping) resources than the non-married — higher self-esteem and greater mastery.”
Of course, the relationship or marriage in question must be a healthy one or he’s better off back at the bars.
The one downside of good relationships appears to be a greater propensity for obesity. After all, when you’re no longer spending 5 hours a day in the gym followed by a tanning appointment, that tends to happen.
One study found that married men were 25% more likely to be overweight or obese compared to single men or those in committed relationships.
Personally, I find this angle tough to swallow because committed relationships and marriage are kind of the same thing. I guess that piece of paper means more than most of us realize…or want to realize as the case may be.
Nonetheless, “the emphasis on looks and waistline may not matter as much,” it was postulated.
No kidding. When you’re “off the market” it means less, but it can also mean a hell of a lot more if you let it get away with you.
The findings concluded that in “healthy” relationships, greater longevity is the net result.
With this as a backdrop, it bears noting that older women are far better at establishing relationships and bonding with other women, making single-hood an easier ride.
This is in stark contrast to men who continue to act out like lone wolves in search of themselves.
SUMMARY
For all of this to play out the way it’s supposed to, the relationship in question must be a healthy one.
So the real question is whether men think the price of putting in the work to keep them running smoothly is worth a few extra years of life.