Women, Love & Marriage

I've written much about love relationships in the past. The recent Economist articles (here, and here) on how Asian women, especially in East and South East Asian, are rejecting marriage.

Usually, such articles cite the following:

(A) The usual stats, i.e. increasing average women's age at marriage, unmarried women at 'mature ages', decreasing birth rates etc

(B) The usual reasons why these women are delaying and/or ignoring marriage altogether, i.e. higher education, rising costs of living, desire for 'freedom', desire to marry up etc.

I gonna offer an alternative look at this 'social problem'.
'Rising costs of living' is the lamest explanation of all, coz 'love' is always the answer.
And 'love' is also the problem.

I have Freedom of Choice! Therefore, I am Single
As I trip myself into the mid-30s, my friends from school have arrived too. Some are married with children, some are attached, others are single and have been single for a while.

Beyond females in my age group, I notice that the single most significant reason of why women are not 'attached'/married is because of the perception of 'freedom of choice'.

This liberating idea allows the female to choose.
Multiply that with their newfound confidence by so-called 'excelling in school', she believes she can solve any puzzle that comes her way, and proceeds to make many choices. She believes she knows how to make such decisions.

• Career or Partnership?
• Marrying up or down?
• Older or younger?
• Handsome or Intelligent?
• Rich or Talent or Hardworking?
• Guy A or Guy B or Guy C?
• Now or later?

Lack of 10,000 hours of Training

The problem is that this 'freedom of choice' did not come with 10,000 hours of training. This means she's unlikely to be adept at such decision-making when she first starts to date. 

If the average girl starts dating at 18 and is relatively intelligent about it, she gets really good at choosing her life partner by the end of the 10,000 hours, which works out roughly to be when she turns 28. 

For those who decided to marry really early, i.e. early 20s, some may soon regret their decision because:

(i) They really did make a wrong choice of partner and/or marriage did not live up to their young adult expectations; and/or 

(ii) Still in their 20s, they believe they are still attractive, and therefore still have choices. 

As such, many such early marriages end up in divorces. They then enter into another marriage in their 30s. 

I only want the Perfect Man

Even after 10,000 hours of training, there are women who are still unable to find steady partners. I have a separate explanation for that.

Popular culture is to be blamed, especially romantic stories of cute-sy couples and/or tall, dark, handsome, manly, perfect men.

You may laugh at this... Thinking that this doesn't 'sound' like a solid intelligent explanation.

Did you know that significantly more females (above age of 15) watch TV, especially dramas, than males do?
Being constantly exposed to such unreal romantic themes has to affect one's perceptions. Remember, we learn by and make decisions based on pattern recognition.

I'm sure we've all heard stories of psycho girlfriends who refuse to speak their minds to their boyfriends, yet get very angry when the latter do not behave in the way the former expect.
I call this the 'act-coy girlfriend trap'.

Guys, the point is, you are supposed to know what the fuck she wants without her having to tell you. If you manage to do all that, it shows that you know her very well, and as such, you are 'the one'. A great discovery which she can go tell her friends about. Hence, obviously and most logically, she can't tell you what she wants, coz that would mean she made the first move and conceded 'defeat' to this invisible audience watching your so-called romance unfold. O_o

Also, look at how people, especially women, spend extreme number of hours and amount of money (some even borrow) on their 'dream wedding'. From the gown, to the wedding invites, to the music, to making her girlfriends in the most ridiculous shade of pink to match the flowers.
It is a proxy to demonstrate how 'romanticised' they are about their relationship.

Or how crazily 'ideal men', such as Bae Yong Joon, are idolised by women from their 20s onwards.

Even if no one is likely to admit this, I believe many women do not simply hope that, but instead EXPECT that their courtships, steady relationships, marriage etc are to be like those found in contemporary romantic stories.

Multiply this fantastic expectation with 'Freedom of Choice', and we get women who continuously cannot find a steady partner, because no one is 'good enough' for her.

So what have we learnt here?

• That the average unmarried woman wants to get married, or at least find a life partner.

• She's impeded by her insistence that she has freedom of choice and that the perfect rom-com man exists. Settling for anything/anyone less is imperfect and must be an unhappy outcome. She's in love with 'love'.

• She believes she knows what she's doing.

The above merely looks at the female...
Don't get me started on the male side of this equation of relationships. Of those men who believe girlfriends ought to look like those in men's magazine and good sex mimics porn.