I wonder how long it is a huge relief for and how many end up lonely over time?
I have no experience in that. But I guess it depends on the person and their situation. There seems to be a period in human life when the mating urges are at their strongest. From the late teens into young adulthood is the time when people are the most anxious to find a mate. That makes sense. But the urge gets weaker at a later age.
I wonder how many who go through divorce hell are also heavily involved in making that divorce hell - I would suspect that they play a pretty big part on average.
Maybe it is a confirmation bias and they are the kinds of people who just aren't good in any relationship.
The legal systems in many jurisdictions in the Anglophone world play a big role in that. Divorces are very commonplace. Marriage by definition is not just between two people. Where contested divorces are commonplace, lawyers win. It's a system where women in particular have cash and prizes to win if they've married anyone with any assets. And I've heard pretty awful stories about guys who didn't have much but who were still railroaded by the system.
But anyway, it doesn't matter whose fault is what. If marriage has left some middle-aged divorcee with such a foul taste in their mouth that they are not willing to participate in it a second time, then why should these people be shamed into it?
"As for the 20-year-olds who choose not to pursue intimate relationships, I'm guessing many of them have had second hand exposure to particularly nasty relationship outcomes."
So rather than try and work at it, it is healthier to avoid intimacy?
Relationships always involve major trade-offs. As you very well know, a married man's time, money and life are no longer his. For some, that trade-off makes sense. For others, not that much. And intimate relationships are not some magical holy grail of happiness and meaning and not by far the only sources of meaning.
As far as I'm concerned, I will gladly let grown up people run their lives as they see fit. Who is anyone else to tell them they're living it the wrong way barring any illegal, immoral etc. etc. choices?
I think it would be helpful to separate "urge for mating" from "desire for intimacy and partnership", as they are two very different things.
Shamed into it? I think there is quite a difference between wanting a healthy relationship and a fear of ending up in another unhealthy one.
People can always do what they want, but I think a lot of people are making decisions early that are going to affect them later on in life in ways they don't understand. Like investing, many people look short term and don't factor in that they are likely to live til they are 80 years of age.
What I wonder is how many of the choices people make are made at their own volition, or are socially influenced by their surroundings, especially their digital worlds. Will they be able to overpower their genetic code?
Yes, if "intimacy" means something other than sex. I think it makes loads of sense to conceptually separate partnership, sex and emotional closeness . I've seen many older people on various forums write about how they're not looking to pair bond any longer. It can make perfect sense for these people. Many of these people are post-menopausal women whose libidos are gone and/or who have been widowed and who are fully enjoying their freedom.
Shaming is exactly what happens in a lot of situations. It often takes a subtle form where relatives and such keep asking single people, particularly if they are in a certain age range, if they're seeing someone or when they're going to settle down and start a family. I can happen to older people as well.
You, too, started blaming people having been through nasty divorces who do not want to remarry for possibly being bad at relationships, rather pointlessly, I should say. Because if someone went through a particularly nasty divorce and it being nasty was their fault because they're particularly bad at relationships, they why on Earth should these people of all be trying to get back into the relationship game? It's stands to reason that these are the very people who should stay away from relationships.
I'm sure that the choice to pass up intimate relationships (here we mean ones with a sexual component) is always made in spite of both biological urges and social conditioning. It is less so at an older age but still. You seem to think that there are digital worlds somewhere that somehow prevent people from acting at their own volition and make them choose to be single. No such thing has any mass appeal. Powerful biological urges, under which the vast majority of people live out their youths, and social pressures goad people into intimate relationships. If someone decides to stay away from them out of their own choice, you can be sure that it has always resulted from careful thought. In contrast, the decision to seek out intimate relationships does not require any thought at all. It is always the default position.
I think that a pretty good indicator is how many elderly people go to shops and talk to attendants just to have someone to talk to. There are plenty of lonely people in the world - and I think that the average age is coming down considerably.
People are always on the lookout for "microaggressions" these days. Seems we have raised a lot of highly sensitive people - perhaps everyone should live isolated in light grey rooms to make sure they don't get sesnsory overload and upset ;D
It takes two to tango. It is not like I haven't seen messy divorces - everyone has been facilitated by both sides.
They don't have to. But if people are making decisions because other people have gone through nasty divorces - that is senseless. As you said - people who's parents got divorced.
Gaming is one. 2 billion or so people in the world are gamers. it is a highly addictive pastime, as is social media and the like. These people are more likely to be at home (can't meet many people there) more likely to be over weight (limiting their options) more likely to have expectations on what is desirable, but less likely to be able to achieve it. No wonder there are large commununities of incels out there. And I will assume that there are many incel adjacent who haven't joined the forums yet, but hold similar ideals.
I think this doesn't make sense. It requires no thought to relationships at all, to stay at home gaming 12 hours a day. However, perhaps a decade down the track they might chance upon a thought that something is missing in their lives - hopefully by then, they will be able to have their perfect VR relationship that'll do everything they want without compromise- sounds pretty fantasy land, childish and unhealthy to me though.
Maybe the increasing numbers of addictions and depressives is an indicator of something fundamental missing in many people's lives.