Why are men so scared of marriage?

My reaction to Goldsmith's article:

For ages men have been afraif of commitment and everything associated wih marriage. It is not quite sure why so many bachelors are so afraid to tie the knot. But, after reading Men prefer being solo over a bad marriage: study by Belinda Goldsmith, I think it is clear why some men crawl into a hole and wimper like a hurt animal when it comes to tying the knot. According to the article, the number one reason is due to marrying the wrong person. Quite an understandable and reasonable fear. Any reasonable person would understand this if men were a little more opened to the opposite sex in terms of these fellings. Generally, speaking when it comes to commitment most women will be a pusher. In other words, try to make the male commit but, the male is a little open to his felling and expressed his fear then the female would generally allow some space for thinka and deciding what is right for her. She would allow space and even begin to wait if she is soley interested. This would allow the tension and pressure to ease and if the relationship was meant to be then marriage was most likely meant to be as well.

Crazy as it sounds some men feel pressured when mariiage is being pushed under their nose. They feel like they are being forced into something that will untimately ruin their life--something that they will do anything to get out of. So my advice is give the man in your life some space (if he needs it). Don't make him feel like he has a gun pointed to his head when it comes to marriage. Allow enough space and things will become clear to all parties involved. Let me know how you feel about the article or just any comments you may have.

Goldsmith's article: Men prefer being solo over a bad marriage: study

Jun 2, 2008
SYDNEY (Reuters Life!) - Bachelor Carl Weisman got fed up of being classified as a playboy, a loser or a commitment-phobe so he set out to find out exactly why he and a growing number of eligible men were steering clear of marriage.
Weisman, 49, conducted a survey of 1,533 heterosexual men to research a book aiming to give women an insight into why some smart, successful men opted to stay single -- and help lifelong bachelors understand why they are still the solo man at parties.
He concluded that most men were not afraid of marriage -- but they were afraid of a bad marriage.
"Men are 10 times more scared of marrying the wrong person than of never getting married at all," Weisman told Reuters in a telephone interview.
"This is the first generation of people who have grown up with bad divorces. People assume there is something wrong if you don't marry but these are men who have made a different choice and not given in to social pressures."
The release of his book "So Why Have You Never Been Married? - Ten Insights into Why He Hasn't Wed," comes amid a growing trend for more people to stay single, with less social or religious pressures on men -- and women -- to tie the knot.
Weisman said U.S. figures showed that in 1980 about 6 percent of men aged in their early 40s had never married but this number had now risen to 17 percent.
AFRAID TO MAKE MISTAKES
Weisman said his online survey found there are three groups of bachelors -- about 8 percent who never want to marry, 62 percent want to marry but of which half won't settle for anything less than perfection, and about 30 percent who are on the fence.
Four out of 10 bachelors did not want children compared to three out of 10 wanting to be a father. The rest were undecided.
But while 72 percent of respondents said they were not afraid of marriage, about half of them said the situation that scared them most was marrying the wrong person.
"It's so important to these men to get it right. My best advice to single women after bachelors is to be patient. If you're in a hurry to get married you'll be frustrated," he said.
Weisman also found that financial issues, both positive and negative, played a large part in men's fear of commitment.
"Those with little money said they would have nothing to offer a partner, with some suffering self-esteem issues and withdrawing from the dating pool," said Weisman, an engineer-turned-author with two books now published.
"While those who are financially sound were terrified what a bad divorce could do to them."
Weisman said his research blew away any idea that single men were unhappy.
"A compelling issue was how many of them had found contentment in a never-married life," he said. "They had created lives full of careers, friends and ambitions. It was not like they walk around all day worried about not being married."
For him, researching the book made him also look at himself -- and he ended up living with a girlfriend for the first time.
"Now we're looking at getting married. As I researched the book I found I was looking at men 10 years older than me and it was like looking into the future. If I didn't change, nothing would," he said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080602/lf_nm_life/books_bachelors_dc

-Nerina

How to Make Meaning In the World?

What I liked most about The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki is by far the valuable lesson that Guy teach young entrepreneurs like myself. I think by alleviating what every entrepreneur feel (the fear of failure) not only makes this book valuable tool but, one that every entrepreneur should utilize. What I liked the most is the concept of GIST (Great Ideas For Starting Things). GIST are tools that most people do not know about and as a result are bound to failure. Ignorance is by far man’s greatest downfall. What we do know now has the potential to hurt us later on down the road. I think for me this is what makes me different from other entrepreneurs in the events planning industry.
Do not get me wrong—there are people within my industry that has made it. However, in my opinion it was just sheer dumb luck. I think in order to make meaning in the world, one has to fist make a meaning for themselves. In blatant terms, if you do not know what you want to do in life how do you expect to make the world better. The average person goes about life thinking that they can better the world by doing fifty different thing, but most do not realize the state of their own lives. They forsake one thing to better the world never realizing that they are adding to the problem not helping to extinguish it.
In terms of making meaning for one’s self, I think my meaning comes from a variety of things. Firstly, I think I draw my inspiration from my passion for life and family. I love to dream and make other’s dreams come true. This is why I choose events planning (specializing in weddings). Weddings in today’s society are taken for granted in more ways than one. Most weddings are view in terms of its splendor rather than the meanings that are associated with it. I think this how I intend to make the world better--by instilled the original values along with the splendor that is associated with today’s weddings and other events carrying special meanings.
I grew up with very specific values of what marriages is all about. Growing up in a Guyanese-Indian household, I was taught that marriage is very sacred and that it was unbreakable because every pair was made in heaven. (I guess you can call me a hopeless romantic.) Anyways, as I grew up I kept believing this and I think in some part of my mind this is still in play. How will I make the world better—I intend to combine my personality strengths (achiever, relator, focus, woo, and input) [1] along with the values that marriage contains to enhance whatever events I plan. I feel when couples who are tying the knot, it should be for all the right reasons. For this reason, I want to combine my services with the values of marriage to make my client’s weddings and events something that they dream about and not what they just settle for last minute. By keeping this or a similar ideology and customer value this is how business men and women are going to make the world better for us all—and like Guys states, “preventing the end of something good.”

[1] These personality strengths were the result of reading: Buckingham M. and Clifton D. O., Now, Discover Your Strengths. After finishing the book I used the code provided by the distributor to do the Strength Finder’s Test.