Monday, November 11, 2013

On The Topic of Single Mothers- Just Do What Works For You

I've sworn off commenting on Dalrock's blog. Not so much because of the quality of his writing, but because of his commenters. I left a comment of about 3 short paragraphs and two people somehow got the idea they know everything about me and exactly what I need to do. Right. One guy said I'm "blue pill" and need to spend more time reading the manosphere.

Dalrock recently wrote a post responding to something Aaron Cleary said, and asking "Is there a shortage of single fathers?" Cleary found an eHarmony article about 15 reasons to date a single mom. I read the article. It's not worth any of our time. It's full of irrelevant details and assumptions that do not apply. One said something about "she's fiercely loyal". Right. To me, it depends on who initiated the divorce and why.

When I first heard that Aaron Cleary commented on that eHarmony article, my first though is this is like Pat Robertson. Nobody pays attention to Pat Robertson until he says something off the wall. Then everybody is up in arms because he gave them something for their Two Minutes Hate. Then they all calm down and forget about it. I doubt most of us in the "manosphere" (that word is ghey; we need a new one) pay any attention at all to eHarmony until they give us some Two Minutes Hate to get worked up over and forget about.

There is a lot of stuff in the manoshere (seriously, that is ghey) responding to feminists. This includes topics like "man up and marry those sluts!".

This isn't a binary issue. There is no "either everybody dates single mothers or nobody dates single mothers". Everybody has a different story. There are some single mothers out there like my ex wife who refused to make things work and wanted out. Nothing could talk her out of it. There are other single mothers out there with the reverse story: they tried everything to make it work but their husbands refused.

Since I left a comment on Dalrock's post, I got emails every time new comments appears. Our good friend Mark Minter was mentioned in a comment, and showed up to defend himself. I think he got a little too defensive. He's a man in his 50's who apparently became an idol in the manosphere for anti-marriage writing who turned around and married a single mom, which destroyed his idolhood in the eyes of people who take the writings of people they've never met too seriously.

Dalrock's genius level commenters accused Mark Minter of enabling his wife's divorce. Right. As if the divorce would have reversed itself had Minter not entered the picture. This would be like if I got married again and people accuse my new wife of enabling my divorce. No. Nothing would have brought my ex-wife back. It took me a while, but I accepted the divorce, and realized I'm not free of all the dysfunction in that marriage.

My answer to the single mom issue is to do what works FOR YOU. Not for Mark Minter, Aaron Cleary, or anybody else. For you. If you stumble across a single mom who happens to be a quality woman and a good fit for you, then go for it. If not, then it's seriously no sweat off your balls. Life is too short. Don't spend any time worrying about the things other people do.

History is full of mixed families. This is nothing new. In a perfect world, there would be no divorce. There would be no bad decisions. But we don't live in that world.

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