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From: fuji@ssc-bee.UUCP (Glen T Fujimori)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Another Interesting Article
Message-ID: <496@ssc-bee.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 5-Mar-86 20:53:05 EST
Article-I.D.: ssc-bee.496
Posted: Wed Mar  5 20:53:05 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 9-Mar-86 20:33:17 EST
Distribution: na
Organization: Boeing Aerospace Co., Seattle, WA
Lines: 82


[...]

In light of recent discussions in this newsgroup, I thought everyone would
be interested in the following article; I sure was.
------
From the University of Washington _Daily_, 3/5/86, Seattle, Vol. 93, No.90

"Single, professional and lonely in America" by Maxwell Glen and Cody Shearer/
  syndicated columnists.

Alexis de Tocqueville once wrote that Americans were a people "locked to the 
solitude of their own hearts." Little did the French philosophers know that a
century later his assessment would accurately describe the common plight of a
growing lot of young professionals in America.

Indeed, a study written for a forthcoming edition of the American Journal of 
Sociology predicts that if a college-educated woman has not wed by age 30, her
chances of getting hitched are 20% or less. According to the study, only 78%
of college-educated women between the ages of 25 and 29 will marry, compared to
90% of the general population.

Analysis of Census Bureau data by Yale University sociologist Neil Bennet and
Harvard University economist David Bloom might alarm many of America's unat-
tached female professionals. Some of them may, in fact, already be prepared
for the inevitable: that a certain portion of their lives will remain unful-
filled.

"As they defer marriage, it becomes less and less likely, whether by choice or
involuntarily, that they will ever marry," said Bennet. "The marriage market 
may, unfortunately, be falling out from beneath them."

In recent years professional women have delayed marriage for graduate school
and a stable career. No longer needing men for economic security or social
prestige, young woman in her mid- to late 20s have been able to attain these
goals on their own. When  asked when they'll marry, many have said, "I'll
think about that in a few years."

Yet as the biological clock has ticked away, marriage delay has translated into 
marriage foregone. Today many single, college-educated professionals have
constructed a non-traditional social network for unmarrieds. For many women and
men this has been a disconcerting--indeed, frightening--but nonetheless nece-
ssary task.

The most common mistake singles make is to blame themselves as failures. In
reality, most are not losers. More often than not, single, educated pro-
fessionals are dealing with a crossfire of expectations and ambitions.

Unfortunately, competing passions have often hampered their search for compan-
ionship. Despite all the changes of the last 20 years, many men still want to
end up with a woman who'll be at home at the end of the day, waiting anxious-
ly to serve them dinner. At the same time, lots of women will search for men
who can be counted on to support, protect and define their existence.

To assuage the pain of frustrations, some people have embraced a variety of
distractions: prime-time soaps, radio talk shows, the telephone, drugs,
food. Affluent singlehood has no doubt contributed greatly to the prolifera-
tion of gourmet specialty shops. Yet, as with aspirin and narcotics, the 
effect of these diversions ends with every morning, whereupon the lonely one
must set out to right his or her predicament for the long term or face
another bout of solitude.

One problem, according to Louise Bernikow, author of the forthcoming book,
_Alone in America: The Search for Companionship_, is that singles fail to 
recognize loneliness as a social disease of disconnection. Bernikow recom-
mends that singles redefine companionship and relatedness to include larger
networks of people: friends, acquaintances, working partners, relatives
and strangers. joining a community or organization of some sort, she adds,
may also help to alleviate feelings of isolation.

There may, in fact, be something for everyone in what Bernikow says. Techno-
logy and mobility, among other things, have helped to make this a country of
loners. Affluence has certainly dulled the more successful social animals
among us to the alienation around them. They may not know it, but the content
souls may only be exacerbating the feelings of isolation that plague American
society.

@copyright 1986 News America Syndicate
------
-- 
glen fujimori
ihnp4!uw-beaver!{ssc-vax,ssc-bee}!fuji