As a "young single straight man" all I can really tell you is that I have utterly no desire nor interest when I have so many other things I could or should be doing instead.
The list goes on.
And that's besides life's necessities like work, chores around the house, cooking+eating...
The list goes on.
There's just so many god damn things I could or should be doing instead of marriage. I literally do not have the time and thus interest in marriage and all the things related to it. And no, the termination of my bloodline or what happens to my crap after my passing doesn't concern me.
termination of the bloodline is a silly thing - however I can tell you from personal experience that having an offspring connects to humanity like nothing else and I feel for you that you won’t experience that part of human existence. it is a remarkable experience…
Certainly it's something my depression holds over my head every day. Everything I do is less fun when I consciously realize I'm removing my ancestors from the gene pool in participating in those things. It's like I can choose to put more value in other things besides offspring, but also... I can't? When it seems like every stranger around me is married and/or has children?
When I feel myself backed into a corner and only perceive the choice to call that decision sour grapes, I feel like something has gone seriously wrong...
I think it basically comes down to being finite. We want more than we can get. We have to choose, and we don't want to, because choosing means giving up something that we really want.
I suspect that your depression doesn't make it easier. But the overall struggle is a very common one.
trust me brother, the day will come when video games, anime, and surrogate friendships get boring. the copes and distractions dont last forever.
It's not as if these men have willing marriageable women queueing up at their door.
They have not chosen to forego marriage and family in pursuit of these pointless nihilistic hedonistic hobbies. They seek comfort in them because marriage and family are unattainable.
Life’s necessities are about more pleasant with someone by your side.
There is a sense that the average man is being expected to meet increasingly demanding requirements - career, social, fitness, etc (some of which are literally impossible for many due to height, balding, or facial attractiveness) - for a shot at an overweight woman past her prime with dozens of flings and a couple abortions in her past, who will forever secretly think poorly of him, is only ever 5 minutes away from another fling with a random stranger on the app of her choice, and may at any moment become 'bored' and file for no-fault divorce ruining their family and finances.
Or we can do whatever we like for leisure, meet our sexual needs in whatever way we like (abstinence, prostitutes, casual sex, toys, porn, etc) and watch the world burn.
Women need to look at themselves.
You will not be watching zo. You will be one the one burning with it too and it will be even less fun than the slight frustrations of today.
I have had strangers say to me that it's no problem if I just want to put myself out there and see who bites, but I do not see it that way. My (same-sex) best friend I knew for 6 years recently cut off all contact when I tried to set boundaries with them. It was the first time in my life I tried to assert myself and because I reaped the consequences I assumed I did something wrong. I read up online and understood logically I did nothing wrong. But fact is, it's been half a year and I haven't recovered from that friendship alone. And there were others like it. I don't have anything to replace that (flawed) relationship and the trauma of being discarded reopened all my pre-existing childhood-and-up trauma they already knew about so, I mean, yeah.
I talk to my therapist about it of course but that makes my current life no less of a torture. I've come to accept maybe that's how it will be.
What this tells me is I'm not ready for a relationship right now. It's my early 30's and I don't understand the basics yet. The way I was raised I've already been through enough confusing social rejection and socializing just demoralizes me nowadays. I'm not willing to go forward and date if I'm no longer interested in the first place because that isn't fair to the other party. I need to make friends before I am ready to date, having zero friends right now, and the interest for that isn't there either. It took me way too long for me to realize my heart wasn't in it and I was doing people a disservice when I need to work on myself first and foremost.
...not to mention I'm still looking for work after being laid off, but I felt no different while I was employed.
And before someone says these are flaws people should accept me for... they're not unfortunately. I'm beginning to suspect they're on the level of a personality disorder. Having enough previous less impactful diagnoses, I think it's on me by this point if I couldn't make anything out of them.