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I'm a 42-year-old bachelor, and I agree completely with this article. I'm single because I spent my teens and 20's in churches that discouraged dating and marriage. When I finally realized how stupid these people were, I was going through a layoff and didn't get my career back on track for several years. Since that time, I've had very poor luck meeting women who were appropriate for me.

The idiots in the churches that I attended back then never would have admitted that marriage could be good for a man. They constantly prattled about how good it would be to remain single to do church stuff. Now, I look around and see myself in much worse health than guys who found the relationships that they need. Even when I appeared to be in very good health, I always felt that my situation wasn't healthy. Now, I can certainly feel in my body that things aren't working right. I realize that a bad marriage is worse than being single, but the notion that being single is as healthy as being in a good marriage is nonsense. I hope this information gets wide publicity and that others don't make the mistakes that I did.

Bill

I'm single because I spent my teens and 20's in churches that discouraged
dating and marriage.

It's little consolation, but you aren't alone.
I went through a good church-affiliated college in the late 1970s.
The senior class (the year I entered) had a marriage rate of about 75%.
By the time I exited as a senior, that metric was down to about 25%.
It was like a great dividing line.

I guess even within the realm of the church-affiliated school, the
feminist buzz and the sexual revolution convinced plenty to not
make the marriage committment as classes of years past.

Eventually many of my buddies ended up getting wives from Japan and
the Phillipines via church/missionary connections.
(Oh, and that was one wife per guy! And zero divorces in the cases of the
five buddies who went this route.)

I'm a 42-year-old bachelor, and I agree completely with this article.

42 is not too old. You mustn't give up. I was in a similar situation to you, and my health suffered badly, being a batchelor until 40. Now, pushing 50 I've got a wife and two kids, the youngest being a 15 month old girl. She is the light of my (entire) life.

If you have changed in such a way that you may not be attractive, change it back. You can. I did. If you are fat, lose weight. I did (90 lbs). If you are bald, embrace it and shave off the rest of your hair. If you can't attract an American woman (they do tend to be a bit neurotic) go for a foreign bride.

42 is not too old. You have nothing but time.