Marriage Cant Solve Your Loneliness

One of my readers’ comments about marriage caught lots of attention?

“My daughter was born in 1995, she didn’t want to get married or have children at all, because she heard a lot about marriage experience from her male colleagues. But I worried that she may feel lonely if she stayed single forever.”

Another reader replied: “do you think getting married will make you not lonely?”

Hence lots of readers asked me, why get married if it can’t solve your loneliness?

Or similarly, why get married if your spouse doesn’t appreciate you? Why get married if your spouse can’t help you find happiness in life…?

My answer is simple: if you think that way, then don’t get married at all.

Many people have those kinds of thoughts about getting married, but then they will soon find out marriage is far from what they imagined.

Usually that will get better when they get married the second time around, because they will adjust their expectations about marriage appropriately.

My Ex-colleague’s Story

17 years ago when I was working at my first job, a colleague told me about his professional career.

When he first started working, he thought his career would be like Xu in the TV show: First a caring manager will teach him how to get used to work. Then there were going to be a series of higher-level people who helped him climb the corporate ladder.

But then he soon found out, most of the time people only assign him the mundane work. For example, you don’t like mobbing the floor because you know it is pure mechanical labor, so you hire someone to mob the floor for you. So he was doing that similar kind of work at his job.

Even when he was assigned to a challenging project, the manager already knew that project was doomed to fail. The manager assigned him the project so the manager can blame him when the project failed. But when he somehow got the project to work, the manager would soon assign someone the manager trusted more to take over and take all the credits.

He was so disgusted by this kind of maneuver so he switched to another job. But similar things happened again. Even worse, the end-of-year bonus was canceled. He was so mad that he changed his job once again.

His third company not only did not pay him but also scammed him to buy the company options. By that time he already learnt to be more cautious.

Then he moved to his fourth company, which is the current company, and worked with me for a while. He complimented the current company was so nice that it always paid him on time, and was honest about there was no end-of-year bonus.

In fact, that company was worse than his first company, but his expectation was much lower.

My professional career was much smoother than his. After 3 job hops I eventually became the boss. But it wasn’t because someone was nice to me. I started with very low expectations and I was prepared for everything.

All the s***ty maneuver that he encountered happened to me as well, but I handled them differently. I was able to dodge the traps and smiled at my bosses, and gaslighted them into promoting me further.

This is an essential skill if you want to move up in the corporate ladder. If you don’t have that kind of skill, all you could do is to lower your expectations.

Among the millions of people in the workforce, there are always people who can power through all the hardships. But the only way to live an excellent life is not to be a normal person.

Most people in Japan, when they get old, their earlier job usually no longer exists. They usually don’t have enough retirement funds, so they have to work again. And the only jobs they can get are so mundane, repetitive like opening the elevator, opening the front door, or washing the toilets. But most of them think that kind of retirement life is not bad.

Nevertheless Japan’s avg income is quite ahead compared to lots of other countries. If you are in Africa, you can’t even find chill jobs like that; If you are in India, you may not even get to live that long.

Happiness comes from hard work, but also comes from lowering your expectations.

Marriage essentially is just two people living together. There aren’t that many extra requirements that you are thinking of, like being each others’ soul mate…

Liu Ci Xin, the one who wrote the famous three-body problem, his wife and daughter have never once read his novels, even his novel won so many prizes, even the entire country is talking about his novels.

Obama is the real soul mate of Xin. After reading Xin’s novel, Obama directly sent him a letter asking him to update his novel sooner. But Xin just trashed that letter. Even Obama truly understands Xi, they can’t get married bc they are both guys.

My point is, marriage is not that complicated.

Xin works at a factory. His wife works at the same factory. They chose to work at the factory bc it was an easy job, making decent money, close to home.

His wife thinks Xin a good husband bc: he works at a decent place, doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink, doesn’t gamble and his main hobby is just writing novels.

Xin thinks his wife is a good wife bc: she works at a decent place, has lots of free time to do housework and take care of his children.

This is the super common lives of double working classes back in the days.

However, nowadays the 90s have far more career risk than the previous generations. Under such pressure, if you want to get married, it is already crazy good to find someone who can hedge your finances. For example, one works at a stable but lower income job while the other works at a riskier but higher income job.

If you keep thinking about those extra things, just don’t get married. Or get married then divorce then learn to adjust your expectations.

Loneliness is not supposed to be solved by marriage. Or, loneliness should not be solved.

If a person is not lonely, that means he/she never really thinks, that means he/she never really exists.

The essence of loneliness is thinking. When you see everyone is busy with life, you suddenly start thinking: who am I, where I am, what do I need to do, what do I need to do certain things? When you will start feeling lonely and confused.

Most people can’t handle these feelings and want to go back to their normal life, doing what everyone else is doing.

You can clear your confusion just by following everyone elses’ decisions.

Only the weak are afraid of being lonely because thinking is too painful for them.

However, loneliness is exactly what the lone wolves are looking for. Loneliness for them is not pain but a kind of calmness.