I guess I’m one of the boycotters. I’m 44, single, never married. In the past I had a few long term relationships that seemed headed toward marriage, one even involved cohabitation. In the end none worked out. The most serious one it seemed that all the effort to maintain the relationship was coming from me, and it wasn’t enough. I was expected to put more and more effort into making things work out for her. In the end, when I felt I’d gone as far as I could without damaging my career (actually I did damage my career to a degree, just not irreparably) it wasn’t enough for her and she dumped me. I was actually a bit relieved mixed in with all the other emotions because I knew that the question would come down to marriage or not soon enough, and while I felt like it was expected that we’d be married I wasn’t sure I wanted to go forward with this particular woman. Afterward I heard from our mutual friends that she basically dumped me because she thought she could do better.
All that happened in my late 20′s and early 30′s. I dated for a number of years after that, only seriously once or twice. About 6 or 7 years ago I gradually just quit dating. Without really thinking about it I came to the decision that I would not get married, so I wasn’t interested in going through the hassle of dating. The interesting part is that I share a house with two other guys in similar situations. We all seem to have voluntarily removed ourselves not just from the population of marriagable men, but from the dating pool. One is a few years older than me, the other in his early 30′s. Both of them were previously married and don’t seem eager to repeat the experience.
