Thread by @simonsarris

something I think very important, but difficult to articulate:

most young-ish people with economic anxiety of one stripe or another are actually misidentifying a fundamental problem. It's actually almost solely one of being unable to find a truly committed mate

A simplistic example: There's plenty of cheap housing outside cities. But without a truly committed mate it is difficult to leave a city for a smaller town which has an immensely lower cost of housing. Difficult to find mate and possibly difficult to keep, in a sense.

I think that was less difficult decades ago and I think the difference in what I am talking about is so large that it cannot be overstated, even though it cannot easily be said.

I have relatives who got married at 19 and moved to a new city and could afford essentially *nothing* for a year, not a bit of furniture. They had to build a life from scratch together, and slowly. This did not bother them. They had each other.

I know scarcely any couples like that today, that are capable of inhabiting the particular mindset which I cannot easily explain here (I think I make it sound almost trite with my examples).

there is a power to truly being able to commit and divvy up the work of creating a life together, of being two people who subordinate themselves to something greater. There is less worry about bad outcomes if you know you are sticking together regardless.

Between us, by the peace of God, such truth can now be told;
Yea, there is strength in striking root and good in growing old.
We have found common things at last and marriage and a creed,
And I may safely write it now, and you may safely read.

https://twitter.com/normonics/status/1641253166585970690

I think there are a lot of people defecting who in their heart and hearts DO want to cooperate and are looking for the person that they can cooperate with. Now what would that person look like? That's what you have to be.

https://twitter.com/youngprotean/status/1641256544976392195