單身男士：寧可打光棍 不要娶錯人
Men prefer being solo over a bad marriage: study
Men are 10 times more scared of marrying the wrong person than of never getting married at all.
Bachelor Carl Weisman got fed up of being classified as a playboy, a loser or a commitment-phobe so he set out to find out exactly why he and a growing number of eligible men were steering clear of marriage.
Weisman, 49, conducted an online survey of 1,533 heterosexual men.
He concluded that most men were not afraid of marriage -- but they were afraid of a bad marriage.
"Men are 10 times more scared of marrying the wrong person than of never getting married at all," Weisman said.
"This is the first generation of people who have grown up with bad divorces. People assume there is something wrong if you don't marry but these are men who have made a different choice and not given in to social pressures."
Weisman said U.S. figures showed that in 1980 about 6 percent of men aged in their early 40s had never married but this number had now risen to 17 percent.
Weisman said his online survey found there are three groups of bachelors -- about 8 percent who never want to marry, 62 percent want to marry but of which half won't settle for anything less than perfection, and about 30 percent who are on the fence.
Four out of 10 bachelors did not want children compared to three out of 10 wanting to be a father. The rest were undecided.
But while 72 percent of respondents said they were not afraid of marriage, about half of them said the situation that scared them most was marrying the wrong person.
"It's so important to these men to get it right. My best advice to single women after bachelors is to be patient. If you're in a hurry to get married you'll be frustrated," he said.
Weisman also found that financial issues, both positive and negative, played a large part in men's fear of commitment.
單身漢卡爾•維斯曼再也無法忍受被當作花花公子、落魄男人或「恐婚症」患者，所以他開始研究自己以及越來越多不錯的男人為什麼不願意結婚。
49歲的維斯曼對1533位異性戀男士開展了一項在線調查。
他從調查中得出結論，多數男人不是害怕婚姻，而是害怕不幸的婚姻。
維斯曼說：「對於男人而言，娶錯人比打『光棍』可怕十倍。」
「這是第一代在成長過程中目睹了很多不幸婚姻的人。在人們看來，你不結婚，可能是你有什麼問題。但這些男人卻做出了不同的選擇，他們沒有屈服於社會壓力。」
維斯曼說，美國有數據表明，在1980年，40歲出頭的男人中有6%沒結過婚，而現在這個數字已升至17%。
維斯曼開展的在線調查發現，目前有三種類型的單身漢——約8%的人從沒想過要結婚，62%的人想結婚，但其中一半的人要找到理想的伴侶才肯結婚，約30%的人正在觀望。
調查發現，在單身男士中，40%的人不想要孩子，30%的人想當爸爸，其他人態度不明朗。
儘管72%的受訪者稱自己不懼怕婚姻，但其中一半的人稱他們最害怕娶錯人。
維斯曼說：「對於這些男人來說，找對人十分重要。而對於那些正在追求這些單身漢的單身女士來說，我能給的最好建議就是，要有耐心。你越著急，事情會越糟糕。」
除害怕娶錯人外，維斯曼發現，經濟狀況也是男人害怕結婚的一個重要原因，無論他們的經濟狀況是好還是壞。
Vocabulary:
on the fence: 抱觀望態度