Couldn't resist posting this up in spite of a pang of guilt I'm feeling for violating copyright laws as per my conversation with Sumner Lemon two nights ago but doesn't that apply only when used with commercial entities?

Will explain myself later but first, here is an article from the NY Times website that Vince forwarded to me earlier today. I emailed it back out to those in my "tribe" who apparently enjoyed it so much that many either CALLED me to talk more about it or simply emailed back their glee to let me know that they sent it out to members of other tribes as well. How funny.

I guess the article confirms that... we are not alone.

   The Way We Live Now: 10-14-01; In My Tribe
   By Ethan Watters
   Printed in the New York Times

   It may be true that 'never marrieds' are saving
   themselves for something better. They may also be
   saving the institution of marriage while they're
   at it.

   You may be like me: between the ages of 25 and
   39, single, a college-educated city dweller. If
   so, you may have also had the unpleasant experi-
   ence of discovering that you have been identified
   (by the U.S. Census Bureau, no less) as one of
   the fastest-growing groups in America - the "ne-
   ver marrieds." In less than 30 years, the number
   of never-marrieds has more than doubled, apparen-
   tly pushing back the median age of marriage to
   the oldest it has been in our country's history
   -- about 25 years for women and 27 for men.

   As if the connotation of "never married" weren't
   negative enough, the vilification of our group
   has been swift and shrill. These statistics prove
   a "titanic loss of family values," according to
   The Washington Times. An article in Time magazine
   asked whether "picky" women were "denying them-
   selves and society the benefits of marriage"
   and in the process kicking off "an outbreak of
   'Sex and the City' promiscuity." In a study on
   marriage conducted at Rutgers University, resear-
   chers say the "social glue" of the family is at
   stake, adding ominously that "crime rates...are
   highly correlated with a large percentage of
   unmarried young males."

   Although I never planned it, I can tell you how
   I became a never-married.  Thirteen years ago,
   I moved to San Francisco for what I assumed was
   a brief transition period between college and
   marriage. The problem was, I wasn't just looking
   for an appropriate spouse. To use the language
   of the Rutgers researchers, I was "soulmate
   searching." Like 94 percent of never-marrieds
   from 20 to 29, I, too, agree with the statement
   "When you marry, you want your spouse to be your
   soul mate first and foremost." This uber-roman-
   tic view is something new. In a 1965 survey,
   fully three out of four college women said
   they'd marry a man they didn't love if he fit
   their criteria in every other way.

   I discovered along with my friends that finding
   that soul mate wasn't easy. Girlfriends came and
   went, as did jobs and apartments. The constant
   in my life -- by default, not by plan -- became a
   loose group of friends. After a few years, that
   group's membership and routines began to solidify.
   We met weekly for dinner at a neighborhood rest-
   aurant. We traveled together, moved one another's
   furniture, painted one another's apartments,
   cheered one another on at sporting events and
   open-mike nights.

   One day I discovered that the transition period I
   thought I was living wasn't a transition period at
   all. Something real and important had grown there.
   I belonged to an urban tribe.

   I use the word "tribe" quite literally here: this
   is a tight group, with unspoken roles and hierar-
   chies, whose members think of each other as "us"
   and the rest of the world as "them." This bond is
   clearest in times of trouble. After earthquakes
   (or the recent terrorist strikes), my instinct to
   huddle with and protect my group is no different
   from what I'd feel for my family.

   Once I identified this in my own life, I began to
   see tribes everywhere I looked: a house of ex-sor-
   ority women in Philadelphia, a team of ultimate-
   frisbee players in Boston and groups of musicians
   in Austin, Tex.  Cities, I've come to believe,
   aren't emotional wastelands where fragile indivi-
   duals with arrested development mope around self-
   indulgently searching for true love. There are rich
   landscapes filled with urban tribes.

   So what does it mean that we've quietly added the
   tribe years as a developmental stage to adulthood?
   Because our friends in the tribe hold us responsi-
   ble for our actions, I doubt it will mean a wild
   swing toward promiscuity or crime. Tribal behavior
   does not prove a loss of "family values." It is a
   fresh expression of them.

   It is true, though, that marriage and the tribe
   are at odds. As many ex-girlfriends will ruefully
   tell you, loyalty to the tribe can wreak havoc on
   romantic relationships. Not surprisingly, marriage
   usually signals the beginning of the end of tribal
   membership. From inside the group, marriage can
   seem like a risky gambit. When members of our tribe
   choose to get married, the rest of us talk about
   them with grave concern, as if they've joined a
   religion that requires them to live in a guarded
   compound.

   But we also know that the urban tribe can't exist
   forever. Those of us who have entered our mid-30's
   find ourselves feeling vaguely as if we're living
   in the latter episodes of "Seinfeld" or "Friends,"
   as if the plot lines of our lives have begun to
   wear thin.

   So, although tribe membership may delay marriage,
   that is where most of us are still heading. And it
   turns out there may be some good news when we get
   there. Divorce rates have leveled off. Tim Heaton,
   a sociologist at Brigham Young University, says he
   believes he knows why. In a paper to be published
   next year, he argues that it is because people are
   getting married later.

   Could it be that we who have been biding our time
   in happy tribes are now actually grown up enough
   to understand what we need in a mate? What a fan-
   tastic twist -- we "never marrieds" may end up re-
   vitalizing the very institution we've supposedly
   been undermining. And there's another dynamic
   worth considering. Those of us who find it so hard
   to leave our tribes will not choose marriage
   blithely, as if it is the inevitable next step in
   our lives, the way middle-class high-school kids
   choose college.

   When we go to the altar, we will be sacrificing
   something precious. In that sacrifice, we may begin
   to learn to treat our marriages with the reverence
   they need to survive.

   Ethan Watters is a writer living in San Francisco.

More in a bit...


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