Ok, first off, I am not married and do not have children and do not have any plans to do either at this point in my life. This thread is to discuss the reasons behind marriage and having  kids. Why? Well why not? :)

I'm trying to find the truth, without letting regret, bad decisions, or people trying to convince them selves they  "made the right choice" get in the way.

I am currently 20 years old. I was born in Tampa florida, Bodybuilding is my hobby, I am not to my knowledge unnattractive, so my view on this might be someone different then someone elses., And for the record I am perfectly content to have everchanging girlfriend status. I moved to a rural town in S.C.( at age 15)( am moving to the city with in a month ) .The first thing I noticed was how early people get married here, I mean litteraly its unusual to see anyone above 20 who is single. Then I began researching marriage online for a school report( and partially because I thought I was "odd" Not caring about getting married or having kids. What I found greatly suprised me. Statisticly and of all ages, Singles apparently are happier in almost all aspects. It seems singles/no children are Happier with there freedom, achive greater success in there chosen career, More often to do spontaneous/adventurous activities,and to my surprise stayed in better physical shape ( Wanting to stay attractive for the opposite sex ) and have a better sex life. While over half of the newlyweds under the age of 30 get divorced, And if they happen to have a child the percentage of divorce rises a considerable amount. And seem to be much less happy with the things I mentioned above.

With all these statistics, I wanted to find out WHY people got married and had kids. What I dug up was comments like "Being in love is a beautiful thing, Having my child was the best thing that ever happened to me, We all have to grow up sometime.) While there words seem to be sincere that they are very happy, and confident in the decision they've made everything else points the the opposite. So why do they get married/settle down? Personally I think most of them begin to feel stale in a sense and think marriage is"the next step" in there lives. Or they feel like marriage will make them complete as a person. Is it the way we were brought up? In my honest opinion, for whatever its worth, Times have changed....for the better or worse they have changed, Society no longer frowns upon the singlet. In fact most movies are about single people falling in love, No one seems to care about a movie where a married couple of 30 years lives there lives. One reply  on the reasons FOR getting married said, Would you rather be alone for your entire life? And wake up one day and realizing your going to die with no one beside you. Well i'm not alone at all for one. And for the other unless you and your spouse plan on dying at the exact same minute, dying alone will probably happen anyway. Other people have asked the question "why do people get married" on various websites, and a lot of the replys I've seen, although answer the question with  there opinion, also seemed to be attacking the asker.

And children, One kinda idiotic reason for not having kids is the world is overpopulated, althought I think that might be a good reason NOT to, it doesent answer my question. Kids in this day and age on average after they graduate college the total cost of having that child is around $100k( If they go to certain colleges, more then that . Not to mention your freedom ( I know some will say " I have a child and I still have freetime") well like or not, with or without regret, you have lost some of your freetime. Career in mind, If you get an greatly improved job offer in a different country, first thought is "Are we going to put our kids through this?" Not to sound onesided or anything, But the single person can pack up and move at any time for any reason ( even for simply just feeling like it.). I also get the feeling a lot of births are accidental, and the parent(s) seem to try to convince them selves that "ii'm actually better off now, or "I'm very happy with my child", " I still have the same amount of free time as before and i'm still do all the things I used to". I'm curious to find out how many births a year are accidental.

Now some may ask what is the alternative to settling down? Well the obvious other choice is...dont. Being a bodybuilder I certainly feel confident in the way I look, I love going to parties/nightlife ( wich is where I meet a lot of likeminded people ). Being the year 2008 I see nothing wrong with this lifestyle. I saw where someone said ( everyone has to grow up sometime ) If you need a spouse/child to help let grow up, then you need to grow up =).

And of course there are exeptions to everything I mentioned, As there are exeptions to just about EVERYTHING in life. Mabey some people feel forced to get married as means to get out of a bad homelife with there parents. Or people get married for financial reasons. Mabey they were raised with certain religous or family beliefs. Or mabey they got pregnant and had to get married, Or yes, mabey they wanted to get marred from the bottom of their heart.

I absolutley love my life style and I love the type of person I am and who I am. I wake up everyday and love every minute of it. Mabey i've reached a point in my life where I can say something most people can never say, I'm happy to be me. this thread was not intended to make me sound self conceited, I simply let you know how I felt about myself. and my views.

Open for replys! the one thing I ask is, as i've seen with other post, someone quotes a certain sentance in a thread and then attacks it, this thread is meant to be read as a whole, each paragraph is in relation to the others, each sentance adds to what i'm trying to express as a whole thread.

LONG LIVE MMORPG.COM!!!!!!

Originally posted by nubs

 Because of server clustering the effects of population drops are felt less for those who continue to play but I would say once WAR is released that DAOC will probably be closed down.

I think sometime after WAR is released DAoC will be come either F2P of bundled with the WAR monthly fee( Which would be cool, mabey increase population / another selling point for WAR ). But I dont see how it would benefit them to close it down.

Not that I know of, But I'm hoping that there's no instanced dungeons either, thats what kinda made classic servers not so classic :) But I love the thought of roaming through old emain again, and hopefully thid. Hell I could even go with old dungeon graphics lol.

New poll on the herald for old frontiers server.

Go vote!! :)

If this has been mentioned sorry :P

Hey guys, I played SB back from day 1 for about a half a year then stopped...pretty much forgot everything there was to know :)

Can anyone recommend a good solo/group friendly PVP class? And perhaps post a link to a guide?

I was considering a Barbarian ( Wich is what I played before ) But all the guides I seem to have found date around 2004, and i'm sure are obsolete now.

Love melee characters and stealthy characters , But not so much casters. Any help is greatly appreciated!!