The “toxic bachelor.” It was a term we’d never really heard of until a 33-year-old male friend, fresh off a breakup, mentioned it. “I want to settle down,” he said. “I want to start a family. Plus, I’m getting to that age where if I don’t do it soon, I’m in danger of becoming a ‘toxic bachelor.’” A toxic bachelor, he explained, is when it’s no longer cute to be single, and seems sad and desperate instead. For this particular friend, his “toxic bachelor” age was 35, and we wanted to know if other men felt any kind of desperate pull to settle down. So we asked them. Over IM.
