Anxiety like that does not just go away with changed circumstances. If that friend were married, she'd just be married and freaking out about something else, like which random woman he sees on the subway her husband's having an affair with. If she's as desperate as she sounds and marries some guy just so she won't have to be [gasp!] alone, then I'd lay odds she wouldn't be in the "Happily Married" group just because she signed the marriage license.

Rather than singleness explaining why she's insane, maybe the friend's insanity explains why she's single?

NumberSix and NicoleK seem to have hit on a truth here: just because someone gets married is no guarantee that they'll become magically un-neurotic. That shit stays with you until you figure out the cause and do something about it. And I also agree about the "happily marrieds" because if you're already in a marriage and miserable, unless and until you do something about that, you're still going to be miserable, and that can make you neurotic too. Divorce might be part of the answer, but it's not the answer.

"Whatever you do, don't let that "dying alone!" business get to you. Somebody can tough it out for 30 years with a person and, wouldn't you know it, have that final heart attack just moments after their spouse runs out to the store with a coupon for 40 cents off cottage cheese."

I don't think people are afraid of being alone in the /room/ at the moment of death. It's more of an end of life, senior years, "who will spoon feed me, hold my hand, build me a fire when the furnace breaks?" kind of thing. You're not likely to find someone new to do that.

I can see both sides. My boyfriend keeps me sane by telling me point-blank when I'm over-reacting or being neurotic, which I appreciate.

At the same time, I know a married couple who just made each other more neurotic: They have a set schedule of which TV shows must be watched and what type of food eaten on pretty much every night of the week. If you want to go get sushi with them on "Tacos-and-Walking-Dead night," you are out of luck. Same goes for "Soup-and-Madmen" night. If one partner, last-minute, "doesn't feel like" coming to the dinner party you invited them to two weeks ago, both will stay home. If you manage to get one of them to come out without the other, they have designated check-in times, meaning they must call/text the other partner with their whereabouts at regular, predetermined intervals. These check-ins tend to be anything but brief and usually involve a lengthy, detailed phone/text conversations.

I think they both had control/neediness issues before marriage...but they kept it under cover pretty well when they were single. I'm close to both and didn't notice it until after they started living together.

There is always the chance that marriage is what causes you to go crazy......

I've come to the conclusion that marriage (or at least cohabitation) would drive me insane. I need my alone time, and lots of it. I enjoy my writing and my individual pursuits. And I love the freedom I have that being a writer gives me. If I find I can't sleep at two in the morning, I get up and write, and I don't have to worry about being tired at work the next day because I can sleep when I want to.

The married couple that sofar describes reminds me of the marriage of Victorian essayist/historian Thomas Carlyle and his wife Jane. A friend of theirs once commented that it was fortunate they had married each other, "thereby making only two people miserable rather than four."

What is so terrible about "dying alone"? Ultimately, we all do. Those at our beside aren't coming with us. I've never heard a corpse complain, "Gee, I wish I hadn't died alone."

Ah, marriage. That exalted state that allows you to look down your nose at your single acquaintances and sneer "Loser!".

I could write a dozen anecdotes about why I don't hang with married people any more, but suffice it to say too many marrieds live in a cloud of smug and like it.

I don't worry about dying alone. But I like not living alone. I like my husband, and I like knowing he's nearby. We don't have to be talking all the time. We share an office, and we frequently go hours without speaking because we both need to carve psychological space for ourselves, but I still like that he's only a few feet away.

Now that we have a baby, I can't imagine doing this alone. The other day, he said that fathers exist to keep mothers from smothering their newborns. There's probably more truth there than a lot of people are comfortable with.

I've done both. I was married for seventeen years and have been divorced for seven. Jesus, is living alone better for me. I couldn't imagine getting married again. That's not at all a slam on my ex-wife. I just can't imagine being happier than I am now and I'm not going to screw around with that kind of perfection.

Truth be told, a lot of unmarried women are koo-koo. It is both the reason they are unmarried, and the cause of them being koo-koo.

LIke alcohol: The cause of, yet the solution to, all of our problems.

I think all of the above depends on the person and a lot of other variables. I think one thing the "ruins" the thought of cohabitating and/or marriage for some (that might otherwise try it) is, honestly, waiting so long. I married at 20 and lived on my own or with girlfriends for a whopping 2 years before marrying. I really can't imagine living alone. It sounds awful to me but I can totally see what someone who is in their 30's or 40's thinks living with someone else sounds awful. You are so set in your life and the way it runs and so used to your alone time. I miss my husband SO much when he is gone on a business trip for 5 days. We actually skype while he's gone. We're weird, I know, but I've been around him almost every day for 12 years and couldn't imagine it any other way!

Author Robert B. Parker and his wife, Joan, found they couldn't live together. So they split a townhouse.

I can't speak for anyone but myself, but once between marriages I was crazy. I had no human contact except at work, store clerks, and TV. I had several crazy ideas that I thankfully could not act on because I was too drunk to get out of my recliner. One of my ideas was that ammunition was a lot cheaper than paying alimony. Luckily, I got over that stage.

I have been happily married now for 28 years.

I remember a study several years ago where 40% of the married women claimed/admitted to adultery.

But none of them admitted to getting a frontloader full of manure dumped into their convertible when they got caught.

http://screen.yahoo.com/husband-gets-revenge-084500815.html

Rich friendships are great if you end up in the same nursing home.

My grandmother's best friend lives an hour away and she never sees her. If she didn't have her family around she would be very alone, because her friends have died or are not easily accessible. It's very sad.

I think these types are a sad and sympathetic case, as to be fair, modern society does not well lend itself to the humane accommodation or care of such people.