Cooking for Oneself

The classic old joke about the perils of married life goes something like this:

Why do married men gain weight while single men stay slim?

A single man gets home, opens the fridge, sees what's there, goes to bed.

A married man gets home, goes to bed, sees what's there, opens the fridge...

BTW, on a positive note, this is an equal opportunity joke, in the sense that it doesn't discriminate against Jewish women...

But the main point is that perhaps the joke is misleading. A couple of male friends recently pointed out to me that single men will cook for themselves, while single women generally will not.

That observation does apply to me. I like to cook, but will only cook if there's someone around - my kids or guests or the occasional boyfriend - to cook for. I'll almost never have the urge to cook for myself. I'm always intrigued when my bachelor friends regale me with stories of the feasts that they've whipped up for themselves. To take it a step further, bachelors that don't cook tend to go out almost every night for dinner. They won't satisfy themselves with stay-at-home scrambled eggs and yogurt.

My parent's story was that when they met, my father knew how to cook, and my mother didn't. So my father taught my mother how to cook, and then promptly forgot how to do it himself...

I can't explain it. I'm not even sure these anecdotal observations are statistically true, but I'd like to hear your opinion.