&#62; But there is a social stigma at play here, my parents never know what to tell friends and family about what their son is doing<p>LOL, I can totally relate to this! About 6 months ago I walked away from a fairly cushy job to try striking it out on my own. I don't intend to go back into the corporat culture ever again. My parents are too embarrassed to tell others that their scholarship winning, academic hotshot of a son is now "jobless" :-)<p>A very nice side effect was that the pressure to get married stopped. BTW, can you even imagine what this pressure must be like for the <i>women</i>.