Generally speaking, when people are young they may not feel the urgency for marriage and settling down. For a character like Charley, who was a soldier in his 20s, then a hired gunslinger, and finally a cowboy driving free-range cattle, it's easy to see how this could happen. At that point he may have given up on any thoughts of finding a wife and settling down. As he confesses, he never expected to be alive this long given his chosen profession. But then by chance he meets Sue, he falls in love, he faces his mortality (the gunfight), and comes to the realization that he and Boss are getting too old to continue driving free-range cattle and fighting off greedy ranchers in a time when the West was changing and becoming more settled itself. As with all good westerns, it is a story about the changing West itself as it is about the characters.
Often people who remain single and active do come to the realization in their later years that they don't want to spend it alone and, on a deeper, more existential level, they don't want to die alone. This is a very human sentiment that any one in their later years (35+) can appreciate.
While it might seem surprising that someone like Sue had never married, she was a deeper, more intelligent person than any of the eligible men we find in that town. It's not that surprising that a woman of her substance would not marry just for convenience but hold out for love. Once you can accept that, their relationship is not at all surprising. Have you never met someone and realized immediately that you want to spend the rest of your life with them? It happens all the time.
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