Erich says:
Tue, 26th Jan 20106:12 am 

I think you make a list of what you want and then if you can get to 75-80% you're golden.

foxjacket says:
Tue, 26th Jan 20107:55 am 

I've seen elsewhere that it was 85%.

Anyway, from Gottlieb's article: "The dream, like that of our mothers and their mothers from time immemorial, was to fall in love, get married, and live happily ever after."

This "my prince will come" fantasy is the problem. This is why I believe she's saying settle. But I would rather her say something like, "Let's examine, unpack, and interrogate all those messages about finding "the one" and having this all-consuming, passionate marriage." She's still too fixated the Prince Charming fantasy (which can only happen when you're young and beautiful, like the fairy tales, not like her, at 40 with grey hair and wrinkles) and ergo, her solution is to settle, which obviously, is not a solution. The solution is really about examining yourself and your own beliefs (a lot harder than settling), being happy with yourself, meeting new people, and being open to having different types of people in your life and having different types of healthy relationships. How can you have a healthy relationship if you settle? Why all the focus on marriage? What about having close friends and community and support?

She also doesn't talk about the consequences of settling: like being unhappy in a loveless marriage. Divorce. What about all the people who regret settling and are now divorced?

Guy says:
Tue, 26th Jan 201010:59 am 

I'm not saying she is 100% right, but just wait until you are older, let's say 25ish. Most girls I know around 25 start flipping out if they aren't in a serious relationship while watching their other friends either get married or get engaged.

A girl in college is probably a bit too young to be forecasting how she will feel in the next 5-10 years. Sorry to burst your bubble but these feeling will most likely come as you get a little older.

rielle says:
Tue, 26th Jan 201012:10 pm 

guy, i'm 26 and i agree with you to a point. it's like that scene in up in the air where george clooney's 21-year-old co-worker spends 5 minutes listing this insane list of things she wants in a guy and when george's 35+ lady friend does it she just says "funny, it'd be nice if he were tall and had hair, likes kids". as you get older you do realize that tallying up qualities is no way to find a husband. but, you also don't decide to throw out any hope of finding someone who is, um, actually right for you only to end up in a loveless, boring marriage. that's my personal idea of hell. and i just don't understand why anyone should have to settle–you find someone, you fall in love, end of story. people who intellectalize it end up unhappy because they get so bogged down in their lists that they don't notice when the right guy comes along. then they get artificially inseminated, write a book full of platitudes and try to make up for an "unfulfilled" life by getting famous–to each their own. i'm just tired of women taking any of these books seriously…

Kristina says:
Tue, 26th Jan 201012:24 pm 

"“If you say you’re not worried [about getting married], either you’re in denial or you’re lying”? How can she possibly believe that every single woman on the face of the Earth must, without exception, ultimately aspire to be a wife and mother?"

Not to mention the assumption that every girl out there wants to marry a boy… Obviously this doesn't negate the "wife and mother" bit, but the idea that everyone is looking for MR. Right rankles.

Zoe says:
Tue, 26th Jan 201012:38 pm 

@Guy … 25? really? most of the girls you know start flipping out that they're not engaged at 25?? ok… maybe in england it is normal to get married a little later than in the states or something but over here if someone's worried about that at 25 she's well… weird!! 35 maybe. i'm not saying i'm one of those 'most girls', i believe marriage is essentially just a piece of paper but yeah, maybe most girls by 35 hope to be in a serious relationship/engaged. but come ON! who's actually worried if they havn't made up their minds on their entire future by the age of 25?? chill out people!!

Lily says:
Tue, 26th Jan 20102:27 pm 

Just wanted to throw my two cents in: first of all I should preface this with saying I'm a gender studies major and certainly a feminist: but at 22 I'm terrified of not getting married. I'm still in college, and maybe shouldn't be worrying about these things…but between finishing grad school, wanting to be married a few years before children and wanting to start having kids before 30 (having children before 35 is much safer for mom and baby)…it's scary how tightly I'm asking things to work out, and that they just might not. I understand what Gottlieb is sayig about settling for Mr. Good Enough. I think we are taught to be disatisfied with what is perfectly good by movies, books and television. Not going to lie…finding someone who wants the same things I want in the same time frame, I get along with and am reasonably attracted to is good enough for me.

Sam says:
Tue, 26th Jan 20104:49 pm 

I use to be worried about never getting married, then I got married to a complete jerk, and to put things nicely, we got divorced. It completely cured my whole fear – I'm now more afraid of settling again and getting hurt than I am of being alone for the rest of my life. I'm fine on my own, a wonderful significant other is just icing on the cake.

belle says:
Tue, 26th Jan 20107:33 pm 

@lily..i totally respect knowing what you want, but scheduling your life just seems unrealistic and contrived. yes, the risk of labor and gestational difficulties does increase after 35, but this is a general number that varies based on your own personal health history and in the US, in this medical age, these risks are very small. my mom had my brother in the 80s when she was 40 and there were no problems at all. i never understand why people are in such a rush to reach life "milesones". if you're always looking toward the future, you'll never enjoy the present.

The original Zoe says:
Tue, 26th Jan 20109:48 pm 

I haven't really been worried about not having a boyfriend or even a fiancee at the tender age of 19. However, I come from a cultural heritage where most girls are married in their 20s – a pattern which has continued with all my cousins, aunts and extended family.

It's hilarious when I travel back to my country of origin and find that everyone is asking me when my non-existent boyfriend will be popping the question, commenting on my looks and "attributes" (domestic and otherwise) and I'm just sitting there going, Oh My God…

Ruchi says:
Wed, 27th Jan 20107:07 am 

there is no 'right' time to settle down. if you find ur soulmate, get married. if not, stay unmarried, forever.

Tamara says:
Wed, 27th Jan 20108:14 am 

It's OK if this woman wants to get married with any guy just to have kids, or not to be alone, or whatever the reason; the problem is she's presenting her choice as a "natural" one, and that is just plain false. I want kids and a family too, but not because (or not just because) some primal instinct of my nature; lots of social factors and facts about my life determin that decision. And I know many happy women that don't want kids and don't think getting married or being in a serious relationship is neccesary for a succesful and fullfilled life.

However, if you do want kids, you can't just wait forever; here nature does matter. After 35 it's harder to get pregnant, and after 40, is definitely not safe (there is a really high risk of malformations in the baby, delivery complications, etc.). So, even if it's not romantic, you need to plan ahead.

DateDaily says:
Mon, 1st Feb 20108:14 am 

I think what happens is that women nowadays have more experience and wait until they finish school and establish a career before looking into marriage.

By that time, they have met enough douchebags to figure out what they don't want, so their expectations are pretty high and they start to set standards that they would not have otherwise set if they had married the first guy they dated seriously.

But let's face it, many single women lie to themselves.

kari says:
Mon, 1st Feb 20109:45 am 

Maybe the message we should be getting out of her article (despite all the problems in it) is to BE HAPPY with who you have… we don't have to search for perfection and pick out all the little flaws in someone, still looking for mr. right. This doesn't necessarily constitute "settling" for someone you're not happy with, but realizing that even if your man has flaws, that he is still "good enough" to be with.

Lori's views are her opinions and even though she might present them as facts, don't worry about what she says if you don't agree. You know your views on marriage best

Conrad says:
Mon, 8th Feb 20103:24 am 

In my opinion, Gottlieb is giving good negative advice. Neither women nor men ought to be doing what she's telling people not to do.

However, I wish she considered more deeply the frame of mind that leads to happy mate selection. People who she's saying "settled" I'm sure do not consider themselves to have settled. Rather, they did not get distracted by nonsense.

Any ideology can be turned into nonsense when people pay attention to catch phrases and rules rather than the values that the ideology is meant to promote.

Conrad.

fiona says:
Mon, 8th Feb 20109:37 pm 

why is "settling" such a curse word in our culture?

I wanted to go to Stanford, I settled for UC Berkeley.

I wanted to marry the a white knight, my boyfriend is a 29 year old professor, whom I met in college while he was doing his phD. I would love it if his job isn't in the a shitty state in the south, or he had a 120k year job working 40 hr week vs working 80 a week as a young professor and getting paid 60k a year, or he's not so sciency and super detailed on everything, but yeah.

He's not perfect, nor am I

i'm super bitchy when I'm tired and sometimes unreliable, lazy at times and really not detailed. I'm really scared I'm going to kill some patients in med school…

He's settling too.

This writer lady does seem a bit crazy, but honestly, if you are still single at 40 and you do want to get married at some point and it just hasn't happened yet, the desperation is pretty severe from what I see.

We can't sit around and bitch about how insensitive she is at age 25.

Devils Advocate says:
Tue, 9th Feb 20104:02 pm 

Goddlieb is very right. You are absolutly no different than the first women to give birth in caves. THe only difference is you look at your days through rose colored lenses that you refuse to take off. Your vessel-that is body- is succeptible to disease, sickness, and that biggest bastard- age. Think about it really, all life is after you sift through the inane bullshit that we all occupy ourselves with, is just slowly wasting away. Wasting away after we peak in order to procreate. Now thats a very anti feminist thing to say but your overies really don't give a shit about your politics. Neither does your hormones. To suggest modern constructed social movements (whether they be justified or not) have any negating effect on those things we can not change is delusional.

How about this, show of hands. How many want to die in a room completely alone and unloved? Well, if your a female that's what is going to happen regardless of whether your marry. Yep, its a statistical certainty your dream boat will be long gone-even if you do end up finding that unicorn. The only way to avoid that end is to-you guessed it- make babies. The cave women did it and it worked out well for the rest of us.

Devils Advocate says:
Tue, 9th Feb 20104:25 pm 

This is an amusing article. If women werent so co-dependant towards eachother there wouldnt be any such thing as settling. Allow me to explain.

Im a dude. Better than average looking with that six pack you gender always talks about. Well, knowing all this I never really thought of putting anything physical as a requirment in a female. Other than good hygeine and a decent weight. By decent I mean as long as your doctor is not telling you to lose weight. In other words dont be a slob and I wouldnt care how you look. Whats even more curious is the other jock types I hang around with have similar views.

Point blank women are the more vain and shallow of the species. period. It's gotten so bad that most guys whom I speak to about this topic swear they wont ever allow they're daughters to develop the "princess" entitlement complex. I guess thats the whole feminist movement was to begin with…concocting social transgressions as a facade to make your behavior permissable. Only in our society does any character on sex and the city not get justifiably called a whore.

This divergance on the grasp of reality is no where more apparent that pop culture. Brad Pitt, George Clooney, James Dean, Colin Farrel…no dude looks up to these guys. In fact we ridicule them quite often. Why is it that young boys make believe has seeds of reality…war, cops and robbers, sports. Yet young girls never leave the fucking tea party. I say grow up and join civilization before its too late and your surrounded by cat litter.

College guy says:
Tue, 9th Feb 20104:39 pm 

The biggest problem here is that most women make up the problem. There is no such thing as settling. Really who the hell do you think you are treating people like they are baseball cards. Any women who even says this gets blacklisted to me. All in all its pretty disgusting to view humanity like that. More terrifying that these women are having kids. I agree with devils advocate, many many many young girls watching the hills and grey's anatomy are going to doing it with their feline freinds in the future. the economy crash really put shit into perspective for men. We've collectivly jumped out the fucking window of your fantasy castle and said we cant afford to subsidize your delusions. Eh, the next couple generations may not be as pretty but we will eradicated the lauren conrad/carrie bradshaw from the face of american. Kids will probably be smarter, and households will actually be run more efficiently*. Maybe, just maybe, thhe next generation of ladies will behave ladylike and not swear in casual conversation on college campuses like the pieces of trash alot have been raised to be. The only problem is convincing them just becuase guy fuck them doesnt mean we actually find them endearing…just easy.

*when i say run a household i mean 100% by the actual mother/father not some mexican lady/grandparents/aunt/uncles/neighbor/dora the explorer/or dog.

Leo says:
Wed, 3rd Nov 201010:41 am 

You're all a bunch of douchebags