This will make you happy.

Meet Lori Gottlieb. She’s a 40-year-old single mother—she got artificially inseminated because she wanted to have a baby but didn’t have a boyfriend—who has discovered the secret to why more women aren’t married: their standards aren’t low enough.

No, seriously. Gottlieb recently expanded this 2008 article from the Atlantic into a full-length book called Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough. Her basic premise? Modern women all have “checklists” for their potential life partners, and we’re too quick to dismiss guys who don’t necessarily satisfy all of those requirements. So in order to avoid being single and, therefore, miserable in our 40s, women in their 20s like you and me should forget searching for Mr. Right and, instead, make do with Mr. Good Enough.

Don’t worry if this advice sounds ridiculously retro—Gottlieb freely admits that she’s telling women to ignore modern ideas about male/female relations because, as she says at the beginning of her book’s third chapter, “feminism has completely f*cked up my love life.” All that talk about “freedom” and “choice”—yes, she actually puts those words in quotation marks—is a bunch of hooey because, as opposed to what Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan would have you believe, women really do need to get married and have lots of babies in order to be fulfilled: “The truth was, every one of my single friends wanted to be married, but none of us would admit how badly we craved it for fear of sounding weak or needy or, God forbid, antifeminist,” Gottlieb writes.

Excuse me for just a minute—AAAARRRRGGGGG!!! This crap is so ludicrous that I can only express my anger in capital letters and multiple exclamation points. I can immediately think of about fifty things that are totally wrong with Gottlieb’s thought process, but I’ll spare all of you and just mention what I think are her most glaring errors: Read More »

When it comes down to love, I’m a picky jerk. Prince Charming can march his white horse right up to my doorstep with roses and I won’t answer the door because he’s not ‘challenging’ enough. Let me take a moment to recount the ‘problems’ with my most serious of lovers over the last few years.

Guy A didn’t pay enough attention to me.

Guy B paid too much attention to me.

Guy C wasn’t reliable enough but

Guy D just had his life way too planned out.

Guy E wasn’t smart enough while

Guy F wasn’t social enough.

And this is how it always works.

I know deep in my soul that if I ever wanted a relationship to really WORK, I’d have to stop expecting it to be perfect. I’d have to stop throwing in my cards whenever there’s an argument and I’d have to stop climbing up on my pedestal every time I’m offended by a guy.

And I think this is an issue that a lot of people deal with, especially women. It seems to me like guys don’t need too much from a girl to be satisfied. In fact, most of my guy friends would boil it down to: Not being a crazy b*tch, being good in bed, and…uh….not being a crazy b*tch. But for girls, I think it’s a whole different ball game.

He should be funny but not obnoxious, smart but not pretentious, strong but still sensitive, supportive but with his own life, sexy but not sex-oriented, loyal but not obsessive, stable but not predictable, outgoing but enjoy nights in…

Oh. Dear. God. Read More »

Guys tell me all the time…

“You know, if you wanted to have sex, all you have to do is….go have it.”

Over the years, I have learned that these guys are telling me the truth. As a reasonably attractive female who works out and eats right and has a body to show for it, finding a guy to have sex with hasn’t ever really been tough. Throw in the fact that I’m more intelligent than a lot of girls I meet and definitely more laid back…and lets just say that the sex in my life should be plentiful. But it’s not.

A friend was asking me about this yesterday. He finally came to a conclusion:

“You know what? You just don’t give a f*ck. Cause if you gave a f*ck, you’d be having sex.”

And I realized, just like that, that he was right. I keep complaining about the fact that I’m not meeting guys who I want to be physical with, but lets face it, I’m probably not trying.

And if you’re a reasonably attractive and intelligent girl out there feeling a little unlucky with sex lately, the deal is probably the same for you. I hate to say it ladies, but guys don’t have a lot of standards about who they’ll sleep with. If you’re not getting laid, you probably just don’t want to — at least with the prospects you currently have.