Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough - The Atlantic
By Lori Gottlieb
Lori Gottlieb is a graduate of Stanford Medical School, a New York Times best selling author, a contributor to NPR, who has written for The New York Times, Time, and The Atlantic. Her career is a runaway success, yet at 40, she's still single. She wrote, what amounts to an open letter to young, smart, career minded woman, in the March issue of Atlantic, begging them to settle for "Mr. Good Enough." It's a very funny/sad article that made me at once ecstatic to be a man and sad for my female friends for whom this article was written.
Many of those friends, mostly twnetysomethings, have gotten their hands on the article and have been talking about it fervently. I would be interested in hearing their thoughts and I hope they take a moment to respond to this post with their feelings about the article. I did talk to one of my married friends who is in her early 30's and without even reading the article she agreed 100 percent that women should settle. This is a non-issue for me because I'll never have to settle. If I don't find the women of my dreams (a 20 something with a bright future and a palpable sexual energy) in the next 15 years, I'll still have another 15 years to keep looking and never diminish my ability to start a family. Women on the other hand, only have a short window to procreate.
Is this fair? Yes. Men are born with just enough genetic code to exist, while women are born with the complete catalogue of the human genetic code. Therefore women are the greater sex. They have the power to create life with the help of just a few cells. Men need an entire woman to pass on their genes. Once science figures out how to manufacture sperm in the lab, the arguments for keeping men around will hold less and less weight. Men start wars, die sooner, are stupider, and most of us go bald. The advantages we do have are that we get more attractive as we age and our sperm works well into our 70's. So I don't feel bad that you have to have all your children by 37.
Read the article and let's have a discussion.
10 comments:
well, i shouldn't be commenting, i should be working since i have only been back for a day, but the article, while depressing, echoes what my mom says to me. she claims that i shut people down and don't give the guys that i date a chance. i question that whole soulmate idea and at the moment it is easier to be alone rather than put effort into getting to know guys who at first glance aren't as fun or interesting as my friends and my joking fallback is that i could have a child on my own in my thirties. i really don't want to though but maybe there will be a line someday that i hit that will inspire me to put more effort into relationships that i don't see going anywhere early on.
I think the hurdle women have to get over is the idea that there is no knight in shining armor waiting to take you to his castle and ravish you. Men and women are always flawed, and there is no such thing as the perfect spouse. Instead of expecting a magical match, women (myself included) need to be realistic.
Does he make you laugh? Is he smart? Does he respect you? Do you have the same life goals? Is there physical chemistry? After these big questions are answered, what weight can you give the details? Anything beyond those major issues are just frosting on the cake. Sure, I want a man to take his coffee black, and love reading the Sunday Post while rubbing my feet, but if he'd rather put on sports center while I knit in the other room, it's not going to destroy my vision of a happy home.
I don't believe in soul mates, but I do believe there are certain people I would be happier with than others. It's an economic game of risk and return, just like anything else.
And Aaron, sure - you can have babies at 70. But you won't be able to pick 'em up.
Babies are meant for the desirable. Don't settle. Don't artificially bear yet another woman. The world needs old maids. After all, who will nanny my children if they have their own to care for?
I do not endorse any comment made by Brian Garback.
While I don't have a long list, ok any list, of actual romantic relationships to pull from I still found this article an interesting read.
I don't think I've ever really believed in a knight in shining armor but rather want to find someone who has the same life priorities and goals. However, I am still figuring out what mine are for myself, let alone considering if someone else's would match. Do I want to stay in one place? Move to another country or city? Quit my job and see what happens? Go back to school? Want a family in five years? I only have vague answers to these questions.
For now I rely on my friends to be my family, but I don't delude myself to think they won't start pealing off one-by-one. This moments does scare me; that I will be the one left standing but I don't believe there is much I can do about that. So at the moment I plan on enjoying the years in my life where I can embrace uncertainty with little consequence.
I found this article clearly depressing - almost as bad as the one I read my junior year at William and Mary about how Black women should clearly start looking away from Black brothers because we are leaving them behind in the dust.
I do not know if I could settle. Unfortunately, while I was not necessarily brought up with the knight in shining armour ideal (I kind of adopted it on my own through too many romance novels and disney movies), my mom has always been an advocate of me actively seeking what I want. And if there are certain features in a man I want, then I should also try to be the type of woman that my ideal man is actively seeking.
I have been a plethora of "relationships" - none of them healthy, I feel, but I seem to know early on whether or not I think I could spend the rest of my days with this person. So I guess I do my own version of settling. I like to see where the relationship goes and I feel like if it is meant to work out it will - if its not it won't. I don't end it because of the no sparks or "silly romantic" notions; it usually is because he won't be able to support me and a family in our future. However, if he does have these qualities, far be it for me to decide to let him loose. I leave it to the higher power and see what happens.
However, for those who are not as deeply entrenched in a faith as I am, I have previously counselled people not to settle, and it has worked out. However, I recognize the article for its merit and hey, Mr. Almost-Right might be out there for me someday.
I'll respond to this "entertainment" post, despite the departure...
Damn you, Aaron! I don't have time for intellectual conversation!
I don't think that Ms. Gottlieb is bringing up anything new or shocking; in fact, her point is frighteningly average. However, she uses a term that shocks, "settle". What if she uses a word that is a little more accurate, "compromise".
Our culture so often values an "uncompromising" attitude that it is routinely brought forth in job interviews, et al. "I have an uncompromising drive to succeed..." Professionally, this makes sense. But I believe that her point is more indicative of the fact that our spheres are blending in ways we never thought about.
When we treat relationships in a similar manner to our professional lives, we miss the simple fact that relationships are much more complex than professions.
Ms. Gottlieb is learning what most people learn as they get older. Every relationship requires the ability to compromise. Most studies point out that marriages tend to succeed when the people involved consider themselves partners more so than intensely romantic.
Perhaps it's a difference in the way that men and women are socialized, but I believe that, sadly, women are put in the position of having to have a man in their life to "be happy" or "complete", whereas men are more often celebrated as loners or mavericks.
Maybe this all points to the fact that I will never be able to understand what women go through, but maybe this is actually relevant...
i don't want to repeat what others have said, but i think most of us agree that gottlieb's advice to be practical rather than overly idealistic or picky makes sense. i agree that a spouse requires different qualities than does a fun saturday night dinner date. i even agree with her that "true love" is much more prevalent on Friends or in the average romantic comedy than in real life.
however, i find her to be patronizing, bitter, and even a little whiny. she emphasizes that she chose to have a child on her own, then complains that she's at a disadvantage in the "power dynamic" she insists determines relationships. maybe i'm too young to feel the "panic coupled with desperation" that comes with single-dom, but i resent her implication that romantic passion and lifelong compatability are mutually exclusive.
i understand that she's being slightly sensational to make a point (and sell magazines) but i doubt that every middle-aged woman would rather suffer in a miserable (or even abusive) marriage than go it alone, as she claims. i definitely agree with her points about unrealistic expectations, the unfairness of the female biological clock, and the stark contrast between close friends and an unknown/ignorant potential partner, but i don't accept her advice to "sell your very soul" in exchange for mediocrity.
maybe i'll look back on this 15 or 20 years from now and curse my naivete, but for now, i think the possibilities are much brighter for us than lori gottlieb would have us believe.
It's not the idea for settling for less than perfection that bugs me, it's the fact that this book was written solely for women.
Do women sometimes have way too high expectations? Indeed. But I might argue it's even more common the other way around. Think of how many times we hear phrases such as "boys will be boys". Men are constantly forgiven for bad behavior- from the mundane tasks like refusing to do the dishes, to the big stuff like cheating. ("Boys will be boys...men have been doing it for centuries....what happens in vegas stays in vegas")
How many times have I seen a male friend do something obnoxious or refuse to complete a task and his wife/gf rolls her eyes and does it for him? Not to say a woman never does this, but when this happens I rarely have heard it attributed to his character and more often hear it attributed to his sex. Whereas when a girlfriend isn't holding up her end of the relationship duties I can't remember ever hearing "ah women. so inconsiderate". in fact there are often comments (made in "jest" of course) about women needing to complete their supposed womenly/wifely duties.
And what about cheating? Is it because men expect ms. good enough? or ms. looks the same as when we got married 20 years ago and acts the same as when we were carefree childless youngins?
all of this is of course exaggerated and a gross over-generalization. but so is her book. plus it seems like yet another example of "women stop bitching. u are never going to get what u want so shut ur traps and make me a sandwich"
something tells me that "marry her: the case for settling for ms.good enough" would have sold zero copies. why are women so quick to say "you're right. its my fault"??
A) this cracks me up.
B) I feel like my comments don't count since I am married... BUT
C) I do watch many of my single friends out being (in my opinion) very picky. Or starting fights with their boyfriends over trivial subjects. Or they spend their entire relationship trying to figure things out, they just make it too hard... so I do agree with this. Although I don't call it settling, because you shouldn't think of it that way - that's no way to start a relationship (by thinking you are settling), but having unrealistic ideas about what your marriage should be aren't healthy either.
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