Settle for Mr. Okay

I've got a real problem with this article, and I'm not the only one! Two main points: One, the author approaches the world on the assumption that every single woman must have her exact wants and needs.  That's just plain stupid, or lazy writing. And two, her understanding of the available options is flawed due to her child-centric viewpoint.

She writes:

To the outside world, of course, we still call ourselves feminists* and insist—vehemently, even—that we're independent and self-sufficient and don't believe in any of that damsel-in-distress stuff, but in reality, we aren't fish who can do without a bicycle, we're women who want a traditional family…every woman I know—no matter how successful and ambitious, how financially and emotionally secure—feels panic, occasionally coupled with desperation, if she hits 30 and finds herself unmarried.

Oh, I know—I'm guessing there are single 30-year-old women reading this right now who will be writing letters to the editor to say that the women I know aren't widely representative, that I've been co-opted by the cult of the feminist backlash, and basically, that I have no idea what I'm talking about. And all I can say is, if you say you're not worried, either you're in denial or you're lying. In fact, take a good look in the mirror and try to convince yourself that you're not worried, because you'll see how silly your face looks when you're being disingenuous.

The main problem is that not every woman who says she doesn't want kids and husband is lying. I don't want kids; I've suspected this for some time and I'm starting to feel like I "know" it now. I'm not dead-set against kids; I know I would be a good mother, I just don't really have a burning desire to be one. If I were with a man that I wanted to keep, for whom no kids was a deal-breaker, and I thought that he would be a good provider, role model, and active partner in child-rearing, I would be open to discussing having a kid or two. So when considering my romantic life or potential partnerships, I'm not desperately looking around for someone with a bank account and good genes who can support my dream of procreation. More on the "don't want husband" thing later. Maybe it is "disingenuous" for me to say I'm not "worried" about being unmarried; when I will admit that I find it annoying to go a long period of time without romantic male companionship, but wanting to have a boyfriend and regular sex is a far cry from "panic" that I'm not married, which is why I take issue with the author's ridiculous assertion.

The author's view of marriage centers around kids and pragmatism, but choosing to "settle" on a decent guy so you can raise a family is just one way to go. It's understandable that the author, someone obviously torn over the conflict between her professed "feminist" ideals and her own hard-to-admit desires for an Ozzie and Harriet lifestyle, wants to believe that her priorities are universal – if everyone who professes to be a feminist and says she prefers to be her own person than "settle" with a man is lying, then it's okay that the author is too! – but while understandable, it's still stupid and lazy writing to boot. More importantly, "settling" for a "good enough" guy with whom to partner for child-rearing is, as she points out, a practical choice for someone who wants to have kids and believes kids are best raised by a team. Choosing to settle down with Mr. Okay when you're young and attractive and "interesting" – before biology kicks in and you start to lose your clear skin and perky breasts, in other words, and before becoming one of those screaming bores of a mother who only thinks and talks about her child – makes sense if you're worried that your field is going to be limited by men who will only want 20-somethings with whom they can spawn.

So again, for the kid-centric view of the relations between the sexes, that makes sense. But there are plenty of women in their 30s, 40s, and 50s who are just as attractive as, and in some cases even more so than, their younger counterparts. If baby-making is not Ultimate Goal, there's no extra incentive for a woman like me to "settle" into marriage sooner just because I'm younger. The author, since becoming a mother, has become a drag – that's her problem and it has nothing to do with the relations between men and women. Personally, I think I'm a lot more interesting at 30 than I was at 20 or 25; I assume that I'll continue learning, trying new things, making new friends, and continue becoming more interesting as I age. I'm plenty attractive, and I know a lot more about men, sex, and relationships than I did ten years ago, which I assume adds to my charm. I have to believe that a sexy, self-confident and interesting independent 30 year old is more attractive (for anything more than just a brief sexual encounter) than a hot but clingy, completely insecure daddy's girl twenty-something. And if that isn't the case with a particular guy, he's obviously not the guy for me anyway – and that's okay.**

In the end, the author's case is simply that she wanted kids, and having kids without someone to share the work sucks, so it's better to "settle" for a lousy husband you don't really love, and can divorce from, then to do it alone. Well, duh. Do you really need someone to tell you that you're going to have to take care of your kid 24/7, that in order to date you'll have to have childcare, and that you'll spend a lot of free time you could otherwise spend on dates with your spawn instead? If so, you probably aren't ready to have a kid because you obviously haven't spent much time thinking about the reality of having children versus your romantic cozy image of your little mini-me that you can dress up and read stories to.

As for the no husband thing, I believe that marriages fail for the most part because people have unrealistic expectations that they will forever love, desire, want to please, admire, be attracted to, enjoy the company of, burn for, agree with, and admire their partners, and that their partners will be their constant companion, social director, best friend, emotional support, financial contributor, and worshipper, despite changing priorities (kids ought to change priorities, if they don't), aging, boredom, and everything else that happens to people from day to day. So I agree with the author on one point: The "settling" to raise kids marriage is more realistic than the Cinderella happily-ever-after fairy tale outlined above.

I'm ambivalent about marriage, and I don't think I'm deluded or lying to myself when I say that. What's a husband nowadays except the guy who is going to tear up your life and ruin your emotional and financial stability ten years from now? I don't mean to sound so cynical, because I don't think marriage in and of itself is a bad thing; I just think most people do not share my understanding of marriage, so I wouldn't want to marry most people. I think most people have the above-mentioned completely unrealistic view of what marriage is going to be. As for me, if I don't find someone who shares my understanding of and commitment to marriage, and to whom I'd want to commit myself for life, I'm perfectly content to stay unmarried. There's nothing wrong with having a series of relationships or romances with guys who are great companions, and maintaining diverse friendships to fulfill all of my social needs. The choice isn't "married" or "alone," that's just the author's straw man.

I think marriage is a commitment to stay with one person, forever, no matter what – despite illness, weight gain, boredom, impotency, job loss, fetishes, bad habits, the allure of the totally hot guy at work who really _gets_ me, and all other distractions and hardships. For better or worse. If I ever get married, it will be because I have found a man who agrees with my basic view of marriage as stability and partnership; and whose qualities are such that I believe I could not only stay with, but want to stay with, him if all of the above-mentioned things happened. That requires a foundation of mutual respect and admiration, trust, and communication. And it requires that neither party have that unrealistic view, because it will always be disappointed and then the temptation is to end it and find "the one."

Take the job loss thing – I would be perfectly content to carry on a relationship with a guy who wasn't very ambitious or driven in his career, but I'd never marry one. I want to know that the guy I'm committed to puts a priority on success in his chosen career, and is someone I can trust to always pull his weight financially, even if disaster struck or he changed jobs or whatever. Financial stability is very important to me. I can appreciate men who don't have it, but I wouldn't ever legally tie my own fortune to his. As for boredom, I want a guy I share enough interests with that we can always enjoy doing things together, but I also expect that he would be well-adjusted enough to have other interests and be willing to hang out with other people too, and expect that I would do the same, knowing that a partner is not intended to be someone's own personal Minister of Fun. I want someone I find attractive who also finds me attractive, and who understands that maintaining physical excitement is as much work, and as important as, many other aspects of a relationship. I want him to put in some effort to be attractive to me, whatever that entails, be it physical – regular showers and haircuts and visits to the gym – or emotional – flowers and massages and sexy emails – or mental (nothing hotter than a guy I think knows more than I do about something I find interesting); and I want him to expect that I will do the same (Pilates and long hair, blow jobs and naughty pictures, and refusal to be a controlling and emasculating shrew).

If that means keeping the bathroom door closed and working out four times a week, if it means exploring alternatives to the norm, I want a partner who is willing to work with me and be honest with me and who genuinely desires a fulfilling sex life for both of us. I don't think any of that is unrealistic, I just think that all of it together is hard to find in one package. I can and have had fulfilling relationships with men who lack one or another of these qualities, and enjoyed them very much. I just didn't, and wouldn't, marry them. If I ever found a guy who was the entire enchilada, I'd be crazy not to tie myself to him for life; but if that ever happens and I meet someone with whom I really am that compatible, he'll already be committed to me even without the piece of paper that changes his official status from "awesome" to "husband."

Maybe I'm crazy, but I find this appalling:

I hear far more women than men talk about getting married as a goal to be met by a certain deadline. My friend Gabe points out that this allows men to be the true romantics; when a man breaks up with a perfectly acceptable woman because he's "just not feeling it," there's none of the ambivalence a woman with a deadline feels. "Women are the least romantic," Gabe said. "They think, 'I can do that.' For a lot of women, it becomes less about love and more about what they can live with."

That's just not how I want to live. Via Advice Goddess.

*I find it interesting that the author is a self-styled feminist. I suspect that her own insecurities and desires are what drew her to an identity of women marching around demanding equality and insisting that they don't need men. Like the fire-and-brimstone fundamentalist preacher railing against gay marriage and drugs and who later turns out to have been hiring gay prostitutes and taking meth, many feminists doth protest too much. This author is bitter because she bought the "you-can-do-it" feminist crap – that women don't need anyone else, they can be everything to everyone and still be true to themselves and men are ancillary to happiness.

**I find it fascinating that so many of the women who write this kind of thing seem to have an angry sense of entitlement when it comes to men. If the men they are meeting aren't interested in them, it becomes a problem that the men have – they're shallow, or society's sexist views have influenced them, or pornography has given them unrealistic expectations of women, or whatever. (But never seems to work the other way – they freely reject men for being bald, or fat, or not having good enough jobs, but that just makes them practical, since after all they are looking for a potential Father Of Their Children and Lifetime Provider!) It never seems to occur to them that no one wants to be with someone who is burdened with the weight of the world, who doesn't take care of herself, and who only talks about playdates and the contents of diapers. When did it become such a taboo to suggest that women ought to cultivate traits and interests that make men attracted to them? (And, in the interest of equality, let's state the obvious here – men should also cultivate qualities that women will find attractive, if they expect to attract women.)

Men aren't commodities but individuals; and one of the reasons good relationships are hard to find is because even when you find someone you think is great, he may not think you are. That's just life. "Settling is a woman's game" that women do far more often than men, writes the author, but maybe that's because men don't approach women the way that women approach men. Many women approach dating the same way they would approach building a new home: They shop around and compare options and bonuses and cut deals to get the best value with the right location and price range and complain when they can't get a brand-new custom-built model that has everything exactly the way they want it; once they close the deal, they spend years agonizing over the fact that the house down the street is bigger and has granite countertops, and even though it was out of the price range, maybe she could have gotten that one instead…?

Comments at Volokh; and I should have known Rachel Lucas would have something to say about it.