Dontcha wish your girlfriend would settle like me?
Thanks to reader Michelle for sending me this beautiful horror show of an article about the importance of settling (for women, of course). It reads exactly like one of those women who got an abortion and regrets it and wants to deny you that choice. That level of delusion about how sure you are that the path not taken was the superior one.
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. And despite growing up in an era when the centuries-old mantra to get married young was finally (and, it seemed, refreshingly) replaced by encouragement to postpone that milestone in pursuit of high ideals (education! career! but also true love!), 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 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.
Thanks for doing my work for me! In exchange, I’ll be generous enough to point out that my lack of desperation to get married and have kids has a lot to do with a general unwillingness to get married and have kids. Some people are allergic to cat hair. I’m allergic to strollers. Tragic, I know.
Whether you acknowledge it or not, there’s good reason to worry. By the time 35th-birthday-brunch celebrations roll around for still-single women, serious, irreversible life issues masquerading as “jokes” creep into public conversation: Well, I don’t feel old, but my eggs sure do! or Maybe this year I’ll marry Todd. I’m not getting any younger! The birthday girl smiles a bit too widely as she delivers these lines, and everyone laughs a little too hard for a little too long, not because we find these sentiments funny, but because we’re awkwardly acknowledging how unfunny they are. At their core, they pose one of the most complicated, painful, and pervasive dilemmas many single women are forced to grapple with nowadays: Is it better to be alone, or to settle?
Here’s a fun idea: Let’s ask someone who settled! After all, they probably did so after a period of being alone, so they have full information. True, you’d have to find someone willing to say, on paper, “I hate having to touch my husband’s cock, I often want to stab my ears out with a fork to listen to him ramble on, but I put up with him because you have to pay a nanny to help you out, but a husband actually brings in income.” It could be used against you in the divorce proceedings and all that.
So we’re going to have to settle (See what I did there?) for a woman who’s never been married, and certainly never to someone she doesn’t really love, tell us how great she imagines a loveless marriage probably is.
My advice is this: Settle! That’s right. Don’t worry about passion or intense connection. Don’t nix a guy based on his annoying habit of yelling “Bravo!” in movie theaters. Overlook his halitosis or abysmal sense of aesthetics. Because if you want to have the infrastructure in place to have a family, settling is the way to go. Based on my observations, in fact, settling will probably make you happier in the long run, since many of those who marry with great expectations become more disillusioned with each passing year.
Translation: There’s no time like the present to start on that life of quiet desperation!
Believe it or not, it gets worse from here on out.
Even situation comedies, starting in the 1970s with The Mary Tyler Moore Show and going all the way to Friends, feature endearing single women
What’s with the moral scolds and their love of treating sitcoms like reality? Sitcom sociology.
As the only single woman in my son’s mommy-and-me group, I used to listen each week to a litany of unrelenting complaints about people’s husbands and feel pretty good about my decision to hold out for the right guy, only to realize that these women wouldn’t trade places with me for a second, no matter how dull their marriages might be or how desperately they might long for a different husband. They, like me, would rather feel alone in a marriage than actually be alone, because they, like me, realize that marriage ultimately isn’t about cosmic connection — it’s about how having a teammate, even if he’s not the love of your life, is better than not having one at all.
What kind of person listens to others complain non-stop and walks away thinking, “Man, I want some of that!” That’s an extreme case of fitting the evidence to the theory. Her desperation to believe that any man is better than no man makes me wonder if she’d envy someone going through an acrimonious divorce. “At least she’s married until the lawyers finally hammer it out!”
The couples my friend and I saw at the park that summer were enviable but not because they seemed so in love — they were enviable because the husbands played with the kids for 20 minutes so their wives could eat lunch. In practice, my married friends with kids don’t spend that much time with their husbands anyway (between work and child care), and in many cases, their biggest complaint seems to be that they never see each other.
Her entire argument boils down to: Husbands—cheaper than nannies. Except you don’t have to fuck your nanny on occasion to keep her from being suspicious about your motivations.
She then longs for the relationship that the main characters on “Will and Grace” have, and then goes that extra, jaw-dropping mile.
“I just want someone who’s willing to be in the trenches with me,” my single friend Jennifer told me, “and I never thought of marriage that way before.” Two of Jennifer’s friends married men who Jennifer believes aren’t even straight, and while Jennifer wouldn’t have made that choice a few years back, she wonders whether she might be capable of it in the future. “Maybe they understood something that I didn’t,” she said.
At this point, you realize the entire article is reactionary bullshit the author herself doesn’t believe. How do I know? If she really thinks that being married to a closeted gay man who exchanges housework for her willingness to pretend she doesn’t know what he does on weekend nights, then she would go husband-hunting at her local ex-gay meeting. If you want to be a beard, then there’s an easy, quick, no-nonsense solution for you. I don’t see how it couldn’t work.
My long-married friend Renée offered this dating advice to me in an e-mail: “I would say even if he’s not the love of your life, make sure he’s someone you respect intellectually, makes you laugh, appreciates you … I bet there are plenty of these men in the older, overweight, and bald category (which they all eventually become anyway).”
I tried to imagine an article on a mainstream website telling men to seek out older, overweight, hairy women rather than go alone. It was tough, but sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.*
Choosing to spend your life with a guy who doesn’t delight in the small things in life might be considered settling at 30, but not at 35. By 40, if you get a cold shiver down your spine at the thought of embracing a certain guy, but you enjoy his company more than anyone else’s, is that settling or making an adult compromise?
Yes, she recommended marrying someone whose touch grosses you out before you go it alone. Just for the health of your internal body organs that don’t do well under stress, I would not recommend this. It’s like being a very badly paid whore that only has one john.
I’ll leave you with this tidbit of rationalization that shows how little she’s thinking this through:
Even women who settle but end up divorced might be in a better position than those of us who became mothers on our own, because many ex-wives get both child-support payments and a free night off when the kids go to Dad’s house for a sleepover.
I predicted it at the beginning of this. I suggest she tell someone going through a divorce how lucky they are to have had this chance and see how well her “woe is me” song where everyone who has had the ring ever is happier than pitiful single her goes over.
*Yes, I’m stealing that. Your turn to guess where.
335 Responses to “Nice Guys® have a champion for their cause”
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It was tough, but sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.*
The White Queen, Alice Through the Looking Glass.
Did it occur to the author to ask the other women if they’d trade places with her? I’d be willing to bet that at least one or two would prefer single parenthood to settling, especially if their husbands turn out to be a source of extra work rather than help.
Holy crap! I can’t believe you didn’t quote this– “Those of us who choose not to settle in hopes of finding a soul mate later are almost like teenagers who believe they’re invulnerable to dying in a drunk-driving accident.” But I guess you can’t just quote the whole damn cringe-fest.
If this was satirizing the “you must marry any jerk because you don’t want to be alone!” thought it would be exactly the same.
Jesus. Even before you get to the question of “What the hell is wrong with her?”, you wonder if she realizes how horribly unethical it is to marry someone with the intention of tolerating them in exchange for companionship. If they’re not on the same page as you are–if they think you love them and are there because you want to be with them, personally and specifically–that’s a really horrible thing to do to someone.
Also, sanctity of marriage, my ass.
Damn. That is sad.
Mind, I have no problem with women or men lamenting their singleness - hell, people get lonely. But actually advocating that you marry a closeted gay man or someone whose touch makes you feel disgusting or someone who isn’t compatible with you is another story. And while we’re at it, won’t someone please think of the children TM? In all seriousness, that would be a novel way of fucking up your child but good - giving them a model of marriage as a loveless, bloodless business arrangement.
Now, I do think it’s good advice to both men and women to look past superficial things, and choose someone who shares your values, is intelligent and compassionate, and whose company you enjoy. But that seems to me like the opposite of settling.
you wonder if she realizes how horribly unethical it is to marry someone with the intention of tolerating them in exchange for companionship
As usual, the reactionary forces insult men and women alike - they just insult women a little more directly.
Amanda, I read that article in The Atlantic last night and *boggled*. I was hoping you would comment on it. I actually thought that “I wonder what Pandagon would make of this.” I think there was a kernel of truth in the article–marriage isn’t all romance and flowers and passion, especially after kids–but it reeked of desperation and self-delusion.
Yet another article about how women can’t “have it all”.
why does the media love this stories so much? It’s almost as if they were saying “YOU BIT MORE THAN YOU COULD CHEW! NOW SUFFER! HAR HAR HAR!!!”
I blame the PATRIARCHY! (do I miss that blog)
Boy, I’ve gotta tell you that as a man, I sure hope to find the woman who is repulsed by me but will marry me anyway, in hopes we will one day get divorced so she can get literally hundreds of dollars a month in child support from me. Isn’t that what love is all about?
The weirdest part for me was this:
I would say even if he’s not the love of your life, make sure he’s someone you respect intellectually, makes you laugh, appreciates you … I bet there are plenty of these men in the older, overweight, and bald category (which they all eventually become anyway).
In general the great loves of my life have been men that I respect intellectually, make me laugh, appreciate and respect me. They have also been sometimes overweight, sometimes bald, sometimes older. I don’t consider this “settling.” I consider this knowing what I like and going for it. Plus I really do think bald is beautiful. Seriously isn’t that sort of shallow and icky to think that a person is overweight so therefore you can’t be sexually attracted to him/her.
You know they’re only being hypothetical when they say “older, overweight, and bald.” Those who’ve actually lived the dream would not fail to add “and snores like a motherfucker.”
If the author if this piece isn’t a man, she’s at least an MRA. The rest of the article is really a pre-amble to the line about how being divorced makes a woman financially and socially “better off” than if she stayed single. Nobody but MRAs buy the line that child support is the ticket to the big life.
Lance Mannion also had a great response to this article on his blog: http://lancemannion.typepad.com/lance_mannion/2008/02/making-the-worl.html
I think she makes this assumption that if you settle for a loveless marriage, you’ll stay *exactly* the same person that you are now, but with a built-in babysitter/handyman/ dinner companion sleeping next to you. Uh no: As Amanda points out, the emotional and mental stress and turmoil will break you down.
And newsflash: women have tried this settling strategy for centuries, and there’s a reason why it’s not so much in vogue now.
My god. That was pretty fucking jaw-dropping. I kept thinking “It can’t get worse” . . . and then it always did.
The problem is that she is simply fucked-up - in so many ways that it’s hard to keep track. Marry a man you don’t like to be with? Marry a man you can’t stand to touch? Marry a man you know is gay? Marry the wrong man because being divorced is better than not marrying at all? There’s a lifetime of therapy waiting there.
But for all that, one thing kept leaping out at me: the number of times she justified “settling” because she can’t find “true love”. It just seems to me she grew up with a very unrealistic notion of what love is. She repeats several times that one of the big surprises of marriage is that you have to live with the person you married, and a lot of it involves mundane daily activities. Star-struck teens may overlook that, but it appears she actually didn’t realize that until well into her 30s at least - and that’s what she means by “settling”: embracing a life that isn’t “Queen for a Day”, but involves actually . . . having a real life, and sharing it with someone. She still seems to think real love brings you a fantasy lifetime of perpetual ecstasy with nothing in it that doesn’t sparkle - and she’s so bummed at not finding that that she figures she may as well settle for anything else at all.
If she could just grow up a bit, it might be a lot easier to dump all that self-loathing misogyny - and low-expectations misandry as well - and have an adult relationship that really did involve love, mutual respect, and self-actualization.
Ew.
My god. That was pretty fucking jaw-dropping. I kept thinking “It can’t get worse” . . . and then it always did.
The problem is that she is simply fucked-up - in so many ways that it’s hard to keep track. Marry a man you don’t like to be with? Marry a man you can’t stand to touch? Marry a man you know is gay? Marry the wrong man because being divorced is better than not marrying at all? There’s a lifetime of therapy waiting there.
But for all that, one thing kept leaping out at me: the number of times she justified “settling” because she can’t find “true love”. It just seems to me she grew up with a very unrealistic notion of what love is. She repeats several times that one of the big surprises of marriage is that you have to live with the person you married, and a lot of it involves mundane daily activities. Star-struck teens may overlook that, but it appears she actually didn’t realize that until well into her 30s at least - and that’s what she means by “settling”: embracing a life that isn’t “Queen for a Day”, but involves actually . . . having a real life, and sharing it with someone. She still seems to think real love brings you a fantasy lifetime of perpetual ecstasy with nothing in it that doesn’t sparkle - and she’s so bummed at not finding that that she figures she may as well settle for anything else at all.
If she could just grow up a bit, it might be a lot easier to dump all that self-loathing misogyny - and low-expectations misandry as well - and have an adult relationship that really did involve love, mutual respect, and self-actualization.
My god. That was pretty fucking jaw-dropping. I kept thinking “It can’t get worse” . . . and then it always did.
The problem is that she is simply fucked-up - in so many ways that it’s hard to keep track. Marry a man you don’t like to be with? Marry a man you can’t stand to touch? Marry a man you know is gay? Marry the wrong man because being divorced is better than not marrying at all? There’s a lifetime of therapy waiting there.
But for all that, one thing kept leaping out at me: the number of times she justified “settling” because she can’t find “true love”. It just seems to me she grew up with a very unrealistic notion of what love is. She repeats several times that one of the big surprises of marriage is that you have to live with the person you married, and a lot of it involves mundane daily activities. Star-struck teens may overlook that, but it appears she actually didn’t realize that until well into her 30s at least - and that’s what she means by “settling”: embracing a life that isn’t “Queen for a Day”, but involves actually . . . having a real life, and sharing it with someone. She still seems to think real love brings you a fantasy lifetime of perpetual ecstasy with nothing in it that doesn’t sparkle - and she’s so bummed at not finding that that she figures she may as well settle for anything else at all.
If she could just grow up a bit, it might be a lot easier to dump all that self-loathing misogyny - and low-expectations misandry as well - and have an adult relationship that really did involve love, mutual respect, and self-actualization.
Another case of “grass is greener” advice. I feel sorry for these authors who are so convinced that when they don’t like the consequences of the choices they’ve made in life they now have the authority to mix up absurd arguments in favor of why no person should ever make the same choice they did. They pull the “what women really want…” line as contrary to whatever common sense and self-respect would counsel, like feminists have been big meanies, trying to brainwash women into thinking independence means never wanting love and companionship. It’s a cornucopia of straw men and shitty reading.
If you’re so lonely that you’d consider ANYBODY better than nobody, going through divorce better than being single, you should be getting advice (like, from a counselor) - not giving it.
I was waiting for a quote like “Isn’t getting hit occasionally a small price to pay for not being alone? I have long envied battered wives because at least they’ve got someone to share their lives with.” I don’t suppose the author thought to include the natural progression of her premise?
MizDarwin, I think that every line in this was so quotable. I had to pare it down for sanity’s sake. You can only get the full flavor of self-loathing and pathos by reading it yourself.
The flowers and chocolate thing bores me, but damn, you gotta like fucking someone.
My god. That was pretty fucking jaw-dropping. I kept thinking “It can’t get worse” . . . and then it always did.
The problem is that she is simply fucked-up - in so many ways that it’s hard to keep track. Marry a man you don’t like to be with? Marry a man you can’t stand to touch? Marry a man you know is gay? Marry the wrong man because being divorced is better than not marrying at all? There’s a lifetime of therapy waiting there.
But for all that, one thing kept leaping out at me: the number of times she justified “settling” because she can’t find “true love”. It just seems to me she grew up with a very unrealistic notion of what love is. She repeats several times that one of the big surprises of marriage is that you have to live with the person you married, and a lot of it involves mundane daily activities. Star-struck teens may overlook that, but it appears she actually didn’t realize that until well into her 30s at least - and that’s what she means by “settling”: embracing a life that isn’t “Queen for a Day”, but involves actually . . . having a real life, and sharing it with someone. She still seems to think real love brings you a fantasy lifetime of perpetual ecstasy with nothing in it that doesn’t sparkle - and she’s so bummed at not finding that that she figures she may as well settle for anything else at all.
If she could just grow up a bit, it might be a lot easier to dump all that self-loathing misogyny - and low-expectations misandry as well - and have an adult relationship that really did involve love, mutual respect, and self-actualization.
OK, older mommy rant coming.
35 is NOT old. At 35, your chances of having a genetic defect in a fetus are EQUAL to the chances of an amniocentesis causing a spontaneous abortion. As it would be unethical to risk terminating a ‘normal’ fetus just to make sure it was normal, amniocentesis–a very safe test–aren’t recommended until the risk of discovery = risk of miscarriage.
I had a baby at 39, so I’m up on all the aged, high risk pregnancy BS. You know what my chances of ANY genetic problem were? LESS THAN 2% Chances of Down Syndrome were even lower.
Does that sound like a risk you’d be willing to take? 98% chance of healthy baby?
Of course NOT! You need to have your babies before you’re 24!!!11!!
That article is all sorts of wrong, but I’m slamming the fucking meme that it’s dangerous to have babies after 30.
I think if you have trouble conceving in your 30s, you would have had trouble in your 20s (barring endometriosis, which is a progressive disease).
So fuck everyone who tries to tell young women that they have to settle young so they can have healthy babies.
Ok, /rant. Do you think she just needs psychiatric help or does she loathe herself so much that she cant imagine happiness?
35 better not be old. I’m 30 and feel like I’m barely out of adolescence.
spiritrover you owe me a new keyboard.And for that snorer in your life–check out a CPAP. My hubby got it, and even though he looks like Darth Vader, it’s so quiet in comparison to the snoring! Plus, no more sleep apnea worries.
Someone who “you respect intellectually, makes you laugh, appreciates you” is a good friend, and over time, can become a lover, or even a husband. But if that’s ALL it is, respect yourself enough to NOT marry him. There’s no need to make 2 or more people miserable in the long run.
You know it’s written by someone with her head up her ass when she repeatedly references multiple TV sit coms to support her theories.
“Aw, gee, reality is nothing like ‘Friends’! Where’s MY Happily Ever After? Guess I should settle for any available penis with a job, then chuck him out like a used Kleenex when I’ve gotten what I want…”
Sad. Is it really so freaking hard to imagine just treating your partner as you would want to be treated- with fairness, respect, love and friendship?
Who is this broad and wow, I rarely if ever recommend that anyone go see a therapist, much less take psychoactive medication, but this is definitely going to be one of those exceptional moments.
This is a pretty silly article.
I think there is a place for people to write articles like this: I had expectations that were too high when I was growing up, I passed up some opportunities I shouldn’t have and now I regret it. It communicates to people that they should be more reasonable in their expectations, maybe even ’settling’. At the same time, people should write articles about how they made a mistake married the wrong person and (thank god) they finally got a divorce.
I don’t know how you measure whether people’s expectations for marriage or the single-life are calibrated properly. Maybe on average too many women do hold out too long to maximize their happiness. Or maybe its the reverse (I’d guess it would be the reverse if it weren’t for the social pressure that comes along with being a single woman as you get older). But short of statistics, people get a sense of these things by hearing about the experiences of others.
Unfortunately, this article is not really helping much.
Well, that was depressing.
It’s pretty clear what this woman wants. She is up front about what she wants out of marriage:
She wants a child and a household and, truth be told, it’s tough to do that alone. Plus, you get the benefit of pooling your resources and exploiting economies of scale. You know what though? A lot of people grew up seeing their parents live their lives as though their marriage was a tense and difficult business partnership and decided that they weren’t interested in running such a business.
However, lots of people come from the perspective that they’d rather forego running that nonprofit business if it means dealing with an unacceptable business partner… that would certainly make me a heck of a lot unhappier than being single.
Thanks, Caren @ 22. Needed to be said. Those lies so easily permeated my brain it was a while before I realized the give-birth-before-you’re-35 shit was propaganda, not actual science.
I am embarrassed for The Atlantic for lending a forum to this author (Lori Gottlieb), as well as to the equally annoying and regressive C. Flanagan.
I’m still stuck on the fact that this woman who is not married somehow feels justified — if not compelled — to tell women to “settle.” Lori’s bio on her website shows that she has been a standup comic and has written for sitcoms, which probably explains a lot, in terms of her references and generally unreal tone.
However, it still doesn’t explain why The Atlantic would give her a voicebox. They used to run articles and essays I actually wanted to read.
WEll, okay, I haven’t read the original article but isn’t it possible she’s writing it from the perspective of a single mom who reallly, really, really wishes she had an extra pair of hands around? I mean, right, it would be better if she were a bit more creative in thinking about where those extra hands might come from — some kind of differently-arranged society, perhaps? Yeah, she’s having trouble thinking past the existing possibilities . But to the extent she’s thinking “husband” is the only option, in a way it is given present social arrangments. If we overhauled society starting tomorrow it still wouldn’t change fast enough to help her — a woman with a small kid and no extended family around (apparently, again, I am guessing not having read the article) nor many institutional frameworks made to help out lone parents.
One answer is Amanda’s — not wanting kids. But what if you do want kids? Even massive social reform legislation wouldn’t kick in any time soon, and kids require SO MUCH EFFORT. I do think that’s a factor in her lament.
WEll, okay, I haven’t read the original article but isn’t it possible she’s writing it from the perspective of a single mom who reallly, really, really wishes she had an extra pair of hands around?
I don’t know; why don’t you read the original article and tell us if it’s likely, instead of playing devil’s advocate?
Doing the reading?!?!?!?!?!? How unfair! That’s never been a requirement of commenting nor playing devil’s advocate before! What’s next, a dress code?
Hoo-weeee! Gottlieb provides a wonderful example of how misery loves company. She’s correct in that women who wish to marry should let go their idealized notion of how a husband should act, but she’s dead wrong in her advice to “settle” for someone who may be utterly unsuitable.
It’s an exceptionally good idea in any relationship, whether it be marriage or not, to accept your partner as he is; to let minor peeves roll off your back instead of grousing over them.
But that isn’t the same as settling for a man merely for the economic stability or the extra pair of hands. Those kinds of relationships, where partners have nothing in common but the desire for greater social respectability, are doomed to fail in the face of catastrophic events. Job loss, illness – any bit instability, and her house will cave in because it was built on a foundation of lies.
I was about to send this to you. Much head-scratching involved. Too bad she didn’t grow up in Japan–the concept of “marriage in order to form an economic unit” has been around for eons. They even have matchmakers! (My secretary got married through the use of one.)
I’ve had the experience of realizing I felt lonelier sleeping in a bed next to a particular someone than sleeping alone. Once you’ve had that, any talk of “settling” just in order to be with someone brings on the chills. Screw that. I’d rather be completely, totally alone rather than go through that experience again.
They, like me, would rather feel alone in a marriage than actually be alone, because they, like me, realize that marriage ultimately isn’t about cosmic connection — it’s about how having a teammate, even if he’s not the love of your life, is better than not having one at all.
Wow. I know everyone is different, but feeling alone in a room full of people is infinitely worse for me than simply being alone.
I guess whatever floats her boat, but to recommend this as a solution? Just wow.
Or, you know, what tzs said.
I married my son’s father in a fit of — something or other — in spite of the fact that we had very little in common. I learned in that relationship, as I have learned in others, that even if you don’t have to have a really strong emotional attachment to a guy, he can still make your life utter hell. We divorced and I was lucky that it did not leave my life or my son’s life in pieces, but that is not usually the case. Most women with kids don’t necessarily like turning their kids over to ex-spouse for days or weeks at a time. This woman is so terribly clueless that I feel sorry for her kid.
Those people can speak for themselves.
I rather walk than risk driving a dangerously mangled car. A commitment to a person is much more serious, I would love to be in love with someone I love. If they aren’t worth loving, or if the attraction isn’t there, I ain’t gonna close my eyes and fake it.
Maybe I am not the best person to comment on this woman’s dilemma because I am only 23 (not yet worried about the ripening of my eggs) but I find her totally baffling. Wow.
Ah, yet another article that posits that I don’t exist. Because, of course, if you haven’t met The One by the time you’re 30, you’re more likely to be killed by a terrorist, blah blah blah.
Met my eventual husband at 31, married at 37. No kids yet, though we may aim to have one when I turn 40, or adopt, or never have them, whatever works out.
I really think one of the most harmful ideas in our culture is this idea that you have a “soulmate” somewhere out there that you’re destined to be with and if you can’t find him/her, you may as well marry for money because there’s no possible way to have a happy and fulfilling relationship without your “soulmate.”
Don’t nix a guy based on his annoying habit of yelling “Bravo!” in movie theaters. Overlook his halitosis
Woman’s insane. I have a one-year limit on overlooking shit like halitosis or being a dick in public. After that, I say brush your damn teeth and stop being such a tool and if it causes problems I am out of there.
I find that brush your damn teeth is usually complied with, stop being a tool is a request considered beyond the pale. I guess they gotta be them.
I don’t think words alone can suffice to describe how dumb and horrifying that article is.
I would just point out how she says in the same paragraph:
“settling is a rampant phenomenon” and then:
“the theme of holding out for true love (whatever that is — look at the divorce rate)”
So settling is rampant, as is the divorce rate, but the fault lies in holding out for true love. oooh-kay!
You know, on some level, I think two platonic-type friends shacking up to raise kids and provide themselves with some domesticity could be a nice idea. However, she seems to be proposing lying about it. Not okay.
Holy Jesus God, you guys weren’t kidding about how every last line is quotable:
She has got to be making shit up; or she’s a terrible mother. Who on earth would saddle their child with a morose, rude, clearly issue-riddled step-parent who has a “strong interest in terrorists”? You have a baby, woman, it’s not just about you anymore. You’re not 25 and childfree anymore, you can’t waste a year or two letting every loser who tugs the right sympathy strings crash in your bed until you get sick of him. That’s a game for the young - you have a duty to hold out for a guy worth settling for, one that won’t send your adult child to therapy in 20 years.
I think she should stop dating entirely until her child, who will likely, from necessity, be more mature than she is by the time it’s 12, can vocalize its opinions on her dates. She clearly needs a second opinion.
PS: Movie he was writing? Was he actually a screenwriter who has written movies that got made in the past, because if no, then we’ve got a whole nother set of reasons why an adult woman should not marry this man.
I subscribe to the Atlantic, and read this last night. It went from bad, to worse, to OMFG terrible, to “ok, the woman is ill—but shit, did they have to publish this tripe?? There are real authors in the world who would give their right arm to be in this magazine–what the fuck?
I could almost hear the thoughts of every man she’s ever dated….“Whew! Daa–aaa—mn! Sure am glad I dodged that bullet!!”
What’s with the moral scolds and their love of treating sitcoms like reality? Sitcom sociology.
I guess now, it’s out of the question to ask if Miranda was right to settle for blue collar Steve Brady, instead of handsome professional Dr. Leeds.
I learned… that even if you don’t have to have a really strong emotional attachment to a guy, he can still make your life utter hell.
Wow. I hope things are better for you now.
Since I am an overweight (slightly - I’m working on it), balding, married man, I was going to say something rude to the author of this lovely article & her friend. But I’ve decided not to. They might think I am worth settling for.
This totally isn’t for reals, is it? I did marry the love of my life, and, even though he’s the best thing in my world, it’s not an endless happy fairytale. I can’t imagine how hard it’d be to be married to somebody you don’t even like or respect, much less love. And I can understand wanting an extra set of hands to take care of the kid, but how likely is it that any of the rude, self-absorbed losers she describes would be an attentive daddy?
I tried to imagine an article on a mainstream website telling men to seek out older, overweight, hairy women rather than go alone.
Haven’t you heard that women become hideously ugly and unlovable after around age 25, whereas men remain gorgeous forever? It’s true. Many fat, bald, middle-aged dateless men have assured me of this fact.
It was tough, but sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.*
I know the original source, but if you were thinking of Dave Sim I will be in awe of you forever.
Someone already wrote this in 1972. It was called Sheila Levine Is Dead And Living In New York. Only that was a lot funnier than this.
The really sad thing is, in my 20s I felt like this author did. I felt like something was wrong with me because I couldn’t “settle.” Everyone else seemed to be coupled, what was I doing wrong? Was I going to have to sit at the kids’ table forever?
So when I was 34, I “settled.” I married the guy who wouldn’t brush his teeth, do the dishes, pick up after himself, or throw away a pizza box before the crusts in it had time to petrify, and who felt that as long as I was willing to “sell out” and do a job I hated to support us both, there was no need for him to look for work that didn’t thrill the crap out of him. I told myself I was the problem for being so bourgeois and uptight. For my trouble, I wound up being 5150ed at Langley Porter after a suicide attempt.
Lady, you cannot imagine the depth of loneliness of being married to someone who is all wrong for you. It’s much, much, much worse than being single, by orders of magnitude. The only way I could have imagined it being worse would have been having a child with this person who was all wrong for me. Maybe if she asked those friends who complained about their spouses, she might find out that her life — unencumbered by having to pick up after not only her children but the Big Kid she sleeps with to boot, in addition to all her other work duties — doesn’t look half bad to some of them.
But I suppose girlfriend’s gonna have to find out the hard way, isn’t she? I had to.
PS: Movie he was writing? Was he actually a screenwriter who has written movies that got made in the past, because if no, then we’ve got a whole nother set of reasons why an adult woman should not marry this man.
She lives in Los Angeles. Every single man she meets, including the pool boy, is working on a screenplay.
Every single man she meets, including the pool boy, is working on a screenplay.
I was going to say that. Women as well. If you live in LA and you’re not an actor, you’re a writer.
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.
All these years I’ve been calling myself a feminist while simultaneously thriving in my highly-affectionate and interdependent heterosexual relationship.
I didn’t get the newsletter informing me that feminists aren’t allowed to want traditional families. (I also missed the memo explaining why independence and marriage aren’t compatible. Shucks.)
This woman is a turd and the women who pay her to write are double-turds.
I’d be mortified if I was the person someone had “settled” for. No wonder feminists enjoy more fulfilling romantic relationships; we don’t look at schlubby man-boys who bore us to tears and think “Gimme some of that!”
I can’t imagine how hard it’d be to be married to somebody you don’t even like or respect, much less love.
I really want to know who finds it enlightening, amusing, or otherwise worthwhile to include articles in mainstream publications from authors who have absolutely no real-world experience of the subject they’re discussing. I assume they don’t publish woodworking articles written by people who have never picked up a handsaw or movie reviews by people who haven’t seen the movies. I guess when it’s only people’s emotional lives you’re discussing, it doesn’t really matter what the hell advice you give.
/me puts out the Therapy for Hire sign…
It is blatantly obvious to me that you, Lori Gottlieb, watch too much tv.
In particular, you might be watching too much bad tv. Of the dysfunctional family sitcom variety. You know, Married With Children, and modern day variants of the “I got married in a shotgun wedding and I’m not horribly maimed!” variety.
TV isn’t like real life. When you have a wife as lazy as Peggy Bundy, and you’re not much better, the house would look and probably smell like a pigsty, rather than the moderately clean place it is. The family dynamics would feature violence of the physical and emotional variety not present in these tv shows. And so on…
Therefore, the best cure for your condition is to immediately trash the tv, sign up for Survivor: Hell, and bring the Norton’s Anthology of Shakespeare’s Plays along…
That oughta cure what ails ye.
There will be a bill for 5 cents sent to your paypal account, thanks for the prompt payment.
Maybe, like so many other comics, she was just dumb enough to let her material run away with her. In some sense, we all settle — the intensely brilliant yet personable hunk (to your personalized specifications) of the appropriate gender with whom you share many interests, who’s thoroughly independent but always has time for you and your shared offspring doesn’t exist. Therefore none of us is one of those either. So we pick actual human beings to whom we’re seriously attracted, body, mind and soul. Riffing on that could have been funny.
But once Gottlieb stops imagining that her own personal perfectly-adjusted supermodel is right around the corner, she can’t help writing about the kind of “settling” that makes us all kinda sick. (Wow, they play with the kids for 20 minutes while mom has lunch.) Does she think that’s what will sell?
They put something in the water. When I moved out here 15 years ago, I had no intention of even trying to write a screenplay, and now I have an MFA in Screenwriting.
All absolutely true.
as a man, i thought this article was great…
until I figured that by the authors standard, Im STILL unmarryable, because my income isnt even worth marrying and divorcing for for the child support payments.
and i have long and lusterous locks, bitch!
Oh, and it’s twice as bad if she’s thinking about “settling” if she has a kid already. Inflicting a bad relationship on yourself is one thing; inflicting it on a child is another. (My mother did this after separating from my dad. Ouch, ouch, ouch.) Believe me, you will pay through il schnozzole for the 20 minutes he spends looking after your toddler with the multiple wall-rattling fights he’ll have with the kid later on. And you, too, in all likelihood.
I have an idea. Why doesn’t Gottlieb go to the county courthouse and interview women filing restraining orders against their exes, and ask them if they used to feel the way she does?
That article doesn’t make me angry as much as sad. I get the feeling it was written out of loneliness and frustration rather than as a result of some great epiphany. I’ve actually heard of Lori Gottlieb before. She’s written a few books, one of which is a memoir about her struggles with anorexia as a teenager, so she obviously has a history of self-esteem issues.
There’s a difference, too, between being overly picky and refusing to settle. I mean, it’s one thing to think, “Hey, that guy I went on a date with was all right…I wish I hadn’t written him off because of his job/taste in music/clothes/minor physical issue.” But actually considering settling for a closeted gay man or a crazy maybe-screenwriter? Or even a guy you just aren’t attracted to? That’s just very, very sad.
I think she’s also very frustrated at being a single mom, and she does have a point about people tending to gloss over how difficult it is. But is it really worse than staying in a loveless relationship?
Since apparently it’s okay for the author to extrapolate based on personal experiences, I’ll do the same:
I am 41. I didn’t meet my husband until I was 36. Prior to that time, I dated roughly two guys a year from age 14 (you do the math). I got one marriage proposal that I turned down in that time, and was “in talks” with another before I decided to break it off.
My husband is wonderful. He’s funny, cute, kind, intelligent, interested in most of the things I am, we talk for hours, my friends and family love him. I often think back and shake my head at what my life would be like right now if I had “settled.”
Truly, her article was a horror show.
OMG. Did somebody just say this is a HUMOR writer and she is trying to be funny??
The three levels of humor writing for the humor writer:
1. Funny. Success!
2. Trying to be funny but not. Embarrassing for both writer and audience.
3. Trying to be funny but not and also no one can even tell you’re trying to be funny. Not embarrassing but leaves audience with the impression that you are stupid, bipolar, or possibly both.
That article doesn’t make me angry as much as sad. I get the feeling it was written out of loneliness and frustration rather than as a result of some great epiphany. I’ve actually heard of Lori Gottlieb before. She’s written a few books, one of which is a memoir about her struggles with anorexia as a teenager, so she obviously has a history of self-esteem issues.
There’s a difference, too, between being overly picky and refusing to settle. I mean, it’s one thing to think, “Hey, that guy I went on a date with was all right…I wish I hadn’t written him off because of his job/taste in music/clothes/minor physical issue.” But actually considering settling for a closeted gay man or a crazy maybe-screenwriter? Or even a guy you just aren’t attracted to? That’s just very, very sad.
I think she’s also very frustrated at being a single mom, and she does have a point about people tending to gloss over how difficult it is. But is it really worse than staying in a loveless relationship?
If there is anything I would consider worse than settling, it would be being with someone who was settling for me. How absolutely horrible - the stuff of my nightmares.
I hate that the author is from L.A. - For heaven’s sake, there’s a million single people here! Sure, we’re all a little nutty, but we’ve mostly all chosen this wacky dating pool. There’s a lot of great single people here; I meet them all the time.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go work on my screenplay. Or read my boyfriend’s screenplay. Or motivate my screenwriting buddy. Or give notes to my producer friend about the screenplay she’s optioned…
That article doesn’t make me angry as much as sad. I get the feeling it was written out of loneliness and frustration rather than as a result of some great epiphany. I’ve actually heard of Lori Gottlieb before. She’s written a few books, one of which is a memoir about her struggles with anorexia as a teenager, so she obviously has a history of self-esteem issues.
There’s a difference, too, between being overly picky and refusing to settle. I mean, it’s one thing to think, “Hey, that guy I went on a date with was all right…I wish I hadn’t written him off because of his job/taste in music/clothes/minor physical issue.” But actually considering settling for a closeted gay man or a crazy maybe-screenwriter? Or even a guy you just aren’t attracted to? That’s just very, very sad.
I think she’s also very frustrated at being a single mom, and she does have a point about people tending to gloss over how difficult it is. But is it really worse than staying in a loveless relationship?
I have not read the full article yet and am not sure if I want to–hoping it’s some kind of joke/sarcastic.
shaenon–hey, I like the link in your profile…lots of manga and cartoons–I actually live about a mile from Green right now.
What creeps me out about her article is the air of desperation that seethes off of it, to the point where you get the feeling she’d ignore a lot of warning signals simply in order to “be with a man.”
Yeah, there’s being realistic in a good way, which is that relationships aren’t always perfect even when you’re with The One, and that maybe there’s more than one person you can find happiness with in your life. But this….this is just total desperation.
I do understand a bit where she’s coming from. Once you get to a certain age and there doesn’t seem to be someone on the horizon (or even the possibility of one), you can start feeling really, really depressed and start wondering whether you’re looking for too much. On the other hand, there’s a heck of a lot you can do just with really great friendship keeping you uplifted.
Her article however seems to be almost like an extended snit towards the universe: “You didn’t deliver My True Love! So because of that I’m going to have to marry this dork and sit around in a loveless marriage for the rest of my life! Waaah!”
It’s puzzling. I’m sensing an strong perfume of desperation just oozing off such people while they’re trying to convince me that I’m really, really, really just not happy. Really. No really.
I even engaged in a bit of barren womb omphaloskepsis.
:: shrugs ::
Guess I’ll just have to wander off being _not happy_. No really. Just one question. Why can’t I wipe the smile off my face?
Whoops, sorry tzs, I was too busy trying to suppress the urge to jitterbug as I pondered my 38-year-old, unmarried, childless existence and missed your comment about the desperation. Odd, we both got the same vibe. Well, anyhow, back to being _not happy_. No really. It’s just awful. I’m not sure how I’ll go on.
I’m so taken aback, I don’t know where to begin.
Okay…I do actually know that I don’t like sex well enough to fake it for Mr Good Enough.
I’d love to hear from a Pandagoner who has experience inside high-end editorial. Would Gottlieb have e-mailed this piece of tripe to the slush pile, or do you think she pitched it with an inquiry first? What could she have said in the query letter?
Either way, what did the buying editor think the product had to offer? A bogus-controversy shitstorm like what they stirred with their “Dan Quayle was right” article years ago? I know this mag does its business at a loss: if they get a lot of blog talk like ours, do they feel they’re achieving something?
the fact that she seems to think that marrying a plumber = settling says a lot about her.
on behalf of the blue collar side of my family, the ones without college degrees who are nevertheless smart, funny, kind, interesting people - FUCK YOU AND THE HORSE YOU RODE IN ON
Of all of those, being rude to the waiter is definitely the biggest red flag to me.
I’d also like to mention that my handsome HVAC BC journeyman BIL pulled figures just cents from 6 the last three years. (housing), and his bride has her masters in Ed…
Besides the hot monkey love that I hear WAY too much about…they share the love of DIY, 22 years later.
Settling? Please.
Yeah, I don’t see anything inherently crazy about a fiction writer appreciating the dramatic potential of comas and terrorists. Cliched, probably, but not scary. If the guy didn’t blurt out those quotes out of the blue but put them in some kind of context, it’s hardly a red flag.
Her biggest problem (among many) is her all-or-nothing thinking.
Either he’s Mr. Perfect or Mr. Good Enough. Since she can’t get Mr. Perfect, then she will settle for Mr. Good Enough.
One of the most interesting parts of the article I saw is below
So, what’s so wrong about a professional woman dating a plumber?
Plenty has been written about some men not wanting to marry more successful women. However, it goes both ways. Some women don’t want to marry less successful men either. Both men and women have been conditioned to believe that the man should take care of the woman.
The problem is that these old fashioned ideas clash with modern ideas of gender equality. What is sad is how hard these women cling to the idea that they deserve a man to take care of them, even though they are more than capable of taking care of themselves.
If you feel sorry for her, think of all the guys she’s going to date after this article appeared. “I went out with Lori because I liked her and I thought she liked me, but now I find out she just wants me as an unpaid babysitter.” Ouch!
That article doesn’t make me angry as much as sad. I get the feeling it was written out of loneliness and frustration rather than as a result of some great epiphany. I’ve actually heard of Lori Gottlieb before. She’s written a few books, one of which is a memoir about her struggles with anorexia as a teenager, so she obviously has a history of self-esteem issues.
There’s a difference, too, between being overly picky and refusing to settle. I mean, it’s one thing to think, “Hey, that guy I went on a date with was all right…I wish I hadn’t written him off because of his job/taste in music/clothes/minor physical issue.” But actually considering settling for a closeted gay man or a crazy maybe-screenwriter? Or even a guy you just aren’t attracted to? That’s just very, very sad.
I think she’s also very frustrated at being a single mom, and she does have a point about people tending to gloss over how difficult it is. But is it really worse than staying in a loveless relationship?
“Except you don’t have to fuck your nanny on occasion to keep her from being suspicious about your motivations.”
Hey. speak for yourself.
Just kidding.
That article doesn’t make me angry as much as sad. I get the feeling it was written out of loneliness and frustration rather than as a result of some great epiphany. I’ve actually heard of Lori Gottlieb before. She’s written a few books, one of which is a memoir about her struggles with anorexia as a teenager, so she obviously has a history of self-esteem issues.
There’s a difference, too, between being overly picky and refusing to settle. I mean, it’s one thing to think, “Hey, that guy I went on a date with was all right…I wish I hadn’t written him off because of his job/taste in music/clothes/minor physical issue.” But actually considering settling for a closeted gay man or a crazy maybe-screenwriter? Or even a guy you just aren’t attracted to? That’s just very, very sad.
I think she’s also very frustrated at being a single mom, and she does have a point about people tending to gloss over how difficult it is. But is it really worse than staying in a loveless relationship?
That article doesn’t make me angry as much as sad. I get the feeling it was written out of loneliness and frustration rather than as a result of some great epiphany. I’ve actually heard of Lori Gottlieb before. She’s written a few books, one of which is a memoir about her struggles with anorexia as a teenager, so she obviously has a history of self-esteem issues.
There’s a difference, too, between being overly picky and refusing to settle. I mean, it’s one thing to think, “Hey, that guy I went on a date with was all right…I wish I hadn’t written him off because of his job/taste in music/clothes/minor physical issue.” But actually considering settling for a closeted gay man or a crazy maybe-screenwriter? Or even a guy you just aren’t attracted to? That’s just very, very sad.
I think she’s also very frustrated at being a single mom, and she does have a point about people tending to gloss over how difficult it is. But is it really worse than staying in a loveless relationship?
That article doesn’t make me angry as much as sad. I get the feeling it was written out of loneliness and frustration rather than as a result of some great epiphany. I’ve actually heard of Lori Gottlieb before. She’s written a few books, one of which is a memoir about her struggles with anorexia as a teenager, so she obviously has a history of self-esteem issues.
There’s a difference, too, between being overly picky and refusing to settle. I mean, it’s one thing to think, “Hey, that guy I went on a date with was all right…I wish I hadn’t written him off because of his job/taste in music/clothes/minor physical issue.” But actually considering settling for a closeted gay man or a crazy maybe-screenwriter? Or even a guy you just aren’t attracted to? That’s just very, very sad.
I think she’s also very frustrated at being a single mom, and she does have a point about people tending to gloss over how difficult it is. But is it really worse than staying in a loveless relationship?
“Of all of those, being rude to the waiter is definitely the biggest red flag to me.”
I dunno. If I were looking to marry solely because I wanted an extra income and a co-parent and had no real interest in my spouse beyond utility, a major depressive episode would probably cause the relationship to self-destruct spectacularly in rather short order.
Wayward - I thought the same thing. How could you not brag about your boyfriend the Army helicopter nurse? Or park ranger? If you’re going to snark on men who make perfectly comfortable livings doing non-college-required work, why would you pick jobs that are either known for being pretty lucrative (plumber, HVAC) or are glamourous? And this for your backup quote:
Jesus, bitch, think much of yourself? And if there’s one group of people who aren’t well read or have good vocabularies, it’s actors, the illiterate boobs. Hell, the two most literary, well-read men I know are both alcoholics in dead-end jobs.
I can’t add anything more to what’s already been said. I can’t imagine “settling” for someone I don’t like or respect, let alone someone who makes me cringe. What a joyless existence that would be. And, of course, marrying someone who isn’t your ideal fantasy husband shouldn’t be considered settling at all, as long as you make each other happy.
Anyway, this story in the Daily Mail was the perfect antidote for me - newlywed Peggy Mason “settled” for her first husband, and now has finally found true love at the age of 85. I hope I’m as happy as she is 50 years from now.
That entire thing is incredibly sad, and it seems to me she’s not going to be happy no matter what she does. She’ll settle, and then she’ll get the reality of what she’s settled for and either wilt away until she dies or end up divorced and even more bitter than before. Does she really want a life where she has to lie back and think of England with someone who, as pointed out, she wouldn’t normally touch? Would she close her eyes and thank god she’s found someone as she’s holding her breath against his halitosis? I’d much rather sleep alone than have to put up with that bullshit.
As Amanda pointed out, if she’s that desperate then she doesn’t really have the courage of her convictions. All she has to do is go to an ex-gay meeting to find someone, or hell, she’s in L.A. she can head down to Third Street Promenade and pick out any number of homeless men and/or street vendors. They’d be more than willing to trade some hot meals for whatever fantasy she’s got in her head.
And it wasn’t funny at all. I was surprised to find that it should have been.
My personal experience is that when a woman lands a guy *she* likes, but he doesn’t match up to what the world says she should have, it’s not necessarily that she’s trying to convince herself when she argues that her guy is great even though the world thinks he’s teh suck; sometimes it’s about mocking the world.
Me personally, I fell in love with a guy who has really bad eyesight, and looks to many people like some kind of freak. To me he is incredibly hot. So I feel like I got away with something, like I found a copy of “Action Comics #1″ in the bargain bin for 50 cents (you know, the first appearance of Superman, worth like $50,000) and now I’m crowing about it.
As for settling, this chick totally needs to find a platonic female friend who’s divorced with kids, and shack up with *her* in a roommate/share child care duties situation. Because men are trained to suck at giving women emotional support and doing child care tasks. it’s rare to find a man who has escaped the training. The only excuse to put up with a man who will dump most of the child care and housework on you, which is most of them, is that you love him and think he’s hot. If you’re just looking for a helpmeet, and you don’t want sex out of the deal, you are totally better off with a woman, preferably a woman who is also heterosexual and also has kids, so she won’t want something from you you don’t want to give and she and you can trade child care duties. Men in general are *only* useful for love and sex; picking one you don’t really like all that much to live with is like getting a large barky dog who’s emotionally needy when you live in a tiny apartment and don’t really like dogs anyway.
(Yes, there are men who escaped the training in being totally useless to women. They probably already have girlfriends who love them. If you’re settling, you’re settling for the guys no other woman wants, and that’s *not* going to be the ones who are genuinely helpful and supportive of women.)
Of course, we’d be loath to admit it in this day and age, but ask any soul-baring 40-year-old single heterosexual woman what she most longs for in life, and she probably won’t tell you it’s a better career or a smaller waistline or a bigger apartment. Most likely, she’ll say that what she really wants is a husband (and, by extension, a child).
sayeth Ms. Gottlieb, and she follows up with this gem:
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.
How narcissistic can a person possibly be? These quotes translate to: If you don’t feel just like I do, then there’s something wrong with you. The idea that there may be normal, rational people who think and feel differently from her does not appear to ever have crossed her radar screen (to steal a great Molly Ivins line.)
Something else that bothers me: I assume that The Atlantic employs editors. What on earth did this piece look like before editing/ I weep.
“I’m fascinated by comas”
I read that 3 times thinking, “He’s fascinated with commas??”
Now that I’ve read the whole piece, I’ll say: Poorly written satire.
And now, Caren, you owe me a new keyboard.
For those who don’t know, Po Bronson interviewed ol’ Lisa G. in one of his mid-career books. She’s not a man, she’s a real live anorexic with admitted perfectionist tendencies, a really interesting (insert ironic twist in voice) life prior to this point, and un-tremendous self-esteem.
(Sung to the tune of “I’ve Got a Golden Ticket”
from “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”)
Marry a man you’re scared to touch
Marry a man you know is gay
‘Cause no longer being a spinsterette
Will chase all your cares away …
‘Cause I got the “Snagged Him” Marriage
(Abuse! Halitosis!)
I got the Partnered Sparkle in my Eye
And I’ll laser my Singles blue tattoo
It said “Get Hitched and/or Die”
(spoken) I’z'e married now, Ma!!
littlem, isn’t the author’s name Lori, not Lisa?
the fact that she seems to think that marrying a plumber = settling says a lot about her.
Indeed. My sister, who is bright and articulate, successful and a former college athlete, married her high school sweetheart, who drives a tow truck. (She waited until her mid-20s to do so.) Anyhow, she was obviously settling, save for the fact that he’s a really decent guy who treats her well, does his part around the house, is a good father to their child, and basically does everything a partner should do. So he has a blue collar job. So he should be ashamed of that? Feh. Life’s too short to worry about what people think of your job, much less what they think of your partner’s. What matters in a partner is if he or she is, well, a partner. My sister’s husband qualifies on that count, and that’s all that matters; there are myriad Yale-educated lawyers who wouldn’t qualify on that level for my sister. I think she chose well.
Okay, so I’m surfing the net and I find, from Jezebel.com, that Gottlieb has a book (and possibly movie0 coming out about her being anorexic at 11. From the Amazon.com review:
[…]Chronically disapproving of her parents’ shallow lifestyle, she challenges their authority and chafes under their constant demands to curb her frank opinions and act more “ladylike.” Feeling as though she has lost control over her rapidly changing world, Lori focuses all her concentration on one subject: dieting. Her life narrows to a single goal–to be …the thinnest eleven year old on the entire planet.” But once she achieves her “stick figure,” Lori really sees herself for the first time in a restaurant bathroom mirror and decides then and there to bring herself back from the brink of starvation.
Wow. It seems she’s had/got other problems besides finding a man and her obsession knows no bounds.
(once again, if anyone else has brought this up, my apologies. I try reading everything but sometimes I miss stuff)
As to 6 impossible things, it’s from Alice in Wonderland, but it still always makes me think of Milliways.
Wow. It must really suck to be her. In the words of Margaret Cho, “Buy her a magazine rack, because she’s got issues.”
So you know where I’m coming from, I’m a 37 year old female, and I have never been married. I almost was once (more like “engaged to be engaged”) but we drifted apart. If I had married that man, we would surely be divorced by now. The way it happened was much better. Ideal, even, if a breakup can be called that. He was attractive. He was a good man. He still is. Unfortunately, in the end, we were not right for each other.
After many years of (mostly) unattached singlehood, I know how difficult independence can be. I understand why some people would rather pair off with ANYONE than be alone. Nevertheless, hitching yourself to a rude man who physically repulses you is not “settling.” It is emotional suicide. Being lonely is awful, but being lonely when you aren’t actually alone is worse. If that is what I have to do to be with someone (and I seriously doubt that’s the case), then I will certainly remain single.
Furthermore, I have grown content with my own company over the years. Yes, I would like to have a significant other. There are things I miss about having one. If I find someone compatible who feels the same way about me, marriage is definitely an option. At the same time, thanks to the feminist movement, it’s not my only option. With the help of friends and family–and the hobbies and interests I share with them–I can lead a fun, creative, and colorful life without a man on my arm.
Oh, and another thing…
Of course, we’d be loath to admit it in this day and age, but ask any soul-baring 40-year-old single heterosexual woman what she most longs for in life, and she probably won’t tell you it’s a better career or a smaller waistline or a bigger apartment. Most likely, she’ll say that what she really wants is a husband (and, by extension, a child).
Says who? I’m pretty close to forty. I’d much rather have a smaller waistline or a bigger apartment (career is going fine, thanks) than a husband at this stage in my life.
Children? Nope, not interested. I may be wrong about this, but if I haven’t gotten baby virus by now, I’m probably not going to. Besides, thanks to various child-bearing friends, I am enjoying vicarious parenthood far too much to be an actual parent.
I really, really, really wish these ostensibly “liberal” publications would realize that when you write “contrarian” articles, you’re writing conservative articles. If what you wrote could easily have been said by Wiliiam F. Buckley or Phyllis Schlafly, it’s not cutting-edge and hip.
Exhibit A: Maureen Dowd.
From a strictly financial standpoint, I probably should have married a plumber — we’d probably have a house by now, even in Los Angeles.
EEW. I am often happy to have a funky brain that makes the whole mess unpalatable to me, and this is one of those times. Yick. Sometimes when I watch human cultures, I feel like Jane Goodall watching chimps slapping each other, except without the feelings of amused affection.
Neurotypical humans. *snort* Yall are WEIRD.
… ask any soul-baring 40-year-old single heterosexual woman what she most longs for in life, and she probably won’t tell you it’s a better career or a smaller waistline or a bigger apartment.
It’s MONEY. Fucking GOBS of it. Right now.
The part that pissed me off the most was
And all I can say is, if you say you’re not worried, either you’re in denial or you’re lying.
How dare she insist that she knows exactly how it is for all of womankind. What arrogance. What stupidity. Has she never heard of “projection”?
I did actually settle once, and over two decades later I’m still ashamed of it. I hurt many people (not least myself) by doing so. And when that marriage dissolved because “settling” couldn’t sustain a committed, happy partnership? I was relieved and grateful that at least we hadn’t brought children into the mess. It was the biggest mistake of my life, and I learned my lesson. There’s no way in hell I’d make that choice again.
By the way- I’m sorry my comment is posted here about six times. I was having issues posting here and it wasn’t showing up…until now, when it showed up several times.
TV isn’t like real life. When you have a wife as lazy as Peggy Bundy, and you’re not much better, the house would look and probably smell like a pigsty, rather than the moderately clean place it is. The family dynamics would feature violence of the physical and emotional variety not present in these tv shows. And so on…
_Natural Born Killers_. I remember a debate on a BBS where people couldn’t see the point of framing Mallory’s home-life as a sit-com against those of us to whom it made perfect, bitter sense as a critique of that particular media. That movie was a damned sight smarter than many gave it credit for.
…but ask any soul-baring 40-year-old single heterosexual woman what she most longs for in life, and she probably won’t tell you it’s a better career or a smaller waistline or a bigger apartment. Most likely, she’ll say that what she really wants is a husband (and, by extension, a child).
Wow. I’m unmarried, will be turning 40 in two months, I have an awesome career, my waistline is smaller than it was when I was 20 (which, OK, is not saying all that much…but still), and I just bought a beautiful apartment all by myself with my very own money. And you know what? Whenever I see a pregnant woman my first thought is “DAMN I’m glad that’s not me.”
But it’s nice that I have Lori to tell me what I really want. WTF?
“[If] you get a cold shiver down your spine at the thought of embracing a certain guy, but you enjoy his company more than anyone else’s,” you reeeeeallly need to find new people to hang out with. Badly.
Right now there are many, many men out there in synagogues, churches, chapels and fields. They are communing with their god(s), and their message, sung to the heavens, is this:
Thank You, Thank You, Thank You! Lori Gottlieb dumped me once, and for that, a thousand times I Thank You!
PiatoR, one of the classic tropes in fiction is to lift a character and his/her relationships out of one genre and putting them in another, to reveal things that are either ignored or taken for granted. Often, a hero becomes a villain, or a comic relief character becomes a tragic figure.
Back when Mad was a comic book rather than a magazine, it ran a brutal “parody” of “Bringing Up Father” that showed the physical and emotional consequences of the horrible marriage of Maggie and Jiggs.
I was following links on Ms. Gottlieb, and came across this opening gem from another article:
Now if that isn’t both sad and revealing I don’t know what is.
ohsohappy, you have picked up and put your finger on something that Jeff Fecke and others have noted: the impact on the men that she is discussing. Both in this article and her very contrary “XY” article of two or so years ago, Ms. Gottlieb devotes no energy to any interest whatsoever to that question; the level of her self-absorption is absolutely staggering. I think a bigger question might be what fool would want to be with a woman who can’t, even in print and read by millions, bother to even pretend to give a crap about the men she is with.Just about everything that needs to be said has already been said - the anti-feminist way the argument proceeds, the profound sadness that underlies it - but I figured I’d add something silly.
It is blatantly obvious to me that you, Lori Gottlieb, watch too much tv.
What’s striking to me is the way that she not only fails to speak intelligently to human relationships or the problems of sexual difference, but that she fails to speak intelligently about sitcoms.
For instance, Gottlieb wonders whether on Friends, Rachel would have been happier with the dentist. Barry was a philandering asshole, as we learned within the first season. Rachel and her friend Mindy both break up with him when they find out he cheated on both of them.
To my horror, I found a link to audio commentary of this article on NPR as one of the top e mailed stories. Their summary:
Commentator Lori Gottlieb recently turned 40 and is still single. She’s come to the conclusion that the romantic view of marriage she has been clinging to might be all wrong, and that a more practical, pragmatic approach might make marriage more of a possibility in the future.
I can’t bring myself to actually hear the woman saying this shit out loud yet.
haelig, thanks for the link above to the Lance Mannion entry on this same story (comment #13). I didn’t like everything he had to say (protesting about not being a feminist just get old) . . . but I particularly liked this point:
I do know that love is essential to a marriage. It’s essential to raising children. Children don’t just need to be loved. They take it for granted anyway when they are. They need to see people loving and caring for others in order to understand what it means, how it works, how to do it. Watching a couple of respectful partners who’ve settled on each other passing them back and forth on schedule teaches them that they are either burdens or that other people are there just to be utilized.
This is why I am not a believer in staying together for the sake of the children. I am in favor of staying in love for the sake of the children, which is an idea that deserves some more thought, on my part. It’s better that children move back and forth between loving step-parents than staying put with unloving parents.
It seems like Ms. Gottlieb has a very sad, cynical view of love = hallmark romance. That’s part of it for some people, sure, but love has endless variation and evolves over time (doesn’t necessarily die! gasp!) It seems like her whole article exhibits a profound lack of imagination for relational possibilities, not all of them sexual, not all of them “romantic” but nevertheless incredibly rewarding and life-enriching.
Wow there are some angry and defensive women in this thread. I have a one word response:
Cats.
I forsee a multitude of them in your future.
- A happily married 32 year old
Uggghh, I’d no sooner take advice from Lori Gottlieb on how to have a happy fulfilling life than I would take advice on dog training from Michael Vick. This woman is Srsly Messed Up. Her poor kid.
Sure, refusing to date a man who would otherwise make a great partner because his clothes look funny, or he’s a plumber, or only 5′6″, or his skin is the wrong color, etc. etc. does fall into the “Don’t be so picky!” category. But Gottlieb wasn’t talking about these minor issues. The whole idea of marrying a man I find repulsive, or a closeted gay man, etc. makes me want to cry. This is 2008, not 1008! Marry a man whose touch makes you shudder, and trust me on this, you will be so miserable in all aspects of your life that no amount of money will make up for it.
What’s really annoying is that there are shitloads of male and female LGs out there who actually do it worse than she. They have ludicrous, demanding standards, but “settle”, then dump the spouse for somebody “better” (ie: they have more boxes ticked on the “stuff I want!” list in the LG head). They don’t give much a of a damn about anybody other than themselves and are serenely indifferent to the damage that they leave in their wake. They are good, however, at cloaking it in polite language like “we weren’t right for each other and I had to be the one to move us on before both of us ended up miserable”.
The polite language serves a useful purpose: it stops their friends from yelling “you self-centred shit!!!!” at them in public.
Astraea, I heard that on my radio the other day.
I just want to yell at her, “There’s a whole RANGE in between imagining that you have to find your White Knight Prince in Shining Armor and everything will be Perfect Twu Wuv, and marrying someone who ICKS YOU OUT just to be OMGMARRIED.”
Because my friends who are married? Yes, they married because they wanted to run a household with their partners, and since they are opposite-sex couples, marriage was the easiest way they could set up the legal framework to do that. But they also married because they loved their partners and enjoyed their company. It wasn’t being swept away on a wave of romance, and yes, they realize that their partners will periodically annoy them, and they’ll periodically annoy their partners as well. But if you propose to spend your whole life with someone, it’s got to be someone who you are deeply happy about having in your life.
If you want to define that as “settling,” then okay, but you’re wrong.
Oh, and I think this is the most honest line in the whole thing:
It’s like musical chairs — when do you take a seat, any seat, just so you’re not left standing alone?
They, like me, would rather feel alone in a marriage than actually be alone,
Wow. I actually stopped reading there, because that was all I needed to know.
I cannot wrap my head around people who think like that. And I’m female 38, very happily unmarried (also deathly allergic to strollers) and just fascinated by people who hate their own company and the idea of being a free agent so much they’d shackle themselves legally and financially to someone they quietly loathe to avoid the situation.
And I wouldn’t swap places with any of my married friends either. Why? Because their lives aren’t any better than mine, and in some cases worse. I’ve never seen anything about marriage per se that makes me think it’s better than being cheerfully independent.
Maybe one day people like this will understand that ‘alone’ does not equal ‘lonely’.
Oh, I fully agree but … (strolls to window, looks out) … I don’t see any flying pigs juuuuuuuuuuuuuuust yet.Oh, and I had a friend back in my late teens who married, at 20, a man some twenty-five years her senior to get a nice house and be able to have the kids (her virulently anti-abortion, church-going family had made her have an abortion when she was 17 after she got knocked up after having unprotected sex with her BF) she thought she wanted.
It was obvious she wasn’t into HIM - nobody could have been - he was a miserable, taciturn blob with hygiene issues. She simply saw him as a willing conduit to domestic bliss as she imagined it and a way out of her parents’ house.
I ran into her eight years on when we were both in our late twenties. Rather than being a picture of glowing female contentment with her three young children, she was a wreck. She looked forty, dressed like a fifty year-old and had the glazed, broken demeanor of someone who has long ago sold their soul and knows it. It was like talking to a zombie. It was horrifying and yet very, very predictable.
I heard her commentary on NPR, and saw it was one of their most e-mailed stories, but I’m assuming the story was emailed in the spirit of “Get a load of this.” I guaran-damn-tee you next Thursday when they read listener letters on All Things Considered, most will be most concerned with giving Gottlieb what-for.
I was washing dishes when it came on, and I broke a dish as I whipped around to glare at the radio. Wonder if I can bill her for it?
you know, i have met dozens of men over the years who, when pressed, admitted that their real reason for wanting to get married was so they would (a) have a “steady date” (sex) and (b) wouldn’t die alone.
although i am deeply allergic to strollers and have been all my life, i can imagine the desperation of a woman who really wants one of those and will do anything or tolerate anything to get one.
i can also imagine the 5-10 year old marriage of this superior woman and the man she settled for . . . he’s cleaning out the garage and comes across a box of her things from her single years, finds this book . . .
ultimately, i would hope that in human relationships we ALL would settle in terms of looks, income, “marketability” (a term i despise from an old sociology prof); i.e., the things that ultimately do not matter.
but settling for one who viscerally repulses me? and that can happen with the fabulously wealthy greek gods (really? with money? looks? oh! who cares!!) . . . that i can’t imagine. i can’t imagine spending a lifetime with someone i actually thought of as less than, but then the means by which we determine an individual’s value in this very sick society are totally fucked.
there is no loneliness like that which can be experienced in “intimate” relationship with aonther. this woman is a fool.
i wish she had written a diatribe against expectations and standards in this society which combine to exclude decent, normal, average human beings from full participation.
why would i, a college educated owner of a successful s mall business, even hesitate to marry the plumber (and yes, he’s probably driving a mercedes and could retire now if he wanted to)? why? because in this world he is less than?
I HATE THIS SHIT. hate it. i hate the diminishment of human beings based on these superficial attributes: income, employment, hair, tits, ass, dick size, teeth. i despise the arrogance of this woman implied in the fact that she is settling.
i am ranting. i really hate this crap.
Oh, I fully agree but … (strolls to window, looks out) … I don’t see any flying pigs juuuuuuuuuuuuuuust yet.
You’d hope they’d learn by simple experience. I’ve never been lonely when physically alone. The loneliest I ever remember being is one time in the middle of a large field at a rock festival. Thousands of people around, including quite a few I knew, and not one, that day, whom I felt able to really communicate with. I was feeling horrible that day and that lack of comunication made me feel as isolated as I ever had.
To me, loneliness is the inability to communicate with, understand and be understood by those around you, not being physically alone.
I read the article two days ago, and I’m still agog.
Been there, done that. Wish I hadn’t.
I was married from 1975-98.
Got dumped for some slut the ex met in an AA chatroom.
Stay single for as long as you can. Women don’t NEED to be married to be happy.
I wish I hadn’t settled.
Hello. Came over here from Atrios.
What does “Nice Guys Have a Champion for Their Cause” mean? Is this something I should know for further enjoyment of this piece?
I love that’s its MSNBC, home of women haters Chris Matthews and David Shuster.
Their wives certainly settled.
Are those waffles? Mmm, waffles!
Fight your own dragons and storm your own castles.
Ain’t no such thing as Prince Charming or knights in shining armor.
Be fair, people. The lady is not asking for a knight in shining armor. Her simple requirement is for a tall, wealthy, fit man of stunning good looks who never ages or puts on weight, who is fascinating conversation, has a life of his own but adores her, and is self-confident but willing to be treated like a babysitter and to be dumped the second she decides somebody else has something better to offer, but remain in her child’s life to the extent of large child support payments. Surely we’re all churls of the first order if we begrudge her this.
I’m with Amanda on this one: it’s the anti-feminists who really, really hate men.
Girls like that usually get one date. Maybe two.
There may be some desperate man out there to marry this lady, but there hasn’t been so far, has there?
Pity that poor bastard.
She wants to marry some man whose touch repulses her just so she can divorce him later and take his money?
Let me repeat myself, please. Girls like that usually get one date. Maybe two.
Men are not stupid. Girls like you; we can see you coming a mile away.
The thought of classing someone as “only a plumber” - and not only the article but many of the comments here do so, even while falling over backwards trying not to - disgusts me so much that it’s hard to get past that to anything else. Plumbing is a complex, technical career requiring compliance with many (many!) arcane and contradictory regulations (of the legal and physical varieties) and dealing with all manner of obstacles that have quite literally been waiting decades just to explode all over you.
Now it ain’t rocket science, but neither is spouting tired, sexist drivel for national rags. Your average plumber certainly does a lot more problem-solving on any given day than a columnist for the Atlantic. Perhaps someone as gifted as W Longeweische might look down his nose at “mere” plumbing, but then again he’d be smart enough not to.
I just finished reading Lois Bujold’s Komarr, which is half the story of a woman (Ekaterin) raised with conservative expectations about her honor and role in life. Ekaterin is stuck in a loveless marriage, but hasn’t yet forced herself to leave it, because she’s been inculcated that her honor and worth have all been bound up in that marriage. It’s also a science fiction story, where one sees how technology and culture and social forces act on things like marriage. (The other half of the story deals with Bujold’s main character, Miles Vorkosigan, solving a mystery wherin Ekaterin’s husband is a suspect of sorts. Bujold said that while Miles was a flexible character there were some things his experience wasn’t going to admit into a storyline and she wanted to tell the female half of a particular story.)
Komarr does a reasonably good job of showing you the hell of a broken marriage. No fairy tales about marriage being better than single-hood. At one point, Ekaterin even thinks that even the most insurmountable obstacle is easier to death without her husband around than with him. It’s a bleak story but ends on a high note, and our heroine definitely grows a spine. (I recommend Bujold’s stuff in general–she’s got some wonderful subversive feminism running amok in her science fiction series. And kinda frankly, I’m jealous of a future where women don’t need to risk their bodies in giving birth but can have safe and healthy gestation with uterine replicators. If the idea interests you at all, I’d recommend the starting books in the series, Shards of Honor and Barrayar, which can be found in the omnibus, Cordelia’s Honor. Miles’ mother is a space pilot and a pretty damn fun character in her own right. She usually gets upstaged by her offspring in later books, but these first two books are kind of a primer to the Miles-verse, and have a female character as the main viewpoint. )
I’ve got nothign to say but Bravo amanda! you said it all.
aimai
“Cats. I forsee a multitude of them in your future.”
I foresee a multitude of them in my present.
But at least when they run on all fours, shit in a box, and are entirely geared toward their own physical comfort, I can excuse it because they have brains the size of a dried apricot. What’s your huzzbin’s excuse?
This woman needs to read Middlemarch.
What I don’t get is that if she would settle for a bloodless, sexless partnership, why not just move in with her single female friend with a child? It gets what she wants, she’s free to still seek passion on the side, and no one is getting lied to.
I blame the PATRIARCHY! (do I miss that blog)
Not to derail, and I haven’t read through all the comments yet, but what happened to that blog? Is Twisty ok? We probably all know about the hideous health issues she’s been dealing with, but DAMN. Her, Amanda and Pam are three of the best female writers around. Can’t afford to lose any of those voices.
why not just move in with her single female friend with a child? It gets what she wants, she’s free to still seek passion on the side, and no one is getting lied to.
1. Because that’s gay. What would the neighbors think? She’d have to explain herself to men all the time, and men are irritating enough to deal with.
2. Passion? What’s that?
- A happily married 32 year old
Bullshit. Happy people don’t need to try to bring others down, and they don’t brag about how happy they are.
Congratulations on being married, though.
Actually, I’m curious why someone would be offended at a bunch of people objecting to the idea that people should marry people they don’t like just for the sake of being married. That seems fairly uncontroversial to me. Unless you’re one of the ones who got married just because you were afraid of dying alone, and now you kind of feel like a chump. It must suck when other people choose not to suffer the way you did, and don’t even get struck down by lightning or anything.
Oh, but you’re happy. I forgot.
H., I’ve know quite a few people like you, including my wife (and me). What I’ve found is that people who:
a) aren’t lonely when alone;
b) are happy being unmarried; and
c) want to get married
end up in happy marriages. They don’t settle, but they also don’t share Gottlieb’s unrealistic expectations that married life will be just like the first two months of dating.
There are people who can’t comprehend what it’s like to meet criteria b and c. They’ll never be happy in marriage (and probably will never be happy being single). That’s where Gottlieb is at.
Good Lord in Heaven!! Though I do try to avoid making generalized statements, the author of this article, must be one of those ‘polite’ Republican women. Who in the the hell else would encourage women to just ‘grin and bear it’ and numb themselves into emotional paralysis in a loveless marriage? Good Gawd!! While divorce is a sad thing for all parties, many of the women I’ve met through my life said that it was probably the best thing they’d ever done for themselves. They were in a marriage where for too long, love and respect wasn’t reciprocated. It was scary for them at first, being on their own, but most of them never looked back because they realized that it saved their emotional and psychological health. And who had the most profound regrets? The husbands, who realized too late that they should have treated their wives less like ‘handmaidens’ and more like partners.
I don’t really understand all this “happily married” business. In my opinion, happiness is not a constant state. I have wonderful days, bad days, passion filled days and blue days, I have made a commitment to be with my partner, but that does not automatically mean that I will be happy forever. Relationships take effort and time and can be emotional roller coasters. I really appreciate these things. I am not a static being, nor is my relationship static. I am dynamic and many days, I am very very happy.
Good Lord in Heaven!! Though I do try to avoid making generalized statements, the author of this article, must be one of those ‘polite’ Republican women. Who in the the hell else would encourage women to just ‘grin and bear it’ and numb themselves into emotional paralysis in a loveless marriage? Good Gawd!! While divorce is a sad thing for all parties, many of the women I’ve met through my life said that it was probably the best thing they’d ever done for themselves. They were in a marriage where for too long, love and respect wasn’t reciprocated. It was scary for them at first, being on their own, but most of them never looked back because they realized that it saved their emotional and psychological health. And who had the most profound regrets? The husbands, who realized too late that they should have treated their wives less like ‘handmaidens’ and more like partners.
On the one hand, this article by Lori Gottlieb proves the still absolute need for Feminism, in order to keep liberating women from the plainly abhorent and destructive consequences of society’s insane assignation of gender roles…
But on the other hand, that title? You know, some of us “Nice Guys” really thought you were serious when you said you were something more than just a reaction to the socially acceptable peacocks feathers you were all supposed to be girlishly swooning over… And no, we may not all be exceptional standards of masculinity; Some of us may indeed be unattractive or overweight; And we may not be even socially optimal; Perhaps during those formative years we didn’t form the abstract connection between developing patterns of charisma or humour with how it aided social and sexual networking; perhaps we didn’t want to make you laugh just to get access to your vagina like most of our teenage peers admitted they were doing. But if we were actually, truly “Nice” (and at worst merely victims of, not victimizers towards other people, waiters included) we always did at least try and respect the other gender as fellow people, no matter how socially inept it may have made us seem today.
But that title again? If both liberated and reactionary women are going to laugh and nod that “Those ‘Nice’ guys are losers” well… how is the liberated woman any different from the same cliched “PS I Love You” bullshit that Lori Gottlieb destroyed herself persuing? If it’s a woman’s right to be alone, or not alone however she so wishes to choose to be, can’t you at least extend the same courtesy to the “Nice” guy and not make him feel so very, very much more alone simply, because they don’t easily find someone too? Because otherwise, we might as well have just worn the “No Fat Chicks” T-Shirt all along, and at least have gotten the slaps on the back from our fellow drunken boorish pigs down at the bar…
The smell of denial is growing thicker here.
And the visceral and overpowering reaction is a reasonably good sign the author has hit on something serious.
Someone just said that if I was really happy I wouldn’t have described myself as “happily married” a moment ago. But somehow 100+ comments of single women vituperatively claiming to be happy in their singlehood, or thereabouts, doesn’t fall under that same theory.
The author is basically saying that some women have unrealistic expectations of perfection when they contemplate marriage. And some women make what they think is a good decision to be highly selective but overestimate the benefits of being single as they get older, and underestimate some of the less obvious advantages to pairing up.
Is there any universe in which people are actually disagreeing with this central point? Sure you can argue about the *degree* to which this is true. Or how *much* is really “settling” and how much is just being a normal person willing to view a potential partner — and their own “appeal” and lack of perfection most crucially — in an objective way.
I know some of you people getting so angry MUST have a few friends for whom her advice would be pretty spot on. OK perhaps you’re not one of them. Perhaps you are happily married, or happily single, or happily alternative. Great. She’s not talking to “happy” people. She’s recounting an instructive tale of her own certitude and the reality that she later confronted that made her reassess.
She’s a woman who’s made choices, and she’s got an opinion. Deal with that.
I suspect we all have “that” friend who dates forever and grows progressively more anxious as the years go by and eventually becomes a bit obsessed and desperate. She’s probably a small minority of women, great, but so what — this article is for her. I know this girl, she’s my best friend. She dated married guys and stereotypical assh0le types through her 20’s, drinks a lot, has a dead end job and has this vision that a man will materialize out of the mist and get her a house in westchester and save her from being a receptionist. That said, she refuses to even MEET guys she’s set up with if they aren’t banker types. She’s driven me near insane trying to be her best girlfriend over the past few years.
OK, maybe I’m the only one with a friend like this. I do happen to live in NYC, which seems to be a peculiarly strong breeding ground for this attitude.
But I read this article and thought about ways to somehow send it to her anonymously. The article is not anti-feminist. There are literally hundreds of similar men out there. Semi-akward guys who somehow think they deserve a supermodel. I think that’s what the “nice guy” joke here is all about actually.
Perhaps we’re not so one sided as feminists to ignore the reality on the other side. To see that there are supposed “nice girls” who really are looking for a man to sweep them out of a dead end set of decisions and take care of them. They say all they want is to take care of a guy and be a good wife or whatever but they’re ruthlessly judgemental and picky. They exist. I suspect if I walked out of my apartment and started throwing rocks around I could hit a few dozen of them. I have a feeling LA isn’t that different.
If her advice doesn’t resonate with you then she’s not talking to you. No need for hate, or for yet another circular firing squad where smart articulate and successful women maul each other with charges of playing for the guys team.
She has a point. Some women (NOT YOU, WE KNOW THIS COULDN’T POSSIBLY APPLY TO YOU) actually do have a problem where they refuse to “settle” and it’s a path that will lead them to crisis in future years.
Just like it did for her. I respect her opinion and her perspective, which seems like it was gained the hard way. I don’t see a need to infantilize and marginalize a woman who shares that opinion.
And sorry about the cats comment. Cats are great, I hadn’t had my coffee yet.
What’s wrong with cats? Seriously. I’d take spinsterhood with a bunch of cats over a miserable marriage any day. A twice-divorced woman once told me: “It’s better to be lonely and single than lonely and married”.
Good luck attempting to shame single people on this thread. You do realize this is a feminist blog, right?
I’m interested in the suggestion from Alara Rogers and Amanda about the anti-Gottlieb choice: live with another single hetero female parent rather than chase the chimera of a husband, trade help with child care while being free to enjoy “love and sex” with men. Makes sense–so why doesn’t anyone do it? Is it because it announces that the woman has given up on the husband quest, so loudly that no man would ever court her?
I think it’s considered really really weird for a straight single woman not to want a husband or live-in significant other. She’s a freak who deserves to get laid only via the Alternative online category.
Still wondering how this essay found a fancy publisher … and now a broadcast!
Part of it might be that our society and our economy and our social expectations are clueless about cooperative living that isn’t related to marriage or romantic cohabitation. For some reason it’s tolerated, indeed expected, during the post secondary years, but after that it is perceived as Freak City. To take one example: married couples who go to look for a mortgage have their assets and income considered jointly. Individuals who go to banks are often met with the demand that their income and assets must each and individually qualify for the mortgage, which does rather defeat the purpose.Why the hell is that?
What does “Nice Guys Have a Champion for Their Cause” mean? Is this something I should know for further enjoyment of this piece?
It’s Nice Guys®, guys who expect that because they hang around and act friendly, that the beautiful women will take pity on them and bed them. More information about Nice Guys® can be found on the internet; this is probably the definitive piece on the subject.
And yes, Gottlieb and your average Nice Guy® would get along swimmingly, until the sheer level of narcissism ripped a hole in the fabric of spacetime.
Kathleen sed, “I mean, right, it would be better if she were a bit more creative in thinking about where those extra hands might come from — some kind of differently-arranged society, perhaps?”
Given the author’s penchant for sitcoms, did the situation in “Kate and Ally” never occur to her?
Nice try, Morgan. But honestly, a lot of the defensiveness isn’t because we’re mistaken about how happy we are not being married and having kids. If you’re told all the fucking time, day and night, around the clock, that you’re broken because you don’t perform according to patriarchal mandates, it becomes difficult not to say, “Fuck off” eventually. Yes, we’re angry. And it’s not because we have some lurking wish in our hearts not being fulfilled. It’s because, you know, people are being hateful and oppressive to us and we’re sick of it.
(Laughing) Amanda, you wanna feel like a freak? Be the only dad at a kid’s event. The mothers (that don’t know you) greet you then, instantly afterwards, their eyes often flick around you, looking for the child’s mother.
I see that Jeff Fecke has not linked to his own post on Lori Gottlieb’s article, which is a damned shame. It is first rate, takes a nicely male view of it, and is very worth reading.
The smell of denial is growing thicker here.
And the visceral and overpowering reaction is a reasonably good sign the author has hit on something serious.
Someone just said that if I was really happy I wouldn’t have described myself as “happily married” a moment ago. But somehow 100+ comments of single women vituperatively claiming to be happy in their singlehood, or thereabouts, doesn’t fall under that same theory.
The author is basically saying that some women have unrealistic expectations of perfection when they contemplate marriage. And some women make what they think is a good decision to be highly selective but overestimate the benefits of being single as they get older, and underestimate some of the less obvious advantages to pairing up.
Is there any universe in which people are actually disagreeing with this central point? Sure you can argue about the *degree* to which this is true. Or how *much* is really “settling” and how much is just being a normal person willing to view a potential partner — and their own “appeal” and lack of perfection most crucially — in an objective way.
I know some of you people getting so angry MUST have a few friends for whom her advice would be pretty spot on. OK perhaps you’re not one of them. Perhaps you are happily married, or happily single, or happily alternative. Great. She’s not talking to “happy” people. She’s recounting an instructive tale of her own certitude and the reality that she later confronted that made her reassess.
She’s a woman who’s made choices, and she’s got an opinion. Deal with that.
I suspect we all have “that” friend who dates forever and grows progressively more anxious as the years go by and eventually becomes a bit obsessed and desperate. She’s probably a small minority of women, great, but so what — this article is for her. I know this girl, she’s my best friend. She dated married guys and stereotypical assh0le types through her 20’s, drinks a lot, has a dead end job and has this vision that a man will materialize out of the mist and get her a house in westchester and save her from being a receptionist. That said, she refuses to even MEET guys she’s set up with if they aren’t banker types. She’s driven me near insane trying to be her best girlfriend over the past few years.
OK, maybe I’m the only one with a friend like this. I do happen to live in NYC, which seems to be a peculiarly strong breeding ground for this attitude.
But I read this article and thought about ways to somehow send it to her anonymously. The article is not anti-feminist. There are literally hundreds of similar men out there. Semi-akward guys who somehow think they deserve a supermodel. I think that’s what the “nice guy” joke here is all about actually.
Perhaps we’re not so one sided as feminists to ignore the reality on the other side. To see that there are supposed “nice girls” who really are looking for a man to sweep them out of a dead end set of decisions and take care of them. They say all they want is to take care of a guy and be a good wife or whatever but they’re ruthlessly judgemental and picky. They exist. I suspect if I walked out of my apartment and started throwing rocks around I could hit a few dozen of them. I have a feeling LA isn’t that different.
If her advice doesn’t resonate with you then she’s not talking to you. No need for hate, or for yet another circular firing squad where smart articulate and successful women maul each other with charges of playing for the guys team.
She has a point. Some women (NOT YOU, WE KNOW THIS COULDN’T POSSIBLY APPLY TO YOU) actually do have a problem where they refuse to “settle” and it’s a path that will lead them to crisis in future years.
Just like it did for her. I respect her opinion and her perspective, which seems like it was gained the hard way. I don’t see a need to infantilize and marginalize a woman who shares that opinion.
And sorry about the cats comment. Cats are great, I hadn’t had my coffee yet.
This (widowed) single mother knows damned well that the wrong husband/father is a thousand times worse than none at all. I don’t have to live it–I can SEE it. (Fortunately I had the right one). You DON’T marry someone you don’t love and want to live with. That way lies disaster for everyone, especially the kids you fuck up in the process.
I get plenty of pity from women who are married to men I could never even hold a conversation with, and I smile inwardly and tell them how sweet they are to care, Bless Their Hearts. (It’s rude to laugh in a woman’s face and tell her, “And I was just thinking how sorry I feel for you“).
It must be the “misery loves company” thing you talk about, Amanda. There’s no other earthly reason for this ridiculous attitude.
What is with that stupid meme about single women and cats anyway? All three of my cats came from prior relationships with men — two from my marriage (we had five), and one from my last BF. My mom and dad are both happily remarried — the former with two cats acquired during the marriage, and the latter with three felines, two of them brought into the relationship by my dad. My married brother brought his two cats into the marriage and my SIL did not have any. I know lots of couples — hetero and homo, poly and mono — with kitties. They would not be America’s most popular pet if only “spinsters” ever kept them!
And Janis up at 36, HAHAHAHAHA.
I’m missing something - what does the “Nice Guys” have to do with anything? What is that term supposed to refer to?
How would you like to settle for someone and then find out they settled for you?
[i]Wow there are some angry and defensive women in this thread.[/i]
Anger isn’t a disease, it’s a normal emotion. Having said that, nobody in this thread appears partocualrly angry, more puzzled and repulsed at a screed written by a desperate, neurotic snob who thinks that her life will be better if she can find a man, any man, even a boorish, foul-breathed village idiot, to play weddinsg with her.
I have a one word response:
Cats.
I forsee a multitude of them in your future.[/i]
I have two words for you: ’smug’ and ’stupid’.
You talk about people being ‘defensive’ up above; Sweetie, you sound awfully defensive to me, busting into a thread full of strangers to threaten them with OMGcats! if they don’t think marriage is the ultimate answer to life’s problems.
Anyway, what’s wrong with cats? Beautiful, elegant, easily domesticated animals that are quiet, independent-natured, comedic and cuddly. If you’re going to try to threaten everyone with a dire fate if they don’t join you in blissful wedded state, try something that’s actually, y’know, dire. Here’ll I’ll give you a example:
“Right, so if you don’t get married and be H.A.P.P.Y. like meeeeeeeeeee (’cos I am so happy so I am, so happy I look down on everyone who doesn’t live like me) you’ll get schizophrenia and SCABIES and PAEDOPHILES LIVING NEXT DOOR and human poo posted through your letter box!” YES!
Of course, it won’t be true, but it’ll at least be entertaining. Unlike, ‘ahhaha, u r gonna have CATZ!’
[quote]- A happily married 32 year old [/quote]
Darling, you’re not happily married. You’re simply smug and conservative. You think your marriage means you’re better than everyone else for some reason. Newsflash, it doesn’t. I can only hope your spouse is as boringly obnoxious as yourself, otherwise you’re going to be smugly divorced ina few years too.
Morgan, you sure are defensive about being married. Are you sure you’re happy? Because I’m not believing it.
Speaking as someone who always knew I wanted children (and now have a little one), I have to say that no matter how much I wanted one, I would never have “settled” for a loveless marriage for the sake of having one. That’s what sperm banks are for! In fact, I know a woman of 42 who is doing just that and more power to her.
Speaking also as someone whose parents had lost the love but stayed together “for the sake of the children”, I have to also say: not only should you not do it to yourself, but you shouldn’t do it to your kids either.
How would you like to settle for someone and then find out they settled for you?
In that case, I think I’d find myself settling for an insta-divorce.
In reading more of the article, this jumps out at me:
I know from the rest of it what she means, but it got me thinking about the “Silly woman - husbands are too incompetent to do housework!” trope that we see, that the anti-feminists infantilize grown, adult men. Why have children when you can have a child-man? Doesn’t that sound fun? You get to do all the housework and stuff, and just passive-aggressively huff and vacuum around him while he’s playing video games/watching football! I do realize that she means settling for someone you hate (or actively dislike), so you can passive-aggressively huff and vacuum around him while he’s playing video games/watching football, and later close your eyes, think of England/your grocery list, and conceive.The “by extension” phrasing bothers me. Unless he’s divorced (if he was married) with children of his own, the guy doesn’t come with kids. Marriage doesn’t magically come with kids. Only Fisher-Price playsets come with Mom, Dad, Children.
Just my two cents.
You missed mine then, dumbfuck. WIDOWED single mother. Was happily married. Not Desperately Seeking now.
You’re a troll. If you’re real I feel sorry for you. Like Amanda said–happily married people don’t need to put down the singles, or accuse said singles of lying if they say they’re happy. I DO know that from experience.
Some people get married. Some people “settle”. Some people don’t.
Some people are happy in their marriages. Some people aren’t.
And I’m sorry. I’m with Morgan’s “so much defensiveness” observation. If what Lori Gottlieb has to say doesn’t resonate with your experience, well that’s just not your experience. Shrug. Feel a moment of empathy. And move on.
But one point I am gonna mock you all about. “Nice Guys” is suddenly a term of derision? Well, blow me.
Has it ever occurred to some of you that — well — there are many women out who simply aren’t worth the time of day? Personal hygiene and grooming is less of an issue, but frankly, the world has more than it’s fair share of controlling, economically grasping and emotionally volatile women that men “settle” for because they make attractive accessories?
Personal attraction is not currency. It’s not the same for everyone. It is a complex chemistry.
I’m deeply suspicious that Morgan is happy, seriously. First of all, I automatically suspect most married people would rather be alone with cats. Luckily, the entire media backs me up on this.
Oh wait. That was the reverse of this world.
“Marriage doesn’t magically come with kids.”
And of course the corollary: “Kids can come without marriage - no ring required!”
It’s endlessly amusing to me how every single guy who gets offended at the term “Nice Guys®” is a preening dick who thinks he’s nice. Can’t we have just one who sincerely is nice but confused? No, of course not. Genuinely nice guys would learn to use Google.
Which is my way of saying, thanks for your contribution, Paul. You sound really nice.
Has it ever occurred to some of you that — well — there are many women out who simply aren’t worth the time of day?
And don’t you think that Lori Gottlieb is the very epitome of that kind of woman? She’s a woman who thinks of men as nothing more than a body to bring in extra income and babysit now and then, and she will be happy to take half your paycheck and your free evenings even though she is entirely repulsed by your presence. That’s what makes me angry. Her viewpoint isn’t that some people might do well “settling” for an imperfect mate, her viewpoint is that any piece of trash in the gutter is better than being alone, so you’d better cling to the first one you can find. That isn’t true for anyone. It isn’t even true for her, although she doesn’t know it yet since she hasn’t lived it. In fact, that’s another strike against her, that she’s saying that any marriage is better than no marriage when she hasn’t ever been married. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.
That article paints all women as desperate chasers after men who ought to be grateful for any scrap of hominid with a penis for the money and labor, and men as twits who don’t mind being used even though their wives might feel “chills down her spine” when they try to touch her. In whose world is this not offensive?
1) Look, her piece is too crazy too resonate with most people. What people are angry about is not her own experience- it sounds depressing and selfish, but it’s hers. HOWEVER, she needs to learn about writing in the first person. She just uses “we”, and tells any other women who have different experiences that they are lying to themselves. That is obnoxious, self-righteous, and makes people angry. Also, it is sloppy.
2) Many, many people who comment here are married, divorced, widowed, or partnered. Many are single. That’s not where the anger comes from. The anger, pretty much universally, is the notion that marriage is a moral good in and of itself. It is not. Being in relationships that make you happy are good. Having the number (including zero) of children you want is good. Sharing your life with someone, if that is important to you, is good. But marriage is not an end, and it is not a moral good. It is not something you win at, and it is not, therefore, something that all other people lose at if they are not married.
Reading the comments reminds me I know several women in a third category. They got married when they were young and perhaps naive, then rid themselves of their asshole/abusive husband ahd have been happily single ever since. Their attitude towards marriage: Been there, done that, got the t-shirt, which they now use for a dustrag. They enjoy male company and date, but the adjustment they would have to make to live with a man is more than being married is worth to them.
I also wonder if Gottlieb is an ex-Ms. Picky Picky Picky (See Cheryl Lavin, Tales from the Front), who used to reject men because they cleared their throats too loudly, or drove American cars; who now realizes she cannot be as choosy at 45 as she was at 25. So to her it merely seems like she’s now willing to settle for anyone with 2X chromosomes.
Whoops: settle for anyone with a Y chromosome.
[quote]
Darling, you’re not happily married. You’re simply smug and conservative. You think your marriage means you’re better than everyone else for some reason. Newsflash, it doesn’t. I can only hope your spouse is as boringly obnoxious as yourself, otherwise you’re going to be smugly divorced ina few years too.
[/quote]
Suddenly everyone thinks they know my heart. Great - glad to see a woman’s opinion of her own happiness is still not taken at face value. I could have sworn that was the problem, not the solution.
If I posted that I was single and happy you wouldn’t have called me a liar.
In neither case would you know a damm thing about me.
I think Gottleib’s opinion is a valid one, or at least a curiosity. Calling it anti-feminist? Please, spare me.
Nobody is telling women that they should be unhappy. In fact she’s clearly a strong, independent woman who realized she made the wrong call (FOR HER AT LEAST) and suggests there might be other people like her. This clearly hits too close to home for some.
I apologized for the silly comment about cats. Maybe it wasn’t so silly after all. There’s nothing patriarchal about the desire to reproduce. Last I checked we share that desire with men, and it’s sort of essential to the species. What’s patriarchal are the conventions and traditions that serve to keep women as second class citizens. That’s the fight we all share. I have less of a taste for attacking smart women who are wiling to open themselves up and admit error.
I’m not smug, we’ve all made mistakes. What’s smug is the idea that anyone who deviates from a narrow dogma is a self-hating misogynist. Save it for your cats, if you know what I mean.
Your friends issues aren’t going to be solved by settling for a guy she considers beneath her. She can start by taking responsibility for her own life and buy her own house in Westchester without waiting for some dude to come along and buy it for her. She could also do well by ditching smugly married friends who tell her she should lower her standards instead of finding way to like herself regardless if she is coupled.
Your friend needs to cultivate confidence. Telling her she should tolerate losers in order to be married is, frankly, shitty advice.
“Save it for your cats, if you know what I mean.”
Care to elaborate for those of us who have no fucking clue what you mean and don’t think that someone’s long-standing personal problems can be miraculously fixed by getting a little band of metal on their finger?
The cat jokes are silly
My husband is reading the article right now and just turned to me and said, “Holy shit, this is even worse than you said.”
He also couldn’t help noticing the word she keeps avoiding: money. As in, that’s what she wants to marry. It’s a 1,000-word defense of being a gold-digger.
(Yes, Morgan, I’m married and I have cats. Sorry to blow your mind.)
I think this is someone incapable of genuine adult love. Looks don’t matter if the beloved tickles your mind and soothes your soul. And there is no amount of tolerating that would make such an intimate relationship work if the fundamental glue isn’t there.
I think Gottleib’s opinion is a valid one, or at least a curiosity.
It may be valid for HER. Her mistake is to assume that her opinion is valid for everyone else, and use “we” every time she means “me”.
Nobody is telling women that they should be unhappy.
That is exactly what Lori Gottlieb said, actually. To quote her directly:
“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.”
They, like me, would rather feel alone in a marriage than actually be alone,
I’ve been in a shitty marriage and I’ve been alone.
There’s nothing lonelier than a bad marriage.
This writer’s crazy.
Her set-up is all wrong, and she should know it. Romantic courtship followed by marrying for love is hardly is hardly the pattern since time immemorial, or for millenia, or for generations upon generations before us. Marriages were arranged based on a variety of factors, including proximity, politics, and convenience. Women died in childbirth and were replaced by new wives. Men died at work or in war, and widows remarried. Women who did not marry joined religious orders, worked as domestic help - often for a sibling, in exchange for shelter, or cared for parents. Men and women worked hard, and if their marriage included mutual respect and love, that was some precious good fortune. I frankly am bored spitless by the rickety, moldy notion that human history up until a few decades ago was somehow like 1950s in America, and that it’s mostly latter-day feminists who want to ruin the beautiful dream that was domestic life before now, probably moved to that destruction by the subliminal exhortations of their evil cats. Well, burn me at the stake, y’all. We don’t have the right to happiness, we have the right to be un-messed with for no good reason while we engage in our pursuit of happiness.
So yeah, Gottlieb’s article does not resonate in a happy way for me, and I see no reason to hush up, make nice, and read something more edifying. I feel like commenting. Hi, Amanda.
Suddenly everyone thinks they know my heart.
Funny that, innit? Y’know, after your original post that made great swinging and dismissive assumptions about the rest of us? Along with a catty (I know, I know) little jab about ending up with OMG!ARGH!NO!cats instead of the halitotic husbands we clearly all crave. Funny how that sort of thing works, eh?
Nobody is telling women that they should be unhappy. In fact she’s clearly a strong, independent woman who realized she made the wrong call (FOR HER AT LEAST)
Reading comprehension, please. She goes to great pains to assure us that every woman in the entire world think likes her, wanting marriage and children. She does everything but screech it in caps lock with underscoring for emphasis.
Oh and she’s not strong. Strong people don’t dread being alone or shackle themselves to people they don’t even like in order to avoid their own company. That type of personality is is defined by insecurity.
I apologized for the silly comment about cats.
Yay!
Maybe it wasn’t so silly after all.
You clearly didn’t mean it.
I’m not smug, we’ve all made mistakes. What’s smug is the idea that anyone who deviates from a narrow dogma is a self-hating misogynist.
The narrow dogma is emanating from the article under discussion. ALL women feel panic about marrying after a certain age. ALL women want husbands and children. If you don’t, you’re lying, in denial, or whatever. Oh and NO married woman would ever want to exchange places with a single one. FACTS, all, according to Gottlieb.
Oh, and you are transparently smug. If you were not, your original comment would not have consisted solely of your wrong-headed assessment of everyone disagreeing with Ms. Gottlieb (bitter and angry!), what you obviously thought was a fabulous little warning-cum-put-down about ending up with OMG! PLEASE! NO! cats and a quick advertisement about what you clearly consider your enviable marital status.
Save it for your cats, if you know what I mean.
I don’t know what you mean. Can you explain? I don’t even HAVE a cat to ’save it for’, actually. Perhaps I should run out and acquire one somehow? I’m just a bit worried nobody will sell me one - after all, only old, lonely single women apparently have them. Will they look suspiciously at me at the shelter and refuse service? Will telling them some purveyor of married smugitude recommended I get one for therapy purposes help, do you think? I await your answer with baited breath (and a cat-shaped hole in my black, little heart).
Q: How many feminists does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: That’s not funny.
Interestingly, Morgan, you’re the one who has not shown a speck of humor while I’ve been mocking you. Maybe you mean “marriage pimping non-feminists” when you’re referring to humorless types?
“I’m deeply suspicious that Morgan is happy, seriously.”
“Interestingly, Morgan, you’re the one who has not shown a speck of humor while I’ve been mocking you.”
Damm you got me. First line of yours was in fact comedy gold. I just missed the punch line the first time around, but I see it now.
And I’ve also realized that a normal and functional relationship isn’t what it’s cracked out to be and I’m actually miserable, as well as being envious. I’ve also learned that a desire for a life partner and/or children is a social construct. Clearly getting a masters degree, having a career, and also finding a partner has just been a distraction from a deep seated hatred of other women.
I’ve learned a lot today, thanks for helping me see the light.
At least my cats don’t sanctimoniously try to use me as a way to convince themselves that they’re happy! They swear! Being married! They just sleep and play with my boyfriend a lot, who seems to enjoy cats despite his superior masculine beingness.
As a cat, I find several of the comments on this thread objectionable.
And I’ve also realized that a normal and functional relationship isn’t what it’s cracked out to be and I’m actually miserable, as well as being envious.
Your sarcasm isn’t convincing me. In fact, your extreme defensiveness about marriage is making me seriously wonder if you maybe don’t need some therapy to show why you’d be happier as cat-loving singleton.
And it’s kind of sad how you’re trying to be sarcastic when you didn’t recognize it coming at you in the first place. Practice, grasshopper, before you play with those more practiced than yourself.
I’ve learned a lot today, thanks for helping me see the light.
I hear Kitten Therapy is good for all but the most advanced cases of butthurt. Good luck with your recovery!
You know what I like whispering in my boyfriend’s ear to get him all hot and bothered, by the way? “My, we have such a functional relationship. We are so healthy. We have successfully navigated our way into social expectation.”
Really? My statments, whatever they are, aren’t convincing you to change your calcified view of the world as a constant battle between “us” and “them” with anyone who deviates being “them”?
So out of character, hard to see that one coming wasn’t it…
Happily married? Please…remember we’re four years into home renovation.
I still wanna hit the sack with him, tho…
That woman is simply pathetic.
Morgan, if you weren’t so defensive about your unhappy marriage and angry at the world, maybe you’d be able to listen to us a little more instead of regurgitating tired cat jokes and light bulb jokes. Perhaps your anger stems from the fact that you don’t have a genuinely creative and interesting sense of humor, and the jealousy is eating you up? I don’t blame you for being jealous of the single women with genuine senses of humor, but if you eased off the defensive anger a bit, you might be a happier person.
God damn, I’m enjoying the baiting lately.
I don’t know. Gottlieb doesn’t make me angry, but she does frustrate me. All the young women I meet have these weird limitations on their goals because (you guessed it) they want to get married and have a family. Oh no, I don’t want to go to med school, because i want to have time for a family. They have been sold a lie, and stories like Gottlieb’s reinforce it. My status (happy most days) isn’t affected by her advice, but I do resent what it does to the youngsters out there.
Morgan, two questions:
1. How come you think that single women should “settle” for people that are, to be frank, undesirable; but you get the privledge of marrying someone you actually WANT to? Isn’t that just you being an elitest douchebag?*
2. Why do you hate America so much?
*Don’t bother answering this 2nd part, we all know the answer’s “yes”.
Morgan, one question:
Any relation?
Wow, Morgan. You have a masters degree, career and a husband — this is so important that you mentioned it not once, but twice.
I can’t help to admit that you are so much better than I.
(sigh)
“1. How come you think that single women should “settle” for people that are, to be frank, undesirable; but you get the privledge of marrying someone you actually WANT to? Isn’t that just you being an elitest douchebag?”
I think some women are too over the top in their idealized/princess world and should come down to earth. Not everyone is like that. But many are, clearly Gottleib is one of them and her story resonates as true for others. I’ve seen it. I dunno maybe you live in a college town or something and it sounds alien. In NYC the woman she’s speaking to is a dominant species.
2. Why do you hate America so much?
Because of its current president. You?
http://imdb.com/media/rm3601766656/ch0015275
Any relation?
Hey Amanda, did you ever see the movie “Street Fight”?
Did you cringe, like I did, at the charges that booker wasn’t “black enough”?
You probably sat there and thought my god how could someone deny the very RACE of a person just because they don’t toe the line of the majority/minority culture? How could a group that is premised on a civil rights movement feel so threatened by another point of view that they would seek to deny a person their very identity. That’s real fear of progress.
Now ask yourself why you’d start this thread with a headline that clearly implies that a woman, a smart and literate writer, is really secretly on the same side as the guys team.
You did make sure to check her for a penis right? Clearly she’s not capable of representing a female poing of view.
That’s some serious dogma… excommunication is pretty ugly ain’t it Sharpe?
C’mon…no marriage is happy all the time…
Okay, maybe some are, but I hate those folks anyway.
We didn’t hang in for thirty years because we were happy all the time. We hang in because at the end of the episode, we really do like each other, and yeah…we take the vows seriously.
I know this is gonna sound crass, and please know that I can do adequate sex for long periods of time…but the truth is that we are a physical match for one another. God knows, I cannot stomach the concept of “soul mate” and years ago, I actually consulted a lawyer to light a fire for change…and not for one moment do I believe that sex is the glue that holds healthy relationships together…
But Good Lord, this woman is advocating soul-warping unhappiness and deprivation in the most intimate relationship any of us will ever have. What the hell.
I’m married, and since I didn’t settle, I feel no sense of defensiveness about getting married, or any sense that advice about “settling” was intended to mean “marry a guy who isn’t Mr. Perfect in every way” when it includes lines about “you shudder when he touches you, but you enjoy his company.” Morgan, you’ve got a problem. Other married people don’t feel nearly as defensive in favor of this article as you do. Maybe you didn’t settle, but seems like some tiny part of your subconscious worries that you did? Because otherwise I can’t see why your belief that marriage is good (which it is, when you’re IN LOVE) would translate into attacking other people about their cats.
BTW, I got *all* my cats from my husband. I had to leave my cat behind with my ex-boyfriend because she did not get along with my husband’s three cats, which expanded later to six cats, and is down to four now. His widower dad and deceased mother had six cats when she died, and now widower dad has replaced three of the elderly-now-dead cats with four kittens. And is hot-n-heavy dating. So obviously the cat thing has a lot less to do with women lacking men than you think it does; from my experience, men like cats and women who like cats who like men who like cats end up with a lot of cats when they get married. Probably then the men usually die young and that’s why elderly widows have a lot of cats.
I stand by my earlier statement. Marry a man because he makes you wet, because you enjoy his company, because you look forward to time in the sack with him, because he makes you come, because his beliefs are compatible with yours, because he wants kids if you do or doesn’t want them if you don’t, because he makes you laugh, because you make him laugh, because he tells you you make him feel safe, because you can talk politics or religion without getting in a fight, because you like the same TV shows.
Do *not* marry a man for emotional support. If you don’t love him, and he expects that you do, he will drain you dry. If you don’t love him, and he doesn’t love you, he will be no support to you; rely on female friends. Do *not* marry a man for financial support. Men and their expectation that you will do all the housework will cost you in your own career; expect to have a career and succeed at it, and if a man comes along well and good, but don’t look at them as walking wallets. Do not marry a man because he’ll help with the kids. He won’t. Because you don’t love him and he knows it, he will never have the attachment to the kids that you do; you won’t be able to hide how much more you love them than you love him, and he will resent them and be distant from them. In fact, do not marry a man you don’t love. Ever. It’s hard enough to live with them when you love them.
Hey Amanda, did you ever see the movie “Street Fight”?
Did you cringe, like I did, at the charges that booker wasn’t “black enough”?
You probably sat there and thought my god how could someone deny the very RACE of a person just because they don’t toe the line of the majority/minority culture? How could a group that is premised on a civil rights movement feel so threatened by another point of view that they would seek to deny a person their very identity. That’s real fear of progress.
Now ask yourself why you’d start this thread with a headline that clearly implies that a woman, a smart and literate writer, is really secretly on the same side as the guys team.
You did make sure to check her for a penis right? Clearly she’s not capable of representing a female poing of view.
That’s some serious dogma… excommunication is pretty ugly ain’t it Sharpe?
Morgan - Gottlieb’s article is not about getting rid of genuinely unrealistic expectations and “settling” for a human being who is imperfect. It’s about marrying somebody tolerable out of desperation because a man can open jars and drive the kids to soccer practice and, what the hell, if he dumps you, you might get child support.
ahunt - not crass at all. If you don’t want to sleep with the guy, what’s the point?
I think Gottleib’s opinion is a valid one, or at least a curiosity.
That’s nice, Morgan. Thanks for coming here to share your thoughts.
Calling it anti-feminist? Please, spare me.
Spare you from what? Anti-feminism? Other peoples’ opinions about anti-feminism? Silly articles by apparently narcissistic women about something they have never experienced? OMG cats?
Not only is the original article (gah, what a trainwreck!) anti-feminist, it’s anti-male. Anti-human being, actually. And deeply stupid.
But, hey! Congratulations on being married! Well done! I’m sure you are blissfully happy, like all married people.
I imagine you had your cats put down when you got back from your honeymoon. I hear that’s de rigueur these days.
Fortunately, this was not the case back in The Good Old Days when I got married, or I wouldn’t have gotten married. Less fortunately, I, along with many women of my generation, ’settled,’ as this fatuous article advises younger women to do.
That’s why I’m currently happily divorced. With two cats!
Having made a fool of him/herself, Morgan devolves into incoherence. A clever strategy for avoiding one-upmanship, but at the loss of anyone caring much about anything you have to say. Of course, that was lost the second you resorted to tired feminist jokes to defend yourself when it was clear that you misfired and got called out for it.
Been fun! Once someone has been reduced to babbling incoherence, I begin to feel guilty about dogpiling them. Perhaps you’ll realize your marriage is leaving you so unhappy you have to put other people’s lives down to make yourself feel better and actually do something so that you can set aside the defensive reactions. I was actually kidding about the defensiveness about your marriage—I assumed you were telling the truth about it being happy—but you’ve hung in so long I realize that what was a joke about your defensiveness might have actually hit close to home. For that, I’m really sorry. I was only teasing because I didn’t think that you had the problems I was accusing you of. In fact, if you are in fact unhappy and defensive, then the joke about turning that bullshit back on you isn’t so much a joke anymore. *sad face*
#
Wow, Morgan. You have a masters degree, career and a husband — this is so important that you mentioned it not once, but twice.
I can’t help to admit that you are so much better than I.
(sigh)
Repeating this, because Morgan clearly needs to hear this a lot to keep the void from swallowing her up.
ANYTHING BUT CATS! MY GOD, THEIR FURRY HARMLESSNESS HAUNTS ME!
Ten bucks Morgan’s a guy. #204 stinks of Nice Guy™.
Yes, it has hit on something serious. Suggesting that women (or men, for that matter) marry someone they don’t love and aren’t even physically attracted to is a repulsive thought and a formula for lifelong unhappiness.Interestingly, she hasn’t made choices. She has not thusfar actually gotten into a marriage with someone she felt she was “settling” for, so she cannot give us that perspective from the standpoint of experience. And we are dealing with her opinion. We’re saying that her opinion is uninformed and dangerous.
I just want to recommend a book - The Cat and the Human Imagination: Feline Images from Bast to Garfield, by Katharine Rogers. It’s an in-depth, scholarly look at the symbolism of the cat, and touches on - among other things - why the woman + cat combo often gets (conservative, Nice Guy ™ ) undies in a wad. Cats, basically, are animals that aren’t easily controlled, and they represent freedom, and therefore they often become stand-ins for women who don’t submit themselves properly to male control.
I hear Kitten Therapy is good for all but the most advanced cases of butthurt. Good luck with your recovery!
Cute Overload is a good place to start.
Wow, Morgan. You have a masters degree, career and a husband — this is so important that you mentioned it not once, but twice.
I can’t help to admit that you are so much better than I.
Oddly enough, I, too, have a masters degree, career and husband. Bow before me, mortals!
212– yeah, and $10 says Morgan lives nowhere near Manhattan. My guess? Columbus, or Toledo, or Denver– a city, but a smallish sized one where there are not any 1st tier research universities. But I would bet he’s married– the defensiveness reads to me like someone trying to convince himself that his wife is not miserable, in spite of clear evidence to the contrary that he’s witnessing. The writing style on the other hand, reads like someone trying too hard by half to sound educated– my guess is that the master’s is real, but it’s from a b-school.
mnemosyne– HAH! I have a Phd, a career and a spouse who is not a man. You may now wash my feet. And my car, thank you. (and maybe also all of my cats)
:)
Yes, Amanda, we need to tell Morgan how awesome she is.
Personally, I hope to become friends with her so she can plot ways to send Gottleib’s article to me anonymously.
But, alas, I doubt she would consider my company worthwhile since I am but a Lowly Single Woman who likes cats.
Drat those cats! How can I find a husband if I love cats?
(Bowing)
I only have a bachelor’s degree! And I’m single! Woe is me!
I think this article is supposed to be humorous hyperbole. Nevertheless, I can imagine a single woman of forty who conceived a child without a partner might be all too tempted to think this way sometimes. Especially in our society where there is so little help available to mothers of small children, married or single. Ours is a sink or swim society with little or no resources available to unattached individuals of any age, let alone single, wage-earning mothers. On public radio the other day there was a story about the huge number of people who die alone with no relatives, in living quarters filled with rubbish — it was quite frightful. Our atomized “pursuit of happiness” sometimes comes with a rather big pricetag — not that I am advocating going back to the stultifying past.
People’s outrage at this column is rather remarkable, but I’m not quite sure what it means.
Meo, I know people whose spouses have given them herpes, bad credit ratings for decades, and children who turned out not to be genetically theirs. Among other things, marriage is taking on a business partner whose actions will impact your own ability to function in the future (like ending up on the board of Enron might not look good on your resume). Is this fool just not thinking of these things? For the love of God find another woman in your situation and move in together. Help each other with baby sitting and develop some camraderie. There was even a sit com about that! Jane Curtin was in it. Or is she too young to remember? You can easily end up with a husband who is a total and worthless drain on you. Do NOT risk is unless you at least believe you are in love.
BTW even if I had a certified non-loser, here is the thing. ONE DAY you will actually meet someone who makes little bluebirds encircle your head. If at that time you have two kids with your ok husband, you are going to find yourself in the position of Anna Karininna (or some facisimile thereof not involving a train). Very few people have the actual resove not to follow their hearts, plus their unsatisfied lower regions, when this happens. You will then have the pleasure of breaking up your childrens’ home and dissing the poor husband, who may have done NOTHING but what you expected. If you risk this scenario with a loveless marriage or something close to it, in my book you have no respect for yourself, the man, or your future children.
People’s outrage at this column is rather remarkable, but I’m not quite sure what it means.
You really should read the article. It’s like watching “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians” — you keep thinking it can’t possibly get any more tacky, and then it sinks to a whole new level.
As someone said above, we’re reacting to the notion that we should marry someone who is physically repulsive to us just so we can be married.
Anyone who is not miserably married (and many who are) know that the last thing you want to do is settle for someone whose voice or touch is like fingernails on a chalkboard to you (on the first fucking date no less). There is plenty of time in the years and years and years following the wedding to get irritated and cranky with your partner, to fail them and be failed by them. At least try to start off with someone you actually like and actually respect and are actually attracted to.
And I am married. And I knew he wasn’t perfect when I married him. But there is a big difference between recognizing someone’s faults and loving them anyway and settling. There also is a big difference between realizing that what you thought you wanted isn’t as important as you thought it was (in the case of an educated woman who thought she’d marry an equally or more educated man but falls for a blue collar guy) and settling. Read the article. As several commenters have pointed out, the kind of settling that she is describing is really horrifying and a recipe for disaster.
Especially don’t marry someone you’re not attracted to. Attraction isn’t everything, but good sex is a balm that heals many wounds and keeps you on speaking terms with each other when you hit the rough spots.
I am 100% sure I am not deluding myself when I say that I don’t want a husband (see username). I wouldn’t mind having a partner, but I’m not waiting around either. And yes, I do have two cats.
See, I had that bluebirds-flying-around-my-head love. It didn’t work out. Here’s a dirty secret: even if you are both good people who manage to maintain a friendship, even if you love each other very much, it doesn’t always work out. But what does happen if you have a love like that is that it resets the bar forever, and you can’t ever imagine settling. It’s not that I never date or have sex or go out, but I can’t imagine spending my life with anyone I didn’t have that kind of connection with that I had with my ex. So I hold out hope for that possibility, but go on doing what I want to do, and I’m pretty content with the rest of my life. A lot of women my age have stopped playing sports and are now hockey and soccer moms, and I really like that I’m in my mid-thirties and I’m the one still playing.
No, I’m not blissful every moment as I was when I fell in love with her, but that doesn’t last in any relationship. I do miss being in a good relationship. But I’m hella happier sharing my bed with the 10-pound cat who joins me nightly than I was in any of the unhappy relationships, and there are a whole lot of things I like about not having anyone to answer to but myself.
Hey Amanda, did you ever see the movie “Street Fight”?
No, but I’ve played “Street Fighter”. Is that close enough?
Now ask yourself why you’d start this thread with a headline that clearly implies that a woman, a smart and literate writer, is really secretly on the same side as the guys team
Let me xtop you there. Just because someone’s a published writer does not make them “smart” in the least. After all, Jonah Goldberg is a published writer, and he’s a dumb as a doorstop. You’d be surprised how well being an idiot pays. Just ask your boss.
“Having made a fool of him/herself, Morgan devolves into incoherence.”
Ah, you almost sorta figured it out.
Greetings from the Atrios crowd! Yes of course I’m male and having a little fun at the feminist’s expense. Toodles. It’s been amusing… you guys sure are easy to rile up.
One love… PS, meow
“at the feminist’s expense”
Just one? Check your grammar buddy.
“But there is a big difference between recognizing someone’s faults and loving them anyway and settling.”
My mother’s favorite thing the JP said at mine & partner’s Civil Union: “With all faults revealed.”
I think mom actually giggled at that.
She repeated it to me numerous times later that evening, with increasing frequency the more champagne she drank.
With all faults revealed, partner and I have been together since 1992. But only because we want to be, not because we “settled.”
mnemosyne,
You are prompting mental pictures of yourself lifting up a sword and yelling “By The Power of Greyskull!!” while your husband stands in the background.
“Oddly enough, I, too, have a masters degree, career and husband. Bow before me, mortals!”
I have a penis, a sense of humor, and a big fat chronic sack.
Walk it off, girls. Better luck next time. Over and out….
You are prompting mental pictures of yourself lifting up a sword and yelling “By The Power of Greyskull!!” while your husband stands in the background.
Could I put him in the little He-Man speedos? Because that would be hawt.
Of course. Just make sure the resulting “hawtness” does not result in an overheated spouse…or a potential house/apt fire.
Having just seen this tonight, I feel pretty certain that Terence Stamp in _The Collector_ is the most NICE Nice Guy(r) ever. The lady’s been chloroformed, kidnapped, trapped in a cellar (nicely groin vaulted, I will admit), and yet he’s still unsure why she does not love him. “You could fall in love with me if you tried!” Indeed.
I have yet to read all of the 200+ comments, but i would like to say two things:
1) This, among many, many other things, pissed me off about this column: “To the outside world, of course, we still call ourselves feminists …” What this says to me is that if you want to find The One, you are not a feminist because you can’t be one and still want/need a relationship to feel truly content. When are people going to stop parroting the idea that being a feminist and wanting to grow old with the love of your life are mutually exclusive? I will argue, however, that the author is completely right in admitting that she is not a feminist, because it’s an entirely different thing to want to find your soul mate vs. to want to find *anyone* just to tick off that box on your to-do list.
2) Re: the balding, overweight, older guy comment: As someone who is married to a baldy, I will take offense to the suggestion that my husband is less of a man because he’s got a soft, fuzzy, shaved head that I love to rub with my palm.
And ditto on the comment that no mag would say guys should settle for fat, bald women. And ditto on everything else everyone here has said. This woman has her head up her ass.
“Yes, of course I’m male”…. and really like posting as an anti-feminist woman, because he thinks it’s funny.
Betcha he says, “I’ve got plastique up my ass”, just so he can get that special attention at the airport. Or does he save those special moments of disruption solely for places in which the consequences will never, ever catch up with him? What did he do for kicks, back in the dark ages? Obscene phone calls? Stalking women who were happy being single, because they didn’t settle for him?
C’mon. He walked into that one. It’s a shame when Nice Guys® have to dress up as Lousy Gals®, because they can’t stand to be without attention. That implies that he’s lonely, too…. and for that “Atrios crowd” ref, like a punk like that would get away with that anti-woman talk in the comments, where strong women post everyday. Get out a pair of tweezers, and yank it again….
LisaKS, can you tell me exactly what in this article gives you the impression that the author has bipolar mood disorder? I can see signs that she deluded, foolish, a perfectionist, and possibly depressed, but I see no signs of the mood swings which characterize bipolar disorder.
I, on the other hand, do have bipolar disorder, and not only am I happily single at 30 and totally unwilling to settle (making me thoroughly unlike this woman), but am seriously irritated by the current trend to use “bipolar” as inaccurately as “schizophrenic” used to be used. Please stop.
You may be right, but upon reflection I think that it’s worse; despite all the first person nonsense, the article was never meant to include herself. I doubt that a well-off, Yale-educated successful writer (etc) really is so desperate or would she EVER take the advice she is dishing out for others. I went back and re-read the article, and cnow an’t shake the feeling that it is a dark and dirty little “nya-nya fuck you, losers!” to all those truly desperate people out there.Lori Gottlieb isn’t desperate. She just plays one - and us - in print.
I didn’t make it through all the comments, so I may have missed this, but I’m really surprised that there are so few comments on how hard it is to be a single mom. Especially with a little one. I–well, I’d rather not be flamed for this–but even though I think the author is an idiot, I am sympathetic to her idiocy. I suppose it’s because I did it myself–settled when my son was almost 3 because, well, because I was tired. Because being on for a toddler all the time, while also doing every chore and earning a living, is simply exhausting. It’s not just about marriage, it’s about managing parenthood and until you’ve done it completely on your own, I’m not sure it’s possible to relate. I know for sure that you have to have a baby to realize how difficult it is–I’d taken care of loads of babies before I had mine and thought I was a pro–HA. It’s totally different when you’re doing it on no sleep.
Of course, settling got me exactly what one would expect, which is nothing. I kicked him out a year later and the divorce lasted longer than the marriage did. I’ll certainly never do it again and I expect to be single forever, with no regrets. But where she is…well, I can see it with a little more of a been there, done that perspective. And I do feel sorry for her. (And I apologize for not reading everything before commenting–parenting calls and I have to go be the chauffeur for my child!
Hopefully I don’t tackily multi-post. That spam thingy is way to difficult to read.
H. Said:
“The narrow dogma is emanating from the article under discussion. ALL women feel panic about marrying after a certain age. ALL women want husbands and children. If you don’t, you’re lying, in denial, or whatever. Oh and NO married woman would ever want to exchange places with a single one. FACTS, all, according to Gottlieb.”
Ya forgot one — she also assumes that every single woman is straight. That’s yet another reason why her sloppy universalization is so annoying. Not only are some women not “deluded” about wanting a husband, but some women don’t want ANY man. Lame. Lame lame lame article. I heard her commentary on NPR and nearly drove my car into a ditch in astonishment.
The best part in the NPR commentary was when she mentioned to her married friend that she wanted to marry her best friend, and since I hadn’t been paying THAT much attention I was kind of like, aw. But then her friend burst into laughter and said her husband wasn’t her best friend, Lori was, and that if the friend talked to her husband about half the stuff she talks to Lori about he’d die of boredom and then they’d have a fight about how he never listens to her.
Wow. That sounds like such a great relationship. Where do I sign up? I can’t wait to be with someone who can’t be bothered to listen to what I have to say! Ugh.
Anyway, just to add my voice to the not-married-no-kids happiness chorus, I’ve got zero intentions of marrying my boyfriend of 11 years, we have two cats, and he’s thinking of getting a vasectomy so we can be totally sure we can fuck and fuck and fuck and not ever get saddled with rugrats. Being an auntie is more than enough for me.
I figured Morgan was a man. It’s rare to meet a woman with no sense of humor at all. But you do meet men like that all the time. It’s a sad side effect of privilege—when people fake laugh at your non-jokes all the time to please you, you have no incentive to develop a real sense of humor.
Yes of course I’m male and having a little fun at the feminist’s expense.
See, this is a perfect example of why it’s important not to settle. Morgan’s definition of “fun” is so tedious, so very unfunny, so lacking in a genuine sense of humor, so much about bolstering his own ego that he doesn’t realize what a bore he is, that his poor wife is doomed to a life of pretending to laugh at his unfunny jokes. I can probably take bad sex over having to pretend that I think someone is funny that isn’t.
ydnew, I wouldn’t chastise people for missing out on X, when you haven’t read the comments and seen that in fact, people talk a lot about X. In the case of single parenthood, if you actually read the comments, you’d see lots of single parents say it’s hard, but being married to someone you don’t like is harder.
I’m puzzled as to why you’d assume off-hand that no single parents read and contribute. Considering that this blog addresses family politics a lot, and is very supportive of non-nuclear-patriarchy arrangements, it attracts a lot of people of different family types. I’m not flaming you, but reminding you that you might have a more productive reaction if you don’t assume. You don’t have to read all the comments. You can do a text search for “single”.
harold, #220—unlike you, we’re quite aware that Atlantic has a history of publishing articles like this. They aren’t hyperbole. Seriously, the pouty, humorless men who run publications like this are deeply angry about the feminist revolution and pay top dollar to hear flattering bullshit about how women really just want to set the paycheck aside and get to cooking. They feel deprived of what they thought was their birthright, a highly educated, beautiful woman who gives it all up in basic servitude to them. So they give lots and lots of assignments to women who mouth these sentiments. Meanwhile, women who don’t pander and are truly bright, interesting writers get no work.
Why are we so angry? Uncle Toms are infuriating. If every time you opened a magazine, you were told that other people of your gender agree that you are inferior to the other sex, you’d get angry, too.
I’ll bet not one of these preachy Atrios readers asks Duncan, “Why so angry at David Brooks? He’s just expressing his opinion.” When it’s an empty-headed man who has his job solely because he’s parroting the opinions that the oppressive elites want to hear, they get it. Why not get it when it’s a woman?
Oh wait, I know.
I want to make it clear that most Atrios readers are not clueless, and Atrios himself is quite be-clued. But there are a few and they don’t get how tedious and stupid they sound when they deny women to have the same feelings that drive them to read Atrios, who is as angry as I am or anyone else here.
Shorter Amanda: “THAT”S NOT FUNNY!!!”
Morgan, you’re not funny. You think you are, probably because people have politely laughed at your unfunny jokes for so long. But you’re not.
Don’t be jealous. You too can develop a real sense of humor, even at your no doubt advanced age. First of all, ask your wife and all the people you’ve been boring your whole life to quit indulging you. Beg with them to laugh only when it’s actually funny.
You’ll probably go a number of years with no one laughing. That will be hard—I know you’ve been wrongly thinking so much of yourself for a long time, that a cold splash of reality will be hard—but only by facing our true natures can we actually grow as people. Until you accept that you are an unfunny bore, you will never become a genuinely funny, charming person.
Study people that are actually funny. See how they do things like observe reality instead of pedantically make assumptions based on cheesy stereotypes.
Give up some of your unfunny entertainments. Shut off “Everybody Loves Raymond” and start watching “The Office”. At first, you will be unnerved by the existence of real humor. Because you have no sense of humor, you’ll feel out of sorts and confused by genuinely funny stuff, unable to grasp it as you’ve been unable to grasp the jokes I’ve been making at your expense here (including this comment). But hopefully over time, you’ll start to see some improvement in your humor-grasping skills. Perhaps have someone genuinely funny sit with you and explain the jokes to you. I don’t have the time, myself, but think of that person that always leaves the room in disgust when you start telling your non-jokes for fake laughs. That person might be willing to help you, if you explain that you’re finally trying to get over your habit of being a boring choad.
Don’t despair! A sense of humor is learned, not in-born. Because you don’t have one now doesn’t mean that you’re doomed for life. You just need to start de-chipping your shoulder.
Shorter Morgan: “I’M A COMPLETE WANKER!!!”
Wow there are some angry and defensive women in this thread. I have a one word response:
Cats.
I forsee a multitude of them in your future.
- A happily married 32 year old
Shorter Morgan: I SETTLED!!!!
Fuck you, stupid.
This “happiness” of which you speak? I recall the words of the Dread Pirate Roberts - “Life is pain princess. Anyone that tells you different is selling something.”
Yet the article to which Amanda responds is not a joke. It seems to me a sincere meditation on one person’s regret that hinges on one of those complex verb expressions.
“I am mature enough to accept that human being have flaws, accept them, and find myself someone to be with in spite of them.”
or
“You chose a pragmatic partnership.”
or
“That person ’settled’.”
Some of Gottlieb’s article is over the top. By any reasonable definition “a teammate, even if he’s not the love of your life” is surely going to be sexually sincere. And posting up in expectation of a divorce on wedding day is downright creepy.
But until you have kids — which Gottlieb did and Amanda proudly and pointedly does not — it’s hard to appreciate how much work — ranging from the mundane caring, cleaning and sleeplessness to the terrifying and sublime decisions about modeling behavior and homework — is involved. There seems to me to be a pervasive myth that raising kids is easy. I know I believed it. And it isn’t true.
Having gotten pregnant alone Gottlieb regrets some of her decisions. Why not accept that regret as another road not traveled; weave one woman’s regret into the web of memory and experience we all use to make our decisions.
Why are men defending an article that’s nothing more than a rationalization of gold-digging?
In fact she’s clearly a strong, independent woman who realized she made the wrong call (FOR HER AT LEAST)
I think it’s pretty damn obvious she is nothing of the sort. None of us are strong and independent all the fucking time, but those of us who manage it most of the time are not afraid of living alone with our cats. Note I did not say “BEING ALONE.”
Calling this woman “strong and independent” is a fucking stretch of any definition of the term.
Six paragraphs huh? Isn’t this your site? You could save some bandwidth by posting “YOU’RE STILL NOT FUNNY!! NA NA NA NOT LISTENING, I’M CLEVER YOU’RE NOT” a couple times. Try it sweetie.
Look out for my new book, “From Females to Felines, Or How A Humorless And Defensive Group Exacerbated the Gender Wars And Lead To Massive Profits for PetSmart, Inc.”
Guaranteed best seller. Acks around, sweets. Happy Sunday!
Anybody want to bet Morgan dies alone (and not by choice)?
p.s. Irony intended in my previously comment. ^^
Morgan…
That was truly funny in the way it’s so similar to the kind of jokes George W Bush makes.
Or like that nerd guy who listens to gangsta rap as a way to act out his utter rage at the whole “I’m an adult and this is all I get!?!” fashion in Office Space.
But then, everyone here can see that upset behind your words. It’s kinda apparent that you want to spit or cry, and figgered that the best way to handle it is to make jokes at other people’s expense.
That can work on lower status humans, in a crowd.
However, this is the internets, honey. Chances are, a significant number of people reading are smarter, better educated, and more well off than you are. They, and I, have sorta seen your type before. I suppose you’ll eventually get banned, but you’re only around now because we like to play with our food, just like our feline helpmates.
And yet another classic hallmark of the wanker: pretending to leave the discussion, but coming back again and again in the hope that Mommy will pay attention to him, even if it’s just by yelling at him.
Paul, you’re talking about a completely different article. Gottleib isn’t musing on whether she set the bar ludicrously high, or how her life might have been different. In essence, she’s saying “The grass is greener on the other side. Ladies, go over there and roll around on the lawn! I’ll be over here, selling books.”
Expressing regret is one thing. Telling everybody to make a choice you didn’t, and aren’t going to, make is another.
This is quite correct, largely because it agrees with me, (Ahem. Let’s pretend I didn’t say that bit after the comma out loud.) I repeat: the article is a dark and dirty little “nya-nya fuck you, losers!” to all those truly desperate people out there.That means that Ms. Gottlieb isn’t unhappy and desperate … she’s just plain cruel. If you think about it, it is the non-fatal version of the infamous “Tom Fool” (Thomas Skelton), the late 16th Century jester of Muncaster Castle, who used to direct travellers down to die in the quicksands of the River Esk whilst pretending to point them on the correct path to the London Road. Hee. Hee. Hee.
“Chances are, a significant number of people reading are smarter, better educated, and more well off than you are.”
Not likely. I have a giant waterfront loft with three exposures and river views. Though my life may appear similar to yours, in reality it is a veritable cornicopia of the best the world has to offer, including top brands in fashion, the best art and music, extremly expensive and high quality drugs, and of course sexual relations with desirable models.
Look, I know a lot of people want to be me, but to be honest the chances are so low for you that it’s a waste of time. PS, on that note consider strapping on a bomb belt and taking out a stripmall or Cheesecake Factory on your way out of life. Thanks in advance.
I’d post more but my life is a constant parade of visceral living experiences and I’d better get back to it.
Morgan, the more you put up defensive comments about your supposed happiness and obviously missing sense of humor, the more I’m inclined to believe that you’re deeply unhappy and defensive about it.
Reality outstrips satire. Who knew that the men who swear up and down that single women are really unhappy are actually trying to cover up their own gaping holes in their hungry, miserable souls? I’m really beginning to pity you, Morgan. If you weren’t such an asshole, I’d probably feel bad about making fun of you for being so sad and unsatisfied.
Paul:
But several here do have kids, are single/divorced/widowed parents, come from single/divorced/widowed families. We know raising children is hard. You know what’s harder, though? Raising children with someone who is not a full partner. Ms. Gottlieb believes all her problems would just go away, if only she had a man. But trying to undertake a joint project with someone who is not properly invested, only leads to more problems in the long run.
I know that, Amanda knows that , the people on this site know that, and you don’t even have to have kids to know that. I think, deep-down, Ms. Gottlieb knows that, but the anti-feminist market is too lucrative to let a little thing like intellectual honesty get in the way.
Hey Morgan, if you’re still reading, here’s a hint: if you have to tell people you’re funny, YOU’RE NOT FUNNY. You’re just another boring prick, a boring prick who thinks his ignorance regarding terms of discussion is a virtue.
To quote Morgan (addressing Amanda):
“Now ask yourself why you’d start this thread with a headline that clearly implies that a woman, a smart and literate writer, is really secretly on the same side as the guys team.”
I know, I know, the whole “Nice Guys®” could be a give away that there’s a specific concept in mind that might not be yours, but I forget: Morgan can type quickly! Reading other threads or asking questions: that’s a sissy girl thing! Why, Morgan even claims to have a penis! But guess what: he’s not the only person who has easy access to such an appendage.
There was an earlier thread on Friday, “The Guide to Nice Guys® in Comic Form”, that talked (in part) about the Nice Guy® who thinks that “I should get laid because I’m sensitive and I do all that polite crap that women (fools!) love guys to do. So I’m owed, dammit!” Such a person might have a chance with the writer of the article (eg, comment 152). Of course, such a guy might have to marry her first. Small price to pay, huh?
I’m in broad agreement with many of the comments above. Feeling lonely with other people around can be worse than just being alone (eg, comment 37). And it’s incredibly obnoxious for Gottlieb to extend her perspective to everybody else by fiat (eg, comments 18, 102, 173). And what doesn’t help her point — whatever it is — is her own strange inconsistencies. After advising everyone to settle, she adds “Don’t nix a guy based on his annoying habit of yelling “Bravo!” in movie theaters. Overlook his halitosis or abysmal sense of aesthetics.” Yet later on she says she longs for a Will and Grace type relationship: “What I long for in a marriage is that sense of having a partner in crime. Someone who knows your day-to-day trivia. Someone who both calls you on your bullshit and puts up with your quirks.” It’s possible that the “overlooking halitosis” had to do with allowing a second date, but after awhile, you really should be able to say “Brush your teeth and tongue!” (also eg comment 43) Is not brushing “bullshit” or “a quirk”? I have no idea how Gottlieb would answer.
There’s the problem that Gottlieb thinks that, if she settles for some loser, her husband will simply accessorize HER life: she now has live-in help (eg, comment 13). But what if this loser actually changes, becomes less of a loser? There’s the complaint in popular media about “great guys being married or gay”. Well, OF COURSE, guys who aren’t uptight about impressing single women are going to be more relaxed. His unavailability might even help the “great” mystique. If the loser she settled for actually finds someone who doesn’t think he’s a loser, Gottlieb would be in trouble. And she’d better not bank on child support payments for a child that the loser clearly didn’t father.
Crap, this comment is longer than I thought. I get tired of controversy for controversy’s sake (eg comments 73, 122), of media that makes its money off of keeping people isolated. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Rush’s claim to fame was being able to talk to people sealed alone in their cars or cubicles. Instead of trying to learn someone else’s perspective and broaden one’s own, it becomes almost a sickening virtue to create straw men or straw women and tear them down. Tearing these stick figures down draws attention away from how fragile life can feel in the box, but after that, you’re still living in a box.
I guess I’ll wrap up this comment by expanding on something Amanda wrote in the original post: “Translation: There’s no time like the present to start on that life of quiet desperation!”
To go to Thoreau’s original statement: “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.” Gottlieb wants us to recognize this quiet desperation isn’t just for men! But for me, I’d rather be pissed. For me, No More Mr. Nice Guy®.
Not likely. I have a giant waterfront loft with three exposures and river views.
Please, please say that was a joke. I don’t want to know that the kind of person who could say that in all sincerity actually exists. Seriously, that might just be the trigger that makes me seriously consider serial murder as a life’s vocation. That or joining the Bush Administration.
Oh my god, we’re in the presence of true celebrity, folks… This must be none other than John Fitzgerald Page!
Oh my god, we’re in the presence of true celebrity here… This must be none other than John Fitzgerald Page!
Ugly in Pink, will you kindly shut up? If you keep talking I won’t be able to hear when Morgan tells us about his private jet and how he has a secret lair from whence he leaps forth to do battle with criminals dressed in a form-fitting costume which shows off his perfect body and donkey-size private parts. And, if we’re lucky, we’ll hear about how he made forty million dollars last week while finding the time to cure cancer and service Angelina Jolie while Brad Pitt stood and took notes, saying “wow!”.
You win.
Morgan, I think I know your type.
Preening narcissism never fails to make this humorless feminist laugh.
Even if the troll has the possessions he says he has, one can make an educated assumption and assume he inherited it. He/she/it reeks of rank undeserved privilege.
The test: Morgan - if you’re really really really as cool as you say you are, you’ll know immediately what my screen name stands for. Without Google-cheating.
You may not be on script with that, Steve. Some jurisdictions (here in Ontario, Canada, for instance) mandate that a non-biological parent can be made to pay child support if they have acted in loco parentis to the child. I know of some family law lawyers who strongly advise clients long-term-dating women with children to keep their distance from said children and do not in any way, manner shape or form assume any fiscal responsibility for them, lest it come back to haunt them in a subsequent support claim.Ah! I got beaten to it.
Wow, that was an impressive response, actually.
The weird thing is. I also live in a nice place with waterfront view, which I was just enjoying today–It’s a nice, if windy day in Atlanta.
I get the best in sci-fi/fantasy books, download the best music and movies as well as said books. I enjoy food that I make, and I enjoy the company available electronically.
I get neither fashion or models, but then, I don’t want to pay for them.
My life sucks in a variety of ways, and there are many ways I can improve on myself, and my situation. However, it really isn’t a bad life, and it’s certainly not unprivileged.
Of course I’m grateful for what I have, and do not need to flaunt. It was just weird the way you slung all the things that you have (which I have or could have), as mere things and signposts. While I actually go and stand outside, watch the sun on the waters, and the breeze through naked limbs, and talk about patience in gardening–describing how trees that are now big were so small when planted. I fished in those waters by my house. I played instruments, and dabbled in HDTV and electronics…
I have possessions, and my possessions enrich my life, not my status or pocketbook.
Now I truly feel sorry for you. You could have had the life I have, and more besides, since you are wealthy. But you don’t.
Even at age 40, Ms. Gottleib still seems to have trouble distinguishing a middle ground between some impossible “Mr. Right” soulmate on the one hand, and immature, slovenly and rude clods with no physical appeal to her on the other. So now, having given up on the former, she’s urging other women (and indirectly herself) to “settle” for the latter (or, as a sensible alternative, a gay man who finds women’s bodies “icky”). It’s just the sort of flawed and simplistic thought process you’d expect from someone who thinks network television is an accurate portrayal of the real world.
Fortunately for decent and mentally stable men in that middle ground, we learn quickly to spot the warning signs of desperate personalities like Ms. Gottleib’s by the first date, and avoid getting involved in the sort of lopsided and joyless “nonprofit business” partnerships she’s proposing.
Look, there’s no point founding any sort of start-up if you don’t have genuine respect or fondness for your contractual partner, nor is there if you don’t expect to have a little fun mixed in with the hard work. But apparently it’s all a zero-sum game for Ms. Gottleib.
And she’s more deluded if she harbors the vague hope (and I suspect she does) that an overweight, bald, short guy in his 50s (add other “imperfections” as you like - she would) with a modicum of smarts and self respect would consider for even a moment the idea of becoming an indirect nanny replacement (which is essentially what she’s looking for) for a 40-year-old single woman with a child by an anonymous sperm donor. Even less likely with a polite and happy single guy in his late 30s who’s tall, slim and has all his hair (here I speak from experience).
To be fair, Ms. Gottleib is firmly enmeshed in L.A. sitcom writer land, which promotes a culture of reality denial, fairy-tale endings and social conformity norms from a non-existent “Golden Age” (the mythical 1950s). And from what I’ve read elsewhere she’s had serious problems with self-esteem and a history of bad decisions. How that mess translates into an article (whether serious or a misguided attempt at satire) in a respected publication is another question.
I guess _The Atlantic_ gets some buzz out this, but at what cost to their brand? Call it a wash, at least from a marketing POV.
“The test: Morgan - if you’re really really really as cool as you say you are, you’ll know immediately what my screen name stands for. Without Google-cheating.”
Of course I do. It’s the kind of thing that you pick up at some point along the way when you get your turbine and multi add-ons. Should we have a competition to see who can shoot an coupled ILS approach to minimums on a day like today in NYC? Yawn! Next should we talk about racing yachts and my wine cellar?
I’m sorry guys, there’s a different world out there. Well more accurately somewhere just above where you currently reside. You’re in the presence of an actual internet celebrity and you don’t even realize it.
Morgan, morgan, or should I call you something else? Do you think we don’t know how to use google around here? This seems like a hobby of yours:
http://www.brooklynian.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=65319#65319
These sentences from Gottlieb made me laugh out loud:
“Even women who settle but end up divorced might be in a better position than those of us who became mothers on our own, because many ex-wives get both child-support payments and a free night off when the kids go to Dad’s house for a sleepover.”
ROFLMAO!! Tell that to a primary caregiving mom going through a contested custody and “shared parenting” battle with an obnoxious and/or abusive ex and all the “experts” making money from the court case. She’ll set Gottlieb straight.
Is there a “Be The Next Caitlyn Flannagan” contest that I don’t know about?
I get Amanda’s dig at “Nice Guys”. These guys are obnoxious, whining sorts with heavy-duty entitlement issues. I wrote about them on my old blog. I just might have to do that again sometime.
I also wrote about “Nice Guys” for my sex column at the British pop culture e-zine Nuts4chic.
I get Amanda’s dig at “Nice Guys”. These guys are obnoxious, whining sorts with heavy-duty entitlement issues. I wrote about them on my old blog. I just might have to do that again sometime.
I also wrote about “Nice Guys” for my sex column at the British pop culture e-zine Nuts4chic.
You’re in the presence of an actual internet celebrity and you don’t even realize it.
Of course! I know who you are. How could I not realize it sooner? Guys, this man IS a true “internet celebrity”. After all, what better title could be given to the one and only Goatse.
Nothing says financial smarts and class like spending your own money to advertise other people’s ostentatious brands
I’m guessing Nagel and LeRoy Neiman “limited edition” prints, Michael McDonald, Kenny G and Michael Bollton CDs.
Always the sign of a happy, well-adjusted winner.
The JC Penney circular kind who like to “ski,” no doubt.
The condo sounds nice, though.
I’m sorry guys, there’s a different world out there.
Please take your tedious snot-nosed dick-swinging bloviating and go back to it, m’kay?
Not to derail, and I haven’t read through all the comments yet, but what happened to that blog? Is Twisty ok?
Read her blog. She’s fine. There’s a recent post up right now.
Why are men defending an article that’s nothing more than a rationalization of gold-digging?
Because it reinforces their stereotype of women in general. Someone above (Amanda?) already nailed it with her description of Atlantic’s editorial decisions.
Since Morgan has long abandoned any pretense to rational discourse and is clearly only concerned with de-railing the thread with insults and narcissism AND is taking a great deal of delight in doing so… he’s just another troll.
Time to bring back the bunny vids? If you can find one of a bunny being eaten by cats, all the better.
Ugly in Pink? I don’t win. Zython just topped it.Theaetetus wins.
The rest of y’all are being too harsh on Morgan s/he is really good at writing in the style of a stupid person.
“Of course! I know who you are. How could I not realize it sooner? Guys, this man IS a true “internet celebrity”. After all, what better title could be given to the one and only Goatse.”
Bob Goatse is definitely a fellow internet celebrity. Though I think he’s been spread a little thin lately. Come on, let me break it down for you. I know chef and MABSO and LordBuckley. I can make Tongan style barbecue while severely blasted on yayo. I have won 11 breakdancing competitions in a row (though we’re sadly now banned from the Jamba Juice parking lot after Talufa got into the chloral hydrate and went ofter those mormon kids, but I digress) and now own Bobby Brown’s Mercedes.
Yes, that Bobby Brown. Seriously, you should never have tried to test.
Please Take your tedious snot-nosed dick-swinging bloviating and leave.
And Ms. Gottlieb champions them because, at this point, that’s all that’s left for an incompetent hunter like herself to prey upon. The more of them she encourages to come out of the bushes, the more variety in the population, and the more tasty morsels for her and her ilk to “settle” on.
Could commenters please not feed the troll? I’m betting that “Morgan Phillips” is about 14 — emotionally if not chronologically.
I’ve noticed this is a pattern of smart, articulate women. Do we extend endless patience to abusive attention-seekers in an unconscious attempt to soothe the balm of being pejoratively “labeled feminist”?
You know, “good-girl” behavior to try to deflect the “bad-girl” meme?
Commenters, IMO Morgan Phillips deserves no more time and no more attention. Let’s tune it out and shift the signal-to-noise ratio, shall we?
“I’ve noticed this is a pattern of smart, articulate women. Do we extend endless patience to abusive attention-seekers in an unconscious attempt to soothe the balm of being pejoratively “labeled feminist”?”
Nah, I think you find abusive attention seekers more attractive, in a pre-socialization sort of instinctive way. Hunter versus gatherer, etc. Don’t obsess, it’s not your fault. I’m sure it explains the common male tendency towards large mammaries. We all have to deal with our urges, don’t be embarrassed, really. It’s all love.
Feeding the troll usually involves taking him seriously. We’re long past that point.
Still, it’s not nice to make fun of children or the developmentally disabled, so I’ll stop.
Flailey, you’re actually remarkably pathetic. Thank you for serving up quite a buffet of schadenfreude and amusement.
What kind of designer drugs do you imbibe, anyways?
“Thank you for serving up quite a buffet of amusement.”
Much obliged, happy Sunday!
Morgan, your dick-swinging still hasn’t hasn’t the question: Exactly what does kac90b STAND for??
And just for the record, owning a has-been like Bobby Brown’s old Benz doesn’t make you anything other than pathetic for thinking that is cool.
HEY!! {head smack} Maybe we could hook up Ms. Gittleib and Morgan. They could spend the rest of their lives together. Miserably.
Amanda said, “ydnew, I wouldn’t chastise people for missing out on X, when you haven’t read the comments and seen that in fact, people talk a lot about X.”
Chastise? A lot? I said I was surprised that more people didn’t talk about something–that equals chastising? Sheesh. In the first 100 comments two people casually mentioned it. Maybe that seems like a lot to you, but really, it didn’t to me.
And how in the world would a text search on single get me anything but loads and loads of rants about relationships when what I was questioning was the lack of comment on the hard work of parenthood?
But don’t bother to answer. I don’t know how I got here, exactly, but I found your response completely bizarre (chastised? really? chastised??? just because I sympathized with someone you’re flaming? yowza…) and I’ll know to steer clear next time.
“And just for the record, owning a has-been like Bobby Brown’s old Benz doesn’t make you anything other than pathetic for thinking that is cool.”
You cannot afford. Deal.
If it’s not too late to comment on the actual article:
If this woman genuinely thinks that almost any spouse is better than no spouse, well, that’s a point of view I can respect (although I certainly don’t share it). What really annoys me is her insistence that anyone who disagrees with her is lying.
I’d never settle like this woman wants us to, but if I ever decide I want a kid and can’t face going it alone several of my closest female friends and I have discussed forming non-sexual cooperative households that would allow us the benefits of shared households and coparenting without any of this bullshit about marrying someone you don’t really want to marry. Odd that the author is willing to consider shacking up with a gay man but not with another one of her single sisters.
Face it, I have a Grammy, an oscar, and six emmys.
Sheesh! I thought I was kinda on the same wave-length as Ms. Marcotte until she went all off on Morgan for defending the article–or more specifically the writer–and making the horrible error of dropping the assertion that she’s happy in her marriage. I’d blow a whistle if I were a ref: Marcotte, you’re offsides. (I know, it’s your playing field and you’re never offsides here. And who gave me a whistle?)
I read Gottlieb’s piece in my son’s copy of the Atlantic (which would not sully my mailbox) last night and was appalled. Pointed here by Atrios–and I’ve visited the site from time to time before–I was fascinated both by Marcotte’s initial commentary (whose take I pretty much anticipated; seems absolutely on point) and the amplifying string of comments. Until for some reason it all turned sour.
Certainly I’m in no demographic that fits this readership: male, three living adult children, married for 16.5 years, divorced for seven years with joint custody of kids and both living in Berkeley, then remarried to ex-wife (both with pretty much monogamous relationships with others in between) for another 20 years now. Admittedly I look like a younger Paul Newman on one of his good days, and my wife has always been a raving beauty… but hardly a month goes by that one of us doesn’t plan to move out… and hardly a week goes by that I don’t thank my stars for hooking me up with this wonderful woman (who tells me she loves me, but I’m an ex-newspaper reporter… your turn to guess the point of that reference). There’s good food and sex and intellectually stimulating conversations… she, in fact, is now an Episcopal priest and rector of a parish and I’m a flaming ex-Catholic atheist. Makes for great debates. (The screaming arguments are on other topics.)
Point being: marriage can be “happy” on balance or it can be crappy. It has given me the most intense emotional pain I’ve ever felt in my life. It has given me the greatest joy. I’m never more content than in the weeks when my wife’s away and I’m pottering about on my own… or more excited to have her back. But marriage is shmarriage; a deep and fulfilling relationship (perhaps just with the person staring back at you from the mirror; not only nothing wrong with that, possibly an ideal for many strong people) is what it’s about. The failure to understand this is what’s so disturbing about Gottlieb’s piece of self-deluded dreck in a magazine that apparently prides itself on heady dreck.
If Marcotte wants to play cheap, mean-spirited psychoanalytic “…doth protest too much…” games, I’m struck by all her sneering assertions about a boyfriend and hot whispers in the ear and good fucking. But I take her at her word. And she did skewer Gottlieb where she deserved to be skewered.
Morgan not.
Now, I’m gone. Peace, all.
I’m friends with two Academy Award winners (one for score mixing, one for special F/X).
Neither is the insufferable prick that you are.
Take your dick-swinging bravado and shove it up your ass along with the rest of your trifles.
Morgan’s so “happy” he has to troll for attention; I called it. News flash, kiddo–your hand does not count as a spouse, and you won’t find one if you keep sitting there with Cheeto crumbs all over you. Why not get dressed and go outside for a nice walk?
Morgan’s description of his “lifestyle” is such that I cannot help wondering whether he is actually either living in his parents’ vermin infested basement or the local junkyard accompanied by garbage heaps, rats, and other critters of the refuse.
The Atlantic imitates Gilbert and Sullivan:
[The Duke and Duchess of Plaza-Toro speak with their daughter, Casilda, about her arranged marriage:]
Casilda: Well, whatever happens, I shall, of course, be a dutiful wife, but I can never love my husband.
Duke: I don’t know. It’s extraordinary what unprepossing people one can love if one gives one’s mind to it.
Duchess: I loved your father.
Duke: My love–that remark is a little hard, I think? Rather cruel, perhaps? Somewhat uncalled-for, I venture to believe?
Duchess: It was very difficult, my dear; but I said to myself, “That man is a Duke, and I will love him. Several of my relations bet me I couldn’t, but I did–desperatley!
Jana C.H.
Seattle
Saith Charlotte Lucas: Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter chance. … It is better to know as little as possible of the person with whom you are to pass your life.
Man, there are a lot of men who have no senses of humor out there. DOW:
1) I was playing with Morgan. I was sending up his finger-wagging “diagnosing” of single women as unhappy even though they say they’re not. That you don’t get it says more about you than me. That I happened to be right that Morgan about Morgan’s deep defensiveness about his marriage and life was purely an accident. However, he’s such an asshole, I’m not sure I care. He started making fun of people in order to quiet the doubts within. He needs to fuck off.
2) It’s amazing how many men show up and decide they can wag their fingers at me for being mean to men that were mean to women, but it never occurs to them to wag their fingers at the dudes. Actually, it doesn’t amaze me. Tells you everything you need to know about how they think the world works. Men are the adults who get to do what they want in DOW’s eyes, but women are children who need to be scolded into showing “respect” even to those who don’t respect us.
Save it for your cats, DOW. I used to envy men like you guys, with your effortless self-esteem granted you by the patriarchy, but not anymore. I’d hate it if I thought I was the bees knees when I really was a wanker.
You know what Gottlieb’s article reminds me of? That bit at the beginning of When Harry Met Sally when everyone tells Sally that she shouldn’t be single for too long:
Marie: Okay, but don’t wait too long. Remember what happened with David Warsaw? His wife left him and everyone said give him some time, don’t move in too fast…6 months later, he was dead.
Sally: What are you saying? I should get married to someone right away in case he’s about to die?
Alice: At least you could say you were married.
Jana C.H. - as you suggest, Charlotte Lucas is a case in point of settling. Lizzy rejects Mr Collins, even though he points out that it may be the only offer of marriage she ever receives, and despite the fact that she has no safety net if she never marries. She understands why Charlotte makes the choice to marry Mr Collins, but knows that settling for someone so utterly unsuited to her would be worse than the alternative. Gottlieb’s view is that Charlotte makes the right choice - but sensible women know that there’s a difference between accepting someone has flaws and signing up for a lifetime with someone who makes your skin crawl.
The one person I know who got the benefit of her bargain for doing what she would consider settling is my husband’s ex. He dialed back his career and became Mr. Mom. She asked for the divorce very shortly before the kids could stay home alone wihout breaking any laws, so she did not need her free babysitter any longer. She is now with a guy 10 years younger. Men have been doing this to their wives for years, but there is no reason to enourage women to do the same thing. Thankfully the kids are ok and no one ended up on the street. Who knows whether any of this was conscious on her part, but if it was from start to finish, I don’t see why anyone would not call this behavior out as the most anti-male thing anyone could do. Really makes your average ball busting feminist look pale.
I have to say, when you said you wanted to ask a married woman, and then parroted a very unhappily married woman, I wished I could have interjected.
I love my husband, my husband’s cock, and there is no desire to stab out my eardrums, thanks, unless it’s to drown out bullshit like yours. I’m not taking her side, dear God I’m not, but please, if you’re bitter about the world telling you to get married, she’s bitter about it telling her not to.
And if you’re proud of your abortions, you’re the only woman I’ve ever met who is.
So, since the world is constantly sending abattering ram of messages, get married , don’t get married, etc.
Suck it up and realize that it really doesn’t matter and if it bothers you so much you seriously need to check where your sense of self-worth is coming from. Because I don’t give a shit if you never marry, have babies and marry, marry and have babies, or marry and have no babies. I don’t care if you marry the girl next door, and fill in all that stuff about babies or no.
I just wanted to say I’m married, I have sex wiht my husband because I want to, I love him thoroughly, and I know women who cannot say the same. For whatever reason.
It isn’t black and white, you know. Marry, be unhappy, stay single, be happy, or vice versa. Be who you are, according to your own principles. Don’t bash mine because you’re bitter.
I haven’t had any abortions, but thanks for playing your hand. Remember that we just learned here that the people who run around preaching about their moral superiority for getting married are usually trying to convince themselves they’re happy as much as they’re trying to convince us.
Brigitte, I’m sorry you feel called out about getting married because it’s a social expectation, not because it was the way to be happy for you.
I think you meant to say:
“The people who run around preaching about their moral superiority for NOT getting married are usually trying to convince themselves they’re happy as much as they’re trying to convince us.”
And the kids a a free lifetime of deep-seated psychological problems arising from the fact that their parents obviously couldn’t stand each other. Fuckin’ A!
No, cr8z. I refrain from being angry about stuff that didn’t actually happen. There were also no unicorns preening in this thread.
I’ve had 2 abortions. I AM PROUD!!!!
Proud that I had the sense enough to do it and not be bullied by the sperm-donors to do otherwise.
“Face it, I have a Grammy, an oscar, and six emmys.”
That’s nice, but they were apparently awarded on some other basis than acting ability, considering how fast your cover was blown…
Someone is proud of abortions? That’s so strange. It’s like being proud of getting a parking ticket. Maybe abortion isn’t a heavy moral choice, people disagree on that. But something to be proud of? I’d rather be proud I had the 11 brain cells that are required to figure out how to use contraception.
Um, I like being alone? I don’t believe I’m lying or delusional (I even looked in the mirror, like Gottleib suggested). In fact, I just broke up with someone because I preferred being alone to being with him. But I guess not wanting to surround myself with people I don’t like very much (or children, for that matter) means I am not really a woman. Okay then.
Hey, I’m happily married! And I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who doesn’t really, really want to be with the person they’re marrying. Cuz, baby, you put up with a lot when you live with other humans and when you’re married it gets wrapped up in emotional, historical and legal ribbons that are a damned sight harder to undo than just shacking up or living with your best mate. Add in kids and quantum physics begins to look simple in comparison.
Fifteen years later, we’re both content with the decision we made to get married. How do I know? Because we actually ask from time to time. It’s part of relationship maintenance to inquire if the other person is truly comfortable with where things are going. God forbid Lori G. “settle” for someone and a few years later be forced to answer that question honestly. What a horrible thing to do to another person.
Morgan, no one should “settle” for someone whose touch repulses them. Wishing your friend (or anyone) would do so is cruel.
Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams.
See, should have kept reading the comments before posting. Morgan is just an unfunny ass whose self-worth is tied up in what other people think of him. That’s almost as sad as the article. Maybe sadder.
I don’t know about the laws in US, but in Canada, after a couple coinhabit for over three years, they are legally considered ‘domestic partners’.
It’s still less of a /legal commitment/ than marriage. That piece of paper is no joke, one can’t just get married and wipe the state clean with divorce the way it seem to be for celebrities. If your partner has bad credit, YOU get the bad credit upon marriage, and have to pay off his/her debts if he/she dies.
Dividing the home is hell. Determining what is tresspassing for the court is hell. …and if you are a woman, you are in danger of having your assault brushed off as a ‘lover’s spat’ by ignorant pig cops…and neighbours too. Maybe your relatives would even encourage you to suck it up, once you are married.
So NEVER JUMP INTO IT! It’s not romantic, it’s short-sighted. If you want to do something spontaneous, do not sign any papers, ELOPE.
But apparently you are missing the 12th brain cell needed to understand that ALL contraception has a failure rate even when used correctly EVERY time. Who are you to judge another woman’s pride in making the best decision for her life at the time– even if that decision was to have an abortion?
Morgan: Why would you think anyone here would envy the sad, empty life of materialism that you’ve described? Clearly, you are not the sophisticate you pretend to be if you are trolling blogs trying to make others envy your non-existent life.
Brigitte: Seriously, STFU and stop flogging that strawfeminist. Gottlieb is not sick of the world telling her not to get married (notice that despite her advice she remains unmarried? funny that), she’s too busy telling all the other unmarried women to legally bind themselves to the first available man that comes their way so they can get free babysitting. She’s giving exceptionally bad advice with no basis in reason. Even worse is that she thinks that she’s come up with some radical idea, when it’s reactionary bullshit, and thinks it’s her brilliance and un-PCness that makes everyone stare gape-mouthed at her when she spouts her nonsense (rather than her idiocy). I find the pretend feminists who are showing up on this thread pathetic in their argument that we should at least consider the validity of her idea, in the Faux News, teach the controversy spirit of anti-intellectual inquiry.
…and I’ve always wanted children. I had always angsted over how I could fit being a very involved parents into what I want to be a life FULL of other stuff as well.
…but recently, I figured, that I would be MOST happy, as a godmother that serves a ‘weekend-mom’ role. I’ll feel guilty about it if I was married and had shuffled all the responsibilitiy on the one other parent, but it’ll be fine if there were two other parents. Maybe I’ll surrogate.
wow. nothing screams class quite like a used car. seriously, I nominate Morgan for Toolshed of the Year!
Morgan reminds me of the comment: “Sheesh, everyone’s Ronnie Johnson on the internets.” Hey dude, how much of a feeble idiot do you have to think that sniffin’ nose candy is something we want to aspire to?!
I diagnose: 16-year-old. Home. Bored and pissed off because his parents won’t let him take The Car and go cruisin’.
“Hey dude, how much of a feeble idiot do you have to think that sniffin’ nose candy is something we want to aspire to?!”
When I sneeze, my Kleenex is worth $800.
Someone is proud of abortions? That’s so strange. It’s like being proud of getting a parking ticket. Maybe abortion isn’t a heavy moral choice, people disagree on that. But something to be proud of? I’d rather be proud I had the 11 brain cells that are required to figure out how to use contraception.
I knew how to use contraception, jackass. I was on the pill both times, but back in those days they did not know that antibiotics affected the effectiveness of the pill.
Yeah, I’m proud I wasn’t bullied out of making the right choice for me.
So, STFU.
Re: kac90b
Just wanted to say so sorry you had to go through that. Birth control is so important, when it fails it is so devastating. Of course, even more devastating is not having the opportunity to learn about it or use it.
It just pisses me off no end the way some people assume that “abortion is for careless or stupid or uncaring people”. I consider myself to be truly pro-life (pro-birth control, pro mother and child care). Every child should be wanted, so birth control and abortion are FOR ALL OF US. Thanks for reminding us of that.
http://capitalistimperialistpig.blogspot.com/2008/02/settling.html
Thanks, Cassie.
One doesn’t get much support if one doesn’t hang her head at the “shame” of it all.
“It just pisses me off no end the way some people assume that “abortion is for careless or stupid or uncaring people”.”
For some people it’s probably a defense mechanism. They’re conscientious, so they’ll never need that abortion they might not be able to get, or might not be able to afford. They’re careful, so they’ll never have to face a gauntlet of screaming lunatics, some of whom may be taking pictures of them or their license plate, or worry about their medical file winding up in the hands of an unscrupulous zealot of a DA. They’ll never be forced to have a pointless transvaginal ultrasound they don’t want just to end a pregnancy they can’t handle.
It’s counterproductive and, in a lot of cases, toxic, but not entirely irrational if the people voicing those opinions are aware of the fucked up methodology anti-choice nutjobs and legislators employ.
@ Rebecca, Mad Gastronomer 238:
Ditto and ditto.
@ the article, cats, and nonsense:
“My cat is smarter than the man you settled for” about sums it up for me..
Thank you so much for posting this. I read this article originally as a link from (of all things) the Atlantic, and it made me so angry I wanted to kick my computer out the window. What the hell is such an obviously desperate, not-funny article doing in a place where normally considerate, well-written articles go?
I think my inner editor was angrier, honestly, outdoing my inner feminist, who couldn’t be bothered to email this woman and tell her to crawl out of her own little headspace and think for a second.
But apparently a magazine I respect immensely couldn’t be bothered to respect me back, and decided that this trash’n'drivel was worth my attention and time.
Thank you so much for posting this. I read this article originally as a link from (of all things) the Atlantic, and it made me so angry I wanted to kick my computer out the window. What the hell is such an obviously desperate, not-funny article doing in a place where normally considerate, well-written articles go?
I think my inner editor was angrier, honestly, outdoing my inner feminist, who couldn’t be bothered to email this woman and tell her to crawl out of her own little headspace and think for a second.
But apparently a magazine I respect immensely couldn’t be bothered to respect me back, and decided that this trash’n'drivel was worth my attention and time.
Thank you so much for posting this. I read this article originally as a link from (of all things) the Atlantic, and it made me so angry I wanted to kick my computer out the window. What the hell is such an obviously desperate, not-funny article doing in a place where normally considerate, well-written articles go?
I think my inner editor was angrier, honestly, outdoing my inner feminist, who couldn’t be bothered to email this woman and tell her to crawl out of her own little headspace and think for a second.
But apparently a magazine I respect immensely couldn’t be bothered to respect me back, and decided that this trash’n'drivel was worth my attention and time.
Thank you so much for posting this. I read this article originally as a link from (of all things) the Atlantic, and it made me so angry I wanted to kick my computer out the window. What the hell is such an obviously desperate, not-funny article doing in a place where normally considerate, well-written articles go?
I think my inner editor was angrier, honestly, outdoing my inner feminist, who couldn’t be bothered to email this woman and tell her to crawl out of her own little headspace and think for a second.
But apparently a magazine I respect immensely couldn’t be bothered to respect me back, and decided that this trash’n'drivel was worth my attention and time.
Thank you so much for posting this. I read this article originally as a link from (of all things) the Atlantic, and it made me so angry I wanted to kick my computer out the window. What the hell is such an obviously desperate, not-funny article doing in a place where normally considerate, well-written articles go?
I think my inner editor was angrier, honestly, outdoing my inner feminist, who couldn’t be bothered to email this woman and tell her to crawl out of her own little headspace and think for a second.
But apparently a magazine I respect immensely couldn’t be bothered to respect me back, and decided that this trash’n'drivel was worth my attention and time.
Even from just the point of view of the man in this situation, this author’s proposal is horrific. I would always chose to be alone over being married to someone who is simply tolerating my embrace. Marriage (or any life-long committed relationship) is suppose to be about affection, not convenience and the structure for a stable family dynamic to allow children. If an individual desires this, move in with your best friend and have/adopt a child and then you won’t have to worry about settling at all.
I’m shocked that this was published, the male equivalent, “Marry for Looks/Sex,” never, would have.