Chapter 1
Finding Love in a World of Impossible Expectations
When I first encountered "The Husband Store" parable-a fictional shop with six floors of increasingly perfect men-I laughed at its punchline: women are impossible to please while men settle easily. But the humor hit uncomfortably close to home. My own mental checklist for a husband had ballooned to over 60 items, from basic qualities like "intelligent" and "kind" to highly specific traits like "over 5'10" but under 6'0" with wavy dark hair." This unconscious list had grown longer with age, making it nearly impossible to find someone who met all criteria. Could this explain why marriage rates among women have plummeted since the 1970s? Was I overlooking potentially great partners because I was fixated on instant chemistry and an unrealistic ideal? This book isn't exactly my love story, but it could be yours-a journey through the confusing landscape of modern dating and the surprising truth about what makes relationships last.
Chapter 2
The Dating Disconnect: Chemistry vs. Compatibility
At 39, I found myself a single mother exhausted by the dating scene when all I wanted was the comfortable companionship of marriage. Just two years earlier, I'd written about my decision to have a baby alone at 37, thinking I'd find true love later. How naive that seemed now! Though I loved my child, I was doing everything alone while watching my married friends-despite their occasional complaints-enjoy genuine happiness together.
What I discovered through countless conversations with singles and couples was a fundamental disconnect between what we think matters in dating and what actually creates a successful marriage. The unglamorous act of running a household together-sharing responsibilities, making decisions as a team, supporting each other through life's challenges-represents true love far more than the butterflies and fireworks we chase while dating.
When my Atlantic article "Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough" was published, I received an email that perfectly captured the modern dating dilemma. One woman wrote: "I understand I shouldn't expect a perfect 10, but what if I want a different 8?" This crystallized the problem many women face-we understand intellectually that we should be more realistic, but struggle with implementation. How much compromise is too much? Where's the line between healthy flexibility and settling for less than we deserve?
To find answers, I became a dating guinea pig, consulting experts across disciplines from marriage researchers to neurobiologists to matchmakers. What I discovered profoundly changed my approach to finding love-because the true love story isn't about finding someone perfect, but finding someone to get real with.
Chapter 3
The Romance Myth: How Media Warped Our Expectations
At 20, watching "Broadcast News," I never imagined I'd become like Holly Hunter's character Jane, who rejects her perfect-on-paper friend Aaron for shallow Tom, only to end up alone. What I'd dismissed as Hollywood misogyny turned out to be reality. Similarly, when watching "When Harry Met Sally," my friends and I wondered why beautiful Meg Ryan would "lower her standards" for Billy Crystal. We never considered the consequences: she'd reject him and date more attractive men while he'd marry someone else, potentially leaving her alone or with someone she connects with less deeply.
In my twenties, I assumed I'd marry by 30 to someone both my best friend and incredibly sexy-a "better-looking Billy Crystal." Despite claiming we didn't believe in fairy tales, my friends and I wouldn't settle for less. We confused romance with love and watched movies as if they were documentaries. Allison, now 38 and single, regrets breaking up with a boyfriend she loved at 27 because she was "looking for the romantic comedy response." With no prospects now, she's planning solo motherhood through insemination.
Beyond movies, an entire industry fuels fairy-tale wedding fantasies, including newspaper announcements with their "eyes met instantly" stories. Elisa Albert, whose wedding appeared in The New York Times "like a smug sigh of relief," was separated within a year. She wishes newspapers would print "divorce announcements" to show single people what love truly is.
Modern relationship obstacles aren't external like class or religion but internal doubts about whether someone is "The One." Rather than facing genuine barriers like Romeo and Juliet's warring families, we create our own obstacles-he plays too many video games or forgets your friend's name-wondering if someone more perfect exists. We've shifted from lovers who wanted to be together but couldn't to lovers who can be together but aren't sure they want to.
Reality shows like The Bachelor reveal our cultural double standards about romance. When Brad, one season's bachelor, changed his mind before proposing to finalist DeAnna, viewers were outraged. Yet when DeAnna later got her own show and chose a wacky snowboarder over a devoted single dad who offered the domestic life she claimed to want, audiences supported her prioritizing romance over practicality. These contradictory messages leave us confused: Should we seek someone who initially annoys us or attracts us? Should we wait for love to find us or actively pursue it?
Chapter 4
How Feminism Complicated Our Love Lives
Feminism gave women freedom and choice, but ironically complicated our love lives. Growing up, we embraced feminism as empowerment-we could pursue careers, "find ourselves" before marriage, or choose not to marry at all. Yet in our late twenties and thirties, as we moved between relationships or experienced prolonged singlehood, we felt less empowered. We all wanted marriage but feared admitting it would make us seem weak or antifeminist.
The real problem wasn't our careers but a misconception: we equated "having it all" with "happily ever after" and believed empowerment meant maintaining impossibly high standards, never compromising. This is how many women "empowered" themselves out of finding good partners.
Jessica's story exemplifies this: at 23, she rejected her boyfriend Dave's proposal despite loving him, believing she was too young and needed to "grow on her own." For years afterward, while dating others and building her career, she secretly pined for Dave. When she finally called him three years later, he had moved on and married someone else. Jessica realized too late that the feminist messaging to establish herself before sharing life with someone had cost her the relationship she valued most.
Traditional courtship has disappeared, replaced by ambiguous "hanging out" and casual hookups. The word "dating" itself has lost clear meaning in an era where people say "We're not in a relationship, we're just dating" while sleeping together. Modern "dates" often involve group gatherings, last-minute invitations to "hang out," or quick coffee meetings after sports. Women are expected to accept this lack of effort and chivalry as empowering, denying any expectations of traditional gender roles or commitment timelines.
Men find women's expectations confusing. Eric, 38 and married, notes that women want the opportunity for high-powered careers but often prefer part-time work after marriage, expecting men to do half the housework without earning half the income. Paul, a 30-year-old lawyer, says men value personal connection over professional achievement in potential partners: "We're more interested in what kind of partner this person is going to be. Do we like being around her? Is she interesting?"
Single life is profoundly lonely, especially in mid-thirties when friends become busy with families. The loneliness extends beyond physical isolation to the emotional desire for connection. Despite feminism's promise of equal opportunities, women's dating options diminish significantly with age-a reality I failed to grasp when thinking I could have a baby alone, pause dating, then easily resume.
Chapter 5
The Dating Reality Check: Fewer Options, Higher Stakes
At 41, I attended my first speed dating event for singles aged 40-50, expecting to meet ten eligible men in an efficient format. Instead, I encountered a disheartening reality: only six men showed up for ten women, and five appeared well over 50. The experience quickly deteriorated into a parade of unsuitable matches-from Sam who rambled about his life failures, to Paul the unemployed former teacher, to Roger who condescendingly asked if I needed a job as a writer.
The demographic mismatch revealed a brutal dating truth: men in their forties were attending events for women in their thirties, leaving women my age to meet men a decade older. The evening culminated in my realization that poor choices in my twenties and thirties had led to this predicament-a lesson I wished I could share with my younger friend Julia who was casually dismissing good men.
Rachel Greenwald, a dating expert specializing in coaching women over 35, approaches love with sensible optimism. Despite her enthusiastic demeanor, she recognizes the harsh reality that dating fundamentally changes after your twenties. Though Newsweek corrected their infamous claim that women over 40 were more likely to be killed by terrorists than marry, the revised statistics remain sobering-less than half of women over 40 will ever marry.
Greenwald explains that available older men often don't match the idealized image women have carried since their teens. While these men may be middle-aged with ex-wives and children, they can still make excellent partners. The key is recognizing that "realistic" isn't a negative concept. Many women maintain impossibly narrow search criteria-specific height requirements, age limits, religious preferences, and family status restrictions-that eliminate potential matches before even meeting them.
Happily married women consistently report that finding the perfect partner-not the perfect person-is what matters. This isn't about lowering standards but developing mature, reasonable expectations. Amanda, married twelve years, recalls a professor suggesting she could "do better" than her now-husband, but his loving actions (like making salt-free chicken soup when she's sick) proved more valuable than superficial qualities.
Chapter 6
The Mathematics of Pickiness: When Standards Become Obstacles
When I asked dating coach Evan Marc Katz how to know if I was being too picky, he suggested a mathematical approach. We calculated the percentage of men who met all my criteria-smart, sophisticated, funny, family-oriented, successful, kind, attractive (with hair and physically fit), single, kid-friendly, emotionally available, age-appropriate, and living in Los Angeles. The result was about 5% of the male population. Factor in how many of those men would be interested in a 41-year-old woman, and my dating pool shrank to 1%. Add my preference for Jewish men (just 6% of LA's population), and I was down to 0.1%-one in ten thousand men.
Behavioral economist Dan Ariely explains that online dating creates an illusion of objectivity when connection is actually subjective, and that knowing too much about someone before meeting makes it harder to become interested-what he calls "the less is more effect." Ariely's research showed that when given more traits about potential partners, people perceive them as less similar and thus less attractive. Ambiguous profiles actually increase likability because they allow us to project our preferences onto them.
Online dating's abundance of choices creates another problem: we keep too many options open simultaneously. Ariely's research identified "jugglers" who maintained fifteen or more communications at once, writing rushed, poor-quality emails that made them seem less interesting to recipients. While we might be too picky in real life, online we cast too wide a net, unable to focus properly on promising connections.
Northwestern University social psychologist Eli Finkel confirmed that most people don't actually know what traits they want in a partner. In an experiment with colleague Paul Eastwick, they asked singles to rate the importance of various characteristics in a potential mate. After speed dating events, participants rated each person they'd met on these same characteristics and their romantic interest. The results showed virtually no correlation between what people claimed they wanted and who they actually chose.
Finkel explained this disconnect using M&M'S candy: "If you ask people why they like M&M'S, they might tell you it's because of the candy shell. But if you give them another candy with the same shell, they won't like it as much." We know THAT we like something, but we're often wrong about WHY. In dating, we focus on the "what" (lawyer, stable career) when we should focus on the "why" (intelligence, thoughtfulness).
Chapter 7
Maximizers vs. Satisficers: The Happiness Paradox
According to social scientist Barry Schwartz, there are two kinds of people: maximizers and satisficers. Maximizers constantly search for the absolute best option, while satisficers have high standards but stop looking once they find something that meets those standards. This applies to everything from sweater shopping to finding romantic partners. Maximizers spend excessive time and energy searching, yet often end up less happy with their choices than satisficers, who accept "good enough" as genuinely good.
Satisficers tend to be happier in life than maximizers. While maximizers either keep looking for someone better or choose someone but wonder if they've settled, satisficers understand that not getting 100 percent of what we want is normal. As Barry Schwartz explains, maximizers constantly look over their shoulders to see if there's something better, which diminishes how they feel about their current partner. They experience "regret in anticipation of making a decision," imagining how they'll feel if a better option existed.
People who fear buyer's remorse often hedge their bets by living together before marriage, essentially buying the "good enough sweater" with a return policy. Yet CDC data shows divorce rates are 12% higher for couples who cohabitated before marriage, and twice as high for women who lived with multiple partners. Schwartz suggests this happens because people with a "return policy mentality" are less satisfied with their choices. Studies show people are actually more satisfied with nonreturnable items than returnable ones-when decisions are final, we engage in psychological processes that enhance our feelings about our choices.
The woman who wanted a "different 8" rather than her current "8" boyfriend might be suffering from having too many choices, making all "pretty good" options seem less appealing. Or she's experiencing "adaptation"-we get used to things and take them for granted. Like walking into air conditioning on a hot day, it feels amazing at first but becomes expected. "Any new person will look better temporarily," Schwartz explains. "Every eight becomes a six over time. You can trade your six for a new eight, but eventually that eight will become a six too."
While men can be maximizers too, the problem isn't these men per se, but that many women waste time pursuing them while overlooking satisficer men who could make them happy. Often maximizer women date maximizer men, creating a poor match. Contrary to the belief that waiting longer leads to finding Mr. Right, those who married younger and knew how to compromise might actually be better partners.
Chapter 8
The Economics of Love: Hard Truths About Dating Markets
Dating resembles an auction where, counterintuitively, the most appealing women often lose. While "strong bidders" (attractive women) confidently wait for the perfect man, "weak bidders" (less conventionally appealing women) act decisively and secure good partners early. The result? The dating pool increasingly contains the least appealing men alongside the most appealing but overly selective women. As economist Mark Gimein writes, "Where have all the appealing men gone? Most of them married young-and sometimes to women whose most salient characteristic was not their beauty, or passion, or intellect, but their decisiveness."
Dating creates "sunk costs"-investments with no payoff, like constantly moving apartments instead of building equity in a home. Each new relationship requires retelling your life story and learning someone else's, with costs that aren't transferable. The real problem is "opportunity costs"-while women spend time in go-nowhere relationships, their dating value decreases with age while men's increases. Unlike men, women face a closing biological window and diminishing options.
Ariely's research reveals the economic value women place on men's height: an ordinary-looking man needs to earn $143,000 more annually than a highly attractive one to receive equal attention online. Height commands a premium too-a 5'4" man needs $229,000 more income than a 6' man to have equal appeal, while a 5'9" man needs $40,000 more than someone 5'10".
Dating coach Evan Marc Katz emphasizes that personal perception of value doesn't matter-you're only as valuable as your options. He explains that women often price themselves too high in the dating market, refusing to adjust their expectations as they age. While a 27-year-old can date almost anyone, this advantage diminishes with time. Many women reject "8s" hoping for "10s" only to end up with "5s" or nothing.
Marriage provides infrastructure, economic security, companionship, and better health-it's both comforting and practical. Research shows married people build more wealth and are generally happier. Though young singles might be offended by the notion that socioeconomics underpins modern love, the success of arranged marriages suggests there's wisdom in this practical approach.
Chapter 9
First Impressions Lie: The Surprising Truth About Chemistry
First dates often mislead us about relationship potential. After talking with Evan, I questioned my habit of using first dates as pass-fail tests where "passing" meant feeling immediate sparks.
Researcher Diane Holmberg found that happily married couples describe their courtship more positively as years pass, while unhappy couples' memories grow more negative-even when their initial accounts were identical. Grace, who "literally heard a voice" saying she would marry her now-soon-to-be-ex-husband, admits she "really didn't know him" despite that powerful first connection. As one man on "This American Life" noted about his difficult but ultimately strong marriage: "Everyone always asks how we met, but nobody ever asks how we stayed together."
Julie's story demonstrates how misleading first impressions can be. She initially refused to return calls from Jeff, a nurse she met while working as a doctor, having no romantic interest whatsoever. When she finally agreed to join a group outing that included him, they "chatted like old friends" and connected so well they never dated anyone else afterward. Twelve years into their marriage, Julie describes Jeff as "the package that arrived at my doorstep a couple of times, but it wasn't until he was unwrapped and just sitting there that I could see what a treasure he was."
Psychotherapist Helena Rosenberg calls men like her husband "Frog Princes"-people who don't immediately seem like potential mates but reveal themselves as princes over time. Jennifer's experience mirrors this: she initially noticed another man at a party, not her future husband Danny, but gradually realized Danny possessed the unseen qualities that make great partners-"kindness, patience, generosity, and honesty."
Dating coach Evan Marc Katz discovered a stark gender difference in dating expectations when he surveyed women about men's first-date mistakes. Instead of a short list of major offenses, women sent back three hundred nitpicky complaints-from wearing mismatched belts and shoes to doing impressions or mentioning sports. Men, by contrast, only named a few dealbreakers: lack of attraction, stimulation, or warmth. The fundamental problem is that women approach first dates with an impossibly high standard, immediately evaluating "Is he my husband?" rather than simply "Should we go out again?"
Chapter 10
Finding What Matters: Stories of Real Love
Alexandra met her husband Kevin through her boyfriend John, when Kevin was temporarily living with John during his divorce. For two years, she considered Kevin just a friend while pursuing John, whom she thought was her "soul mate" despite his emotional unavailability. As John repeatedly disappointed her, Alexandra and Kevin grew closer through daily conversations, though she never saw him romantically-he wasn't her physical type, being out of shape and less fun than her usual preferences.
After finally breaking up with John after three years, Alexandra still believed he was her soul mate who simply didn't want her. Kevin supported her through the breakup, and they began spending more time together, even helping each other with online dating profiles. Despite friends suggesting they date, both insisted it would be like dating a sibling-until one night when casual cuddling sparked unexpected attraction.
Their relationship blossomed naturally, differing little from their friendship except for great physical intimacy. Their two years of platonic "courtship" had allowed them to know each other authentically, without pretense or dating pressure. Alexandra realized she would have dismissed Kevin initially for not matching her "type," missing the tender core beneath his gruff exterior that she'd grown to love.
Hilary met Rob in physics lab after ending a year-long relationship with someone who constantly put her down. Though initially not attracted to Rob-disliking his sideburns and missing the banter she enjoyed with other men-she was impressed when he was the only person who actually showed up to her dance performance.
Though Rob's simple gesture of holding her hand behind his back felt wonderful, Hilary struggled with her lack of "butterflies" compared to her inappropriate ex. Despite Rob willingly changing for her (like shaving his sideburns), she remained ambivalent for two years, questioning her own instincts. Her family reinforced her doubts, with her sister finding Rob "boring" and her mother calling him "blah" compared to Hilary's forceful personality.
At 34 when they married, Hilary had to reconsider her concept of "soul mate." She discovered they intuitively understood each other, and that Rob was creative in ways different from the "artsy" men she'd previously sought. Their shared focus on family, work, and future goals made their different hobbies less significant. Rather than the anxious excitement of wondering "will he call?", Hilary found extraordinary depth in Rob's reliability and trustworthiness.
Chapter 11
A Different Kind of Happily Ever After
I offer my dating struggles as a cautionary tale-like a graphic anti-drunk driving PSA-to help readers avoid similar mistakes. I acknowledge that while happy endings remain possible at my age, they're less likely and will look different than for someone ten years younger. My message isn't meant to discourage but to show realistically how easily people can end up alone through poor dating choices, hoping readers will recognize themselves and broaden their concept of Mr. Right before it's too late.
When my skeptical 31-year-old friend Erica read the book, she found it empowering rather than discouraging. The realization that finding love doesn't require meeting someone who fits "absolutely every criteria" reduced her panic. This more realistic approach to dating is liberating-understanding that finding a good mate isn't random chance but largely based on our choices and actions. As my married friend Lynn noted, adjusting perspective makes dating "more interesting, manageable, entertaining, and less disappointing" by giving more people a genuine chance.
Speaking directly to you now: my message isn't meant to make you feel bad but to foster self-awareness that leads to better decisions. The good news is that change is possible, even if it takes time to overcome years of sabotaging attitudes. "You can't fault anyone for not telling you," but you can blame yourself for not listening. You have a choice: continue believing your ideal partner will magically appear, or become more reasonable about dating to find happiness easier. Either way, the information is here-the rest is up to you.
