Lower Your Standards, Bitch

Okay, so that Atlantic piece by Lori Gottlieb on "why you should settle": We wrote about it. Everyone wrote about it. On Saturday, novelist Megan Daum wrote about it. You keep asking us to write about it again. Maybe I didn't quite nail what happened to be my problem with the story before, so here goes: this is a story for women whose standards are too high. Women with "checklists." Women with those faces that freeze or scowl or go blank when they sense the approach of a Dude Who Is Beneath Them. Don't pretend they don't exist! You know they exist. They are our secret shame, because at some point in the past we have all been those women. Maybe it was back in high school, back when you looked at the type of dude you were capable of attracting as some visible verdict on how attractive you were, maybe because you didn't actually know how attractive you were, because you had body dysmorphic disorder or something. But whatever, at some point along the line we all learn the old saw: "Your milkshake might bring all the boys to the yard, but your yeast infection still stinks."

Well, except for Lori. She just feels like she should have "settled" when she was younger and prettier, before her eggs shriveled etc. etc. But then what would have happened? At best she would have had a kid with one of those perfectly agreeable guys who is beloved by everyone except his wife, spent three years alternating between barely disguising her contempt for him and cooing unconvincingly over how great he is to all her friends, only to cheat on him the moment she'd lost the baby weight. But no sooner!

Anyway, I'm sorry, but if you're like this, you're NOT THAT GREAT. In fact, that's a good rule of thumb, if you constantly find yourself dating dudes for whom you think you are too good, that is probably the personality flaw that is keeping you from the perfect Mr. Right type characters you think you deserve. And you can either think about that for awhile and work it out in therapy and maybe find some interests and pastimes other than the constant obsessive superficial life evaluation engaged in by all too many thirtysomething women you know, or commence dating fat guys.

Finding Mr. Good Enough [LA Times]

Earlier: Settle For Mr. "Just OK" — While Your "Marital Value Is Still At Its Peak!"
Marry Him! [The Atlantic]

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