settling for less

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." More »

hells bells

Settle For Mr. "Just OK" -- While Your "Marital Value Is Still At Its Peak!"

Why It's OK To Settle For Mr. Good Enough. Sounds like the sorta assertion that might get the readers talking/chatting/generating the old ad revenue, eh? Well that's a story in the latest issue of the Atlantic Monthly by a single mom (Lori Gottlieb, pictured) who dares to advance the iconoclastic argument that Rachel would have been better if she'd just married the orthodontist. I'm not kidding! She ACTUALLY POSES THE QUESTION: "Do we feel confident that she'll be happier with Ross than she would have been had she settled down with Barry, the orthodontist, 10 years earlier? She and Ross have passion but have never had long-term stability, and the fireworks she experiences with him but not with Barry might actually turn out to be a liability, given how many times their relationship has already gone up in flames." Oh, and forget searching for Mr. Big; as Gottleib points out, "Some time after the breakup, when Carrie ran into Aidan on the street, he was carrying his infant in a Baby Björn. Can anyone imagine Mr. Big walking around with a Björn?) More »