Jezebel: lori gottlieb

Hey, remember that article in the March issue ...

Dodai — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 18:40:00 EDT

Hey, remember that article in the March issue of Atlantic Monthly by Lori Gottlieb? The one called "Marry Him! The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough"? Warner Independent Films and Maguire Entertainment — as in Tobey Maguire — have acquired both the article and book rights. Tobey, aka Spiderman, plans to produce a film based on that damn piece. Gottlieb, an NPR commentator, is a 40-year old single mother who conceived her baby through donor sperm. So! What the hell kind of movie does "Tobes" plan to make? A drama? A satire? A comedy? A wacky single mom comedy? Why are we so scared? [Variety]

Oh look! Lori Gottlieb, anorexic uptight ...

Moe — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 15:40:23 EDT

Oh look! Lori Gottlieb, anorexic uptight single mom advocate of settling for Mr. "Just Ok" is back in the news. And she's settled! On...a publisher for the inevitable book based on her "controversial"Atlantic piece. How great for her! But not so great for guy who spies the book in his fiance's nightstand. [Publishers Weekly]

Lower Your Standards, Bitch

Moe — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 17:00:00 EST

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]

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

Moe — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 17:40:00 EST

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?)

Okay, so far be it from us to dispute a self-help manifesto constructed on the basis of possible alternate conclusions to popular television series, but what's author Lori Gottlieb smoking? Well, she had a kid with an anonymous sperm donor and is 40 and really fucking lonely. Her looks have faded and the men she broke up with in her thirties because they were short/boring/rude to waiters/physically unattractive are looking real good around now. It's sort of refreshing how honest she is, even though hers are thoughts any 28-year-old has already probably had in advance. But then you hit a sentiment like this:

After all, wouldn't it have been wiser to settle for a higher caliber of "not Mr. Right" while my marital value was at its peak?

And think, wait a minute, something's not right with his lady.

At which point you google her, learn that she not only wrote a memoir about how she's a recovering anorexic but now has an author bio page on her website on which all the photos of herself feature her in super "skinny" poses.

See? She's ana. A perfectionist, a number-cruncher, a quantitatively-minded overachiever obsessed with stats. Of course she never managed to find someone to "settle" on before! She's incapable of settling! It's like giving up. Like eating carbs.

Anyway, apologies to Lori, but it was kind of a relief to learn that, at the very least, her problems are different from mine, and probably yours, too. Now leave the office and go get drunkenly knocked up by some stranger before you end up like her!

Marry Him [Atlantic Monthly]