Whew, some real common sense. And I would add: the New York Times claimed there were weapons of mass destruction, too. Don't believe everything you read. These days, the Grey Lady is actually a two-bit hooker from Vegas.

You are so right, Marianna. I can't believe a woman actually wrote to Dear Abby for advice on how to score a man. Is this 1955, 1965, 1975, or is it in fact 2005 (almost 2006.) Oy, we have taken so many steps backward (ourselves, with NO ONE helping us) it is truely disheartening.

Can someone please explain where Dowd and others of her ilk get this idea that educated men are afraid of intelligent women? Does Dowd read the engagement/wedding announcement in her own newspaper? All you see are educated men marrying equally educated women - some of whom met in college, of all places!!!! When was the last time you saw "John Smith, a Harvard MBA was wed to Connie Jones, a waitress at the Silver Diner"? Now this may be a generational thing as men in Dowd's age group and older maybe were more likely to marry the waitress/coat check girl/exotic dancer. I hate to generalize from my own experience but I attended two "prestigious" universities and I can't think of a single male peer who didn't marry either a classmate or another college graduate. Again, maybe things are different for my generation (born in 1969) because women are solidly entrenched in higher education, including professional schools. I'm waiting for the author of one these screeds to find an educated man younger than 45 who married a woman who was dissimilar in education and profession.

Katharine Mieszkowski is clearly still stuck in the stage where having a male adjunct makes life complete. Katherine, hear me now! Life can be perfectly wonderful without a mate. YES! I know you don't believe it. Without a male mirror to reflect your marvelousness back at you, how will you ever become really and truly fullfilled? Apparently, our dear writer has missed THE ENTIRE POINT.

Tyler, your story rings true for me. I met my life match while in High School. At the time the fact that she was better in school than I was a prime reason I was interested in her.

I am merely specualting, of course, but it appears that the problem is that the guys who are looking for their intellectual equals find those women while in school. In the post graduation dating field, you are left with all the men who decided not to get serious in college, because they wanted to "play the field more" or because their primary goal in life was to make a ton of money in a lucrative career, and they didn't want a girlfriend weighing them down. This is of course gross generalization, but this latter group of men, on average, isn't usually looking for intellectual equals.

The fact that you know so many couples who met while in school only serves to show how rare it can be to form such a relationship once out of school.

It's the powerful men that Dowd and her cohort seem to want. Tyler, I think you're right that things could be different for later generations--I'm under forty, and most of our circle (mostly male scientists and their wives) are academics--Ph.D.'s married to other Ph.D.'s, or, failing that, ABDs and M.A.'s. Our incomes are comfortable, but the husbands are really more interested in pursuing their research than moving and shaking. Some of the wives, however, are a different story: many are faculty, but some are journalists, politicians, and University policymakers. Who knows? In time, some of them may leave their spouses for trophy husbands.

I think, in the end, it may be a psychological hurdle that Dowd and her contemporaries simply have been unable to clear because of the residual expectations of their generation and those of their parents. I still have problems explaining to my mother (who is about 10 years older than Dowd) that no, close collaboration with colleagues of the opposite sex rarely leads to personal involvement, that sometimes it makes a lot more sense for a man to stay home with children, and that a man who makes less than his wife is not necessarily a deadbeat.

Who are these men? Who are these "typical" guys who are so insecure, so intimidated, so locked into their rigid little gender roles that the very notion of feminine achievement leaves them quivering in a corner?

And why would any self-respecting, intelligent, professional woman want to end up with one of them in the first place? Honestly, did anyone ever stop to think that maybe marriage rates for women in this demographic are dropping because SMART WOMEN MAY NOT WANT TO MARRY STUPID GUYS?

This is just another one of those hysterical predictions of familial Armageddon that sweeps through the national zeitgeist every couple of years. Much like that now-discredited terrorism study that sent young women scrambling for the altar for fear their chances at marriage would plummet to zero if they waited until after their thirtieth birthday to tie the knot. And it's tremendously disappointing to see someone like Maureen Dowd getting swept up in it - particularly if you look behind the statistics, as I have, and discover that the so-called "groundbreaking" research she cites in her article was actually conducted on undergraduate students in the 18-22 year age range, whose sum total experience with the opposite sex was likely limited to a few body shots at the frat house kegger.

These are the men we are weeping and gnashing our teeth over?

I agree that the letter writer was sadly desperate when she asked Dear Abby if she should work as a secretary to find a man since they don't like smart women.

And I agree that men of substance appreciate intelligent successful women.

But it is true that there's a backlash in many areas. Professional women aren't keeping their own names as much. Brazilian bikini waxes are the norm--you are an ugly hairy ape if you keep the natural womanly hair god and nature gave you, women are expected to employ this painful treatment that makes them look like prepubescent girls in order to be sexy...there's something really sick about that, the nubile attraction.