Jeez! Left out of this article completely is the problem that once you settle perhaps those nagging problems that really made you break up with the guy from your 30s are not just chronic bad breath or manners but that he wanted you to move to another country and give up your career, or just give up your career, or he never really took it all that seriously, or he had weird, upsetting problems, ones that made him single in this 30s (remember the Sex and the City where Miranda dates the guy who cannot have sex without porn on the set?). Fact is, there's usually a major reason why men are single and available (unless widowed) in their 30s, and not really a good reason for why women are other than garden-variety backlash.

So there's no good reason why men might be single in their 30's (other than being a widower), but the same doesn't apply to women? That may be one of the singularly most sexist statements I've ever read.

Perhaps the fact of the matter is that a lot of men don't have the need to get married that many (of course not all) women I know of that age feel. Perhaps some of us don't really want to be tied down with kids, or simply don't see any need for an antiquated ceremony to "seal the deal", in a Stacey & Hepburn sort of way. Frankly, when you come right down to it, there aren't many logical reasons for men to tie themselves down legally today, and many reasons not to.

Or maybe we just don't want to get roped in by some super judgmental sexist like the first poster.

“remember the Sex and the City where Miranda dates the guy who cannot have sex without porn on the set?”

Ok – that is a fake TV show. It was not even written by a woman. I live in this city and I can tell you that this show is not even 1% real. Seriously. I’ve never watched an episode of that show and thought, ‘that’s exactly how it is.’ You can not take even one moment from that show and think it translates to real live in any way. Men in this city are great! I know lots of single ones too.

Sorry to pick on you – but you are setting yourself up for total relationship failure by talking about that show as if it is a documentary.

Ms. Clark-Flory already topped you with the face-scratching.

No one will ever, ever go wrong capitalizing on childhood insecurities by recommending and affirming staying safely arrested in childhood. Check out the desperate popularity of “Since You Asked”.

The best you can do is provide another view, model something different, and wish them well.

maisieslim - Your post is a beautiful example of logic that, were it coming from the "misogynists" with the gender roles reversed, would be called out for being absurd, before posters began hypothesizing what could have possibly gone wrong in your life that you hate women so much.

While it's unclear how good/bad this film will be, I think it has potential. Of course, a serious exploration of the trials and tribulations of dating, would require a nuanced and balanced take and, if accurate gender roles are to be maintained, there will be scenes in which viewers of both genders are scratching their heads in confusion, just not necessarily the same scenes.

I was compelled to click on the links Ms. Hepola sent and while reading her previous post and the article from Ms. Gottlieb, started thinking: is this the same woman who wrote the literary deal breaker post? Yup

A film based on a article that encourages/requires women to question their dogmatic feminist beliefs and the impact these have on their social lives.....it makes sense that broadsheet would be looking for the forks, plastic or otherwise.

It all goes back to personal choice.

If you're acting on your own, another person's choice doesn't invalidate yours.

Didn't we learn that from the footbinders YET?

Hey Broadsheet, what's up with the new personals ads? We've had ads to find a Muslim mate, an Asian mate, a rich sugardaddy mate, and now we've got dating service commercial video of a hottie shaking her boobs at you.

I admit, I don't find much wrong with videos of hotties shaking their boobs at me, but all of this seems a bit incongruous with Broadsheet's feminist perspective. What's up?

Hey Broadsheet, what's up with the new personals ads? We've had ads to find a Muslim mate, an Asian mate, a rich sugardaddy mate, and now we've got dating service commercial video of a hottie shaking her boobs at you.

I admit, I don't find much wrong with videos of hotties shaking their boobs at me, but all of this seems a bit incongruous with Broadsheet's feminist perspective. What's up?

Salon is not serving the ads; they are contracting with an ad server company that displays ads targeted to each user, based on cookies stored on your machine from your browsing history.

I delete all of my cookies rather obssessively, and I don't visit dating services.

I'm seeing ads for Barack Obama, financial services, and healthcare IT companies. Maybe their logic is faulty.

- you remember, that irritating piece about how single women should admit their terrifying desperation and settle up already -- it practically stank of book deal. Like, you could smell it from the page.

Wow! You sound really bitchy and jealous.

I don't look at ads for products to gently remove callous, dry skin. Indeed, the Internets are a mysterious thing.

... all have perfect mates, maisieslim. Really!

Not.

Mr./Ms. Good Enough is the best available, and to believe otherwise is to commit to a lonely life and high battery bills.

The cookies may have been set by someone in your household visiting a porn site, not just dating sites.

I get animal husbandry ads.

for Susan Faludi, and Rush Limbaugh and red states. The fact of the matter is that the right-wing has a whole backlash curriculum for this kind of thinking, and it has been very successful. These observations come not just from watching t.v. but from watching every senior level professional trading his wife in for a graduate student, secretary or other inexperienced underling, abstinence only education, from strip clubs for business associates, from Hooters airplanes, from Girls Gone Wild, from men who shout "iron my shirts! to men who rape because they're "in the bush." We live in a sexist society---I did not create it and if anyone for one second thinks that women suffer from this but no agent is behind it, get a scientific clue! It's straight men who benefit from it, whether they tacitly disagree with it or not, and it affects everything from how women think about getting ready in the morning to how they will negotiate a marriage or a raise at work. Sure, other women participate in it but I only out of identification with the power elite---how else can one explain Phyllis Schlafly or Ann Coulter? Fine, I'm misogynist but this argument only works like reverse sexism or racism and assumes that these ideologies come out of no where and that no one benefits from them. I'm not liberal or silly enough to believe that.