Marry Him_The Case for Settling for Mr Good Enough

by Lori Gottlieb

  How’s that for a dose of realism? Clampitt could hear my disappointment in the gaping silence through the phone line.

  “Look,” she said, “I’ll say the same thing to you that I say to younger women who don’t want to hear this. I say, ‘If you keep doing what you’re doing, what’s going to change? You don’t want to be thirty and the next day you’re forty-five and thinking, what have I done with my days?’ Because, as you know, it gets harder.”

  I did know. But I still had trouble with “shorter, older, with kids, and not gorgeous.” Not because I think I’m so fabulous (after all, I’m also shorter, older, with a kid, not gorgeous) but because it’s hard, as a woman, not to have drilled into you the notion that no matter how objectively ordinary you may be, somehow you “deserve” to be with the crème de la crème of male companionship. Read any article on dating on a woman-oriented Web site and in women’s magazines, or check out advice books marketed to single women, and you’ll read things like “You deserve to be with a man who pays.” “You deserve a man who always puts you first.” “You deserve to be with a man who rubs your feet at night.” And of course the man in question will also be tall, dark, and handsome.

  Do men get this kind of advice? You deserve to be with a super-model? You deserve to get blow jobs every day? You deserve to be with a woman who will fly around the country and go to football games with you? Not as much.

  But for women, it seems that “desire” has become the new “deserve.” Which is why even though there’s nothing wrong with “shorter, older, and with kids,” I thought I deserved something better.

  THE FUSSY FACTOR

  “She’s crippled, as far as I’m concerned,” said Julie Ferman, the founder of Cupid’s Coach, one of the most popular Los Angeles- based matchmaking companies, about a potential client who had come to see her that morning. “I won’t take on anyone who will be too picky.”

  I was asking Ferman to give me the lowdown on women like me who have trouble dating guys that aren’t our type.

  “No matter what I said, this woman would find something negative,” Ferman continued. “I’d bring up gentlemen for her to study, and she’d say he’s not right because of this or that. She was, shall we say, unreasonable.”

  Ferman, who has been both married and matchmaking for two decades, is the antithesis of the Los Angeles stereotype. She’s old-school and unfailingly gracious, a middle-aged woman from the Midwest who uses words like “gentlemen” instead of “guys” and euphemisms like “unreasonable” for “unrealistic.” She says, with a straight face, “We’re here to help people not miss out because of the fussy factor.”

  Like Lisa Clampitt of the Matchmaking Institute, Ferman is the first to admit that her husband wasn’t initially her idea of Mr. Right. Not that she wasn’t looking for him. Nearing 30, and established in her career in the hotel business in St. Louis, she’d had her share of blind dates and was, frankly, burned out.

  Finally, she signed up with a dating service, Great Expectations, and met the man who became her husband and the father of her two sons. Gil was her matchmaker, and he became her match. If this sounds like a fairy tale, Ferman is quick to give a reality check.

  “I made some compromises,” she told me. “He was fourteen years older than me and Jewish. I was raised Catholic. He had a scruffy beard that I hated and he wore cheesy-looking clothes. My mother always said, ‘You’ll know you’ve found someone when you respect each other and you’re really comfortable with him.’ I never listened to her. Then I met Gil and I didn’t have the hots for him at all, but I got a really wonderful sense of him from being his client.”

  So much so, that while Gil showed her prospective matches, she wondered why he wasn’t asking her out. One day, she laid it out there: She asked him why she didn’t see him in the client book. He said, “I don’t want to ask out my members.” So Ferman said, “What if a member asked you out?” That led to drinks and a long, entertaining conversation at a nearby bar.

  But their second date didn’t go as well. “It was flat,” Ferman said. “I thought, no, he’s not The One.” Still, she went on a third date, which was “comfortable, but no sparks.” It might have ended there, but then Ferman went out of town for a week, and she and Gil talked on the phone each night and became friends. It was then that Ferman started to feel the butterflies. Ferman says that at that point, she had five important criteria on her list of what she wanted in a marriage: someone family-oriented who wants kids, someone who respects her and whom she respects, someone who has her back, someone Catholic, someone who shared her interest in personal growth.

  She compromised on issues four and five. “I was willing to be flexible about religion, so our kids grew up Jewish,” she said. And if Gil wasn’t willing to travel around the country to see various gurus speak, Ferman was willing to suspend her travel and explore her interest locally—through yoga and meditation—with a more manageable schedule.

  But what about physical attraction? After all, Ferman hadn’t painted a very appealing portrait of Gil, with his bad beard and cheesy clothes. Ferman says she took immediate physical chemistry off her list when she realized that, given a certain level of attraction, she could find someone very attractive over time.

  “That difficult woman that I met this morning,” Ferman said, “she rarely falls in love over time.” (It occurred to me that Ferman would probably find me “difficult,” too, for the same reason.) Ferman says she had another client who was 5’10” and would not date short men, bald men, or men who weren’t Protestant. She rejected most of the men Ferman tried to match her with until Ferman ran out of acceptable prospects. Then the woman moved to Washington, D.C., and fell in love with a man at work who was 5’8”, bald, and not Protestant. She married him. He wasn’t what she was looking for on paper, but he was what she was looking for in real life.

  WANTED: 30-YEAR-OLD SINGLE WOMEN

  When you sign up for Ferman’s services—which start at $2,900 for three introductions in three months and can go up to $15,000—she’ll get to know you (resume, personal interview, photos), then she’ll pull her top five candidates for you. She’s quick to emphasize the “for you” part: She bases this assessment on who you are, who you’re hoping to meet, who’s available at any given moment in time, and— here’s the key—who she thinks you have a shot at. She allows clients to search her database for potential matches as well, but only she can arrange a date.

  “You may look through the database and think Neil is great, he’s your It guy,” she said, referring to a popular male prospect. “But I know who he’s going for, and it’s not you. So I don’t put you two together.”

  Neil, who is 42, is going for younger women, but Ferman doesn’t have many female clients in their early thirties. And when she does, it’s usually a mother signing up her daughter, like the 33-year-old physician who keeps saying no to the people Ferman wants her to meet.

  “She says she’s too busy, or this guy isn’t tall enough. The thirty-year-olds want to find someone, but they’re still picky-picky-picky because they think it will just somehow happen. She says she wants to get married. She wants to have children. Well, she doesn’t realize that if she wants to have children, she’d better get with the program!”

  Most women come to Ferman when they’re nearing 40; the majority of her clients tend to be in their forties and fifties. Women in their forties are especially tough because they have histories by then—either lots of ex-boyfriends or few long-term relationships, and she has to wonder why. Are they always looking for what’s wrong with people instead of looking for what’s right? These are the women Ferman wishes had come to her when they were 29.

  Ferman tells women of all ages to pay attention to the men who are already attracted to them, instead of walking into a room and hoping to find the most attractive man. “The men who are responding to you—those are the ones you want to nurture,” she said. “And those are often t
he ones women will dismiss.”

  She told me about another client who is 38 years old, and wants someone tall, successful, and who has hair. Everyone Ferman presented came up lacking. “I said, ‘Okay, you can have tall and successful, but give me a break on the hair thing.’” Likewise, if educational level is a client’s top criterion, that’s fine, as long as she won’t nix a guy because of the way he dresses. This often meets with resistance.

  “Sometimes they have to get to the point of exasperation or sorrow before they’ll be even slightly flexible,” she said. “A woman called this morning who was forty-seven years old, and she was as picky and fussy as that woman who came in today who was thirty-seven. The window of opportunity is going to change drastically for this woman at fifty, just like it will for that thirty-seven-year-old at forty. To these ladies I say, ‘Are you willing to look at that again?’ and if they say yes, they have a much better chance of finding the man they’ll want to marry. If they always say no, I can’t really help them.”

  While some matchmakers talk about romance, Ferman doesn’t even like to use the word. To her, romance is about the evolving relationship, as it has been in her own marriage. The most exciting aspect of her marriage has been learning how someone can surprise you. A guy may not seem exciting on the surface, but he might offer something more exciting over the long-term: interesting ways of looking at the world; the ability to make you laugh after a long day at work; a sweet way of challenging you to become the best version of yourself; being a wonderful dad. The man of your dreams? Absolutely. He just doesn’t look the way he did in your daydreams.

  “Women come into my office and say, ‘I’m not going to settle,’” Ferman says. “And I say, ‘I’m not asking you to settle. I’m asking you to broaden your fantasies.’”

  A PERSONAL TRAINER FOR LOVE

  Over the next few days, I kept thinking about Ferman’s and Clampitt’s husbands. They sounded like guys I wouldn’t consider if a matchmaker presented me with similar prospects, but they make both women very happy. So when these matchmakers ask their clients to consider the guy who is too-this or not-that-enough, they’re actually saying something quite simple: You can have rigid expectations and try to find someone who meets them, or you can let go of preconceived notions and find someone you’ll fall in love with.

  After the Sheldon incident, I felt like I needed more than a matchmaker. I needed to enlist the services of Evan Marc Katz, a well-known dating coach who likens himself to “a personal trainer for love.” My learning curve was going to be a lot steeper than I expected, and not only could he give me the guy’s perspective on how to do things right, but if anyone could set me straight, I knew it would be Evan.

  7

  The What Versus the Why

  When Evan walked into my house for our first dating coaching session on a warm fall day, my son’s babysitter’s eyebrows shot up. Evan is, basically, a dude. He wore shorts and a T-shirt over his tanned body, and his thick, wavy hair looked slightly damp, as if he’d just stepped out of the shower. At 35, he could easily pass for ten years younger. I’m sure the babysitter was wondering how I landed such a hot prospect. But Evan was two months away from his own wedding.

  Which is exactly why I wanted his help: He, too, had learned how to be happily realistic. He was about to marry a lovely woman who was unlike anyone he’d ever dated. His fiancée was cute but not gorgeous. She was 39 years old and looked her age. She wasn’t impressively accomplished. She didn’t disarm people with a rapier wit. She wouldn’t stand out in any way at a dinner party. She was, objectively, rather average. And Evan was madly in love.

  This was fascinating to me. I’d known Evan as an acquaintance for several years, and while he was reputed to be a very successful, wise, and no-nonsense dating coach, I’d often been amused by his choice of profession. He struck me as a player, always involved with a different woman whenever I saw him. CNN even labeled him a “serial dater.” Then, not long before I called him, I ran into him at a lecture, and the woman he introduced me to wasn’t just another girlfriend, but his fiancée.

  Even Evan, the consummate bachelor, was getting married.

  On the phone a week before our meeting, Evan admitted that if he’d come across his fiancée online, he never would have e-mailed her, and if she’d e-mailed him, he would have sent a nice “no thanks” in response. She wasn’t his type. She was too old, not an intellectual, not his religion.

  “But the people that I was most attracted to in the past weren’t good long-term compatible fits for me,” Evan explained. “I realized that if I kept going for that one type, I’d never find the right person. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

  Then he met his fiancée at a party. He wasn’t interested in a serious relationship with her, but they started hanging out, and the more time they spent together, the more Evan liked being with her. She was warm, kind, supportive, and flexible. She didn’t put up with his bullshit, but she also didn’t expect him to be some mythical Prince Charming. She wasn’t, as Evan put it, “always on my case, telling me all the ways I needed to change.” She wasn’t demanding and entitled like the girlfriend Evan pined over after she dumped him, even though she had treated him “like crap” when they were dating. Evan and his fiancée were able to compromise and work out their differences. They shared future goals. They had a lot of fun together. They “got” each other. If he was naturally funnier than she was, she was naturally more organized and less intense in day-today life than he was. They complemented each other.

  Still, Evan said that neither of them was what the other had imagined as The One.

  “I’m an opinionated Jewish guy who complains a lot about the little things in life,” he said. “I spend way too much time working. But that also means I have a strong work ethic. I’m family-oriented and want to be a great dad. I’m loyal and fun to be around, when I’m not complaining. I’m introspective and try to be a good person. So my fiancée could go around feeling bad that I’m not optimistic enough, or athletic, or don’t have the kind of job that allows me to travel at the drop of a hat even though she loves to travel. Her ideal might have been a tall, less neurotic Catholic guy, but we both realized that our ideals weren’t what actually made us happy.”

  I told Evan that I was also trying not to get tripped up by ideals, but I didn’t know what to compromise on. Physical appearance? Sense of humor? Sense of aesthetics? All of the above? How would I know if I was being too picky or not picky enough?

  “You have to do the percentages,” Evan said. “I just got off the phone with a client, and she asked me the same question. This woman is thirty-five years old. She said that she’s willing to compromise, but the more we talked, the more it seemed like she had a fixed idea in her head of the man she wants to be with. She has to be with a guy who’s over six feet tall. She’s five feet five. So I told her that about 15 percent of men are over six feet tall, and 80 percent of women want them. Most of that 80 percent won’t compromise. Do the math! How can 80 percent of women get 15 percent of men?”

  He asked me to try it myself. “Write down the characteristics you’re looking for,” he said, “then calculate the percentage of men out there who meet those criteria.”

  We did it together on the phone. We multiplied the numbers—estimated percentages of men who are smart enough, sophisticated enough, funny enough, family-oriented enough, successful enough, kind enough, attractive enough (have hair, are physically fit, give me butterflies), are currently single, kid-friendly, emotionally available, in my age group, and live in Los Angeles—and it came to about 5 percent of the local male population.

  Then we did another calculation. Even if 5 percent meets my desired requirements, what are the odds that I’ll meet theirs? How many of those men are looking for a 41-year-old? My viable dating pool suddenly dwindled down to about one percent. Oh, and if I want someo
ne who shares my religion? According to Evan, Jewish guys are about 2 percent of American population and about 6 percent of the population in Los Angeles. I’d have to factor that in to the measly one percent of men of any religion who could be potential matches. The final calculation: .1 percent.

  Wow. Was I really that picky? Were other women?

  Apparently. Evan said some women he’s worked with have even more specific criteria that bring the numbers down. Things like, I’m a huge dog person and the man I’m with has to feel the same way about animals.

  “Frankly,” he said, “if someone puts up with your obsession, you’re lucky.” Evan believes that it’s one thing for a partner to accept your interests. It’s another to ask them to feel the way that you do about them. And the more requirements you have, the lower the percentages go.

  No wonder it seemed like there were no men out there. According to my criteria, there weren’t.

  These percentages may not have been scientifically precise, but they made sense. Given that I wanted someone who wasn’t just smart, but well-read; who wasn’t just cute, but had to have hair; who wasn’t just age-appropriate, but had to look no older than 42, one in ten thousand available men who would date me seemed about right.

  “It’s going to be very hard to find someone unless you stretch your criteria a bit,” Evan said. “The more you stretch, the more guys you’ll let through your filter.”

  “But what if I have a filter there for a reason?” I asked. “You can’t just date anyone.”

  “Maybe your filter is too narrow,” Evan said. “How many guys have you been out on a date with recently?”

  I didn’t have to answer. I knew he was right. It’s not that there’s only one guy in ten thousand out there for me. It’s that I’m overlooking guys who might make those percentages higher.