Marry Him_The Case for Settling for Mr Good Enough

by Lori Gottlieb

  “I’m looking for my top five candidates,” she said, clicking away. “I don’t present more because it’s too overwhelming. If I give people too many choices, it becomes a Match experience, so what’s the point? Then a year has gone by and they’ve spent the money and nothing has changed.”

  I looked at the computer screen. Five men smiled back at me. Two were very cute. Two looked really old, but, in fact, they were only a few years older than me. I probably look “old” to them, too. It’s a phenomenon I’ve noticed since I turned 40—everyone in my age bracket looks old to me because when I picture myself, I view a mental image of me at 30. I haven’t recalibrated the image to reflect what I look like today.

  It’s a problem, because I’m just not attracted to middle-aged men. I’ll meet a guy or see his picture, and I’m pretty sure that if I’d fallen in love with that same guy when he was in his twenties or thirties, and we’d had a family together and gone through our days together for ten or fifteen years, I’d still be attracted to him, because the essence of him would be stored in my mind. It’s like the 70-year-old woman who still thinks that her 70-year-old husband is handsome and dapper, because he once was, and that’s the man she sees when she looks at him, even all these years later. But to meet the 70-year-old without the shared history, without the shared youth, without that mental image of forty years ago to hold on to, it’s hard to get all hot and bothered.

  I know I need to get over this. Of the men Julie showed me, the first guy I picked—a thirty-something, boyish-looking, never-married, no-kids screenwriter—was probably the least appropriate candidate for me. She told me she’d put him in there because she didn’t know me the way she knows her regular clients—she hadn’t gone through the full process with me—and she thought she’d give me a broad age range to learn more about my preferences. But the more we talked about the screenwriter, the more she tried to steer me to a guy I’d overlooked: Sean.

  Sean, she told me, was an Eastern philosophy kind of guy who was very successful in his business: pest control. That’s right—pest control. On the one hand, I thought, I’m really afraid of spiders, so maybe this could be a match. On the other hand, I never really saw myself with a guy who kills bugs for a living. He was bald, but youthful-looking and definitely cute. He didn’t look 46. He lived an hour away. He wasn’t Jewish. He was more than a foot taller than me. And would a true Eastern philosophy kind of guy be killing bugs anyway?

  I wasn’t sure. I went back to the cute, young, Jewish screenwriter.

  Julie persisted—strongly, but in a girlfriend-y way. “If you were my sister, who would I tell her to stop everything and meet? Sean! I found my sister her match and I take full credit for their marriage and kids!”

  I tried to imagine dating Sean and talking about our days at dinnertime.

  “So, how about those roaches?” I’d ask. I couldn’t picture it. The screenwriter, on the other hand, had written that he liked This American Life and The Daily Show. He was funny. And did I mention how adorable he was?

  Julie told me that I should be open to the other men she’d selected. There was Chris, a 45-year-old business owner who was divorced with a teenager. He had that handsome classic movie-star look, which isn’t at all my type. I go more for quirky.

  I know, I know—I ruled out a guy because he’s too attractive. Could I be any pickier? Apparently, yes—I also didn’t think he was intellectual enough because he owns a construction supply business and went to San Diego State. (So much for not making assumptions.) Then there was Robert, a freelance talent manager who was more laid-back than ambitious. He was also 5’6”, but that wasn’t a deal-breaker anymore. I was letting go of the height thing. The real issue was that he seemed middle-of-the-road and not very brainy. I needed brainy.

  Jon was brainy. He was a 50-year-old Jewish biomedical device entrepreneur who was Ivy League educated and athletic. He wrote smart, sincere essays. But he didn’t seem to have a sense of humor and he lived a good hour and a half away. Logistically, how would we date? Finally, there was Scott, a divorced 49-year-old environmental lawyer who lived near me. He had amazing essays, but he also had two teenagers, was Catholic, and looked old to me.

  Julie pushed for Scott, too—we were intellectual equals, had similar sensibilities and interests, and were really into raising our kids. But of the options, I selected the screenwriter.

  I don’t have to tell you how this ends. Like the character in a horror film who hears a noise in the basement in the middle of the night and knows she should call 911 and get the hell out of the house instead of going down the creaky stairs straight into DANGER, I had Julie connect me with Mr. Hottie Screenwriter. We spoke on the phone. He was funny. He was creative. He shared my pop culture references. He was warm and kind. But he had to work several freelance jobs to pay the bills, lived in a studio apartment in an iffy part of town, and had no experience with or interest in little kids. He went out to clubs at night and hung out with his young single friends ’til all hours. We both seemed to enjoy the conversation, but the longer we talked, it became increasingly clear that we were at different phases of life. Neither of us asked to meet.

  Meanwhile, I didn’t pursue any of the other candidates Julie had picked for me until a few weeks later, when I took a second look at Scott’s profile.

  This time, as I read through his essays, I felt as though I’d been bonked on the head. He was exactly the kind of guy I’d been saying I couldn’t find. It wasn’t just that he shared nearly all of my interests. It was that he seemed to be someone I’d really like spending time with. So what if he looked older, his kids were teenagers, and we didn’t share a religion? We had similar values. We had similar lifestyles and goals. We both prioritized parenting. We both were intellectual and creative (he was a photographer on the side). I loved his self-deprecating sense of humor. He was looking to get married again.

  This wasn’t news: Julie had told me all this the day she presented him to me, but I was blinded by the young, Jewish screenwriter—a “type” I’d always gone for, and even dated, but never said “I do” with.

  I e-mailed Julie and told her of my interest in meeting Scott—only to hear back from her a few hours later: Scott was now seeing one of her other clients. He was off the market. Of course he was, I thought. I’d pulled another Sheldon!

  What the heck was my problem? On a rational level, I knew I was making choices that wouldn’t lead to happiness in the long run. I knew that what the experts were saying was absolutely true. But there was this irrational side of me that seemed to take over, leaving me frustrated and disappointed in myself. How many more times could I let this happen? When, I wondered, would I learn my lesson? I worried that if I didn’t learn it soon, I’d be alone forever.

  Something had to change. And that something, obviously, was me.

  14

  Mondays with Evan

  Session Three—The Lowdown on Alpha Males

  On Friday night, I arrived at the coffeehouse a few minutes early for my date with Mike, the Deadhead single dad I’d e-mailed at my last dating coaching session. I was sitting at a table and sipping a latte when I heard a voice say, “Lori?”

  I looked up and, to my surprise, Mike was incredibly handsome—something that didn’t come across in his online photos. He was chivalrous, offering to bring me more coffee or buy me some dinner. He asked if I wanted to sit outside because it was so noisy inside. At our little outdoor table we talked about the election, parenthood, and our work. We even realized we had an acquaintance in common.

  Evan was right about not making assumptions: It turned out that Mike’s being a Deadhead meant that he liked Grateful Dead music, not that he drove a van with stickers all over it and spent his days stoned. He didn’t use puns in person; maybe he’d been nervous on the phone. He seemed bright, even if he didn’t consider himself “one of those smart people” and admitted that he’d never been a good
student. The judgments I’d made sight unseen weren’t really accurate.

  But still, I told Evan at our third dating coaching session, we didn’t seem like we were on the same page in the bigger picture. Mike was very laid-back about practical matters and career aspirations. He was really low-key. He didn’t seem very goal-oriented. He just wasn’t . . .

  “He’s not an alpha male,” Evan interrupted.

  “Well, yeah,” I said. “But I don’t think I necessarily go for alpha males. I’m not into investment bankers or race car drivers or super-macho guys like that. I’m drawn to intellectual guys. A doctor, or a lawyer, or a scientist who’s doing interesting research, or a play-wright whose work I respect. He’s not someone who just clocks in at the job. He’s passionate about what he does.”

  “Exactly,” Evan said. “Alpha males. They’re attractive to so many women, but then these same women complain that these guys are hard to date. Meanwhile, they won’t date guys who aren’t alpha males. They won’t date the shy guy, or the guy who’s not a leader. Confident, successful men inspire confidence in women.”

  I agreed. There’s something very attractive about a man who’s competent and confident. Who can start a company, win a trial, or cure an illness. Who makes a plan, makes a living, and takes the initiative. Who’s athletic enough to beat up the imaginary bad guys. Who, I’m embarrassed to admit, can protect us from the world, even if we don’t need protecting.

  A NICE GUY WITH BALLS

  I remembered talking to a single 35-year-old woman, an advertising executive who told me that five years earlier she’d broken up with a guy who taught music to toddlers because his job seemed so wimpy. He ended up marrying someone else and he turned out, of course, to be a great father because he genuinely loved kids. None of the lawyers or bankers she’s dated since has worked out. She doubts that these alpha male boyfriends would have been as good a spouse or father as this teacher. They weren’t flexible enough, and that led to frequent arguments, but the music teacher, who was mellow, seemed too accommodating. It bugged her. Why didn’t the teacher have stronger opinions about day-to-day things? Why was he always saying, “If you want to do that, sure, fine with me”?

  “It’s not a rational thing, but if he’d run the music program, I might have felt differently,” she said of her ex-boyfriend. “At least he’d seem more, I don’t know, powerful. And I always had the idea that I would grow up and marry someone who made at least the same amount or more money than I did—and he made a lot less. Also, he had all that free time when he wasn’t teaching and I’d be working. It just seemed like he would be a Mr. Mom, and I would be bringing home the paycheck and working year-round in the corporate world. I know this sounds bad, but I was embarrassed to bring him to the office Christmas party and to have him tell people that he taught two-year-olds how to bang on plastic drums.”

  Evan said he hears this story all the time: Women complaining that the attractive alpha males are egocentric or unreliable, but that the nice guys don’t turn them on.

  “Women say they want an alpha male who’s nice,” Evan said. “Or maybe a nice guy with balls. They want someone to make them feel excited and safe, simultaneously.”

  As the advertising executive put it, “I want an ambitious guy who has the qualities that also make a guy who teaches toddlers so appealing—warm, sensitive, generous, nurturing. But I want him to have those qualities at home, and the ambitious qualities out in the world. If that makes any sense.”

  It did to me.

  “But have you noticed,” Evan asked when I brought this up, “that these men are very, very rare?” And even if you find one, he added, is that really what you want? Evan said that alpha men are like the bad boys we dated when we were in our twenties. But instead of dating the rebellious rocker who’s on the road thirty weeks a year, now we date the charming, never-married 40-year-old who works sixty hours a week, so we always seem to come in second to his work and his freedom.

  The nice guys, on the other hand, are . . . nice. They want to please women. They’re happy to do what the woman wants. And some women, Evan said, don’t want a man to be that nice. They want him to lead, to drive the car, to make decisions instead of always saying okay to whatever plan they come up with.

  “But the leaders,” Evan said, “can be the most arrogant, most difficult, most combustible guys around. It’s hard to find a person who puts you first but also has the kind of personality that likes to take the lead.”

  Evan told me about a client of his who got annoyed with a guy she’d just started dating. He took her to a place with loud music, and when he sensed that she wasn’t happy, he asked her where she wanted to go instead. This was a double turn-off. Not only had he picked a bad place to go, but then he wanted her to pick a better alternative to his mistake. Why couldn’t this guy just make a decision—and a good one?

  Evan said it’s a typical complaint he hears from female clients: They want leaders who care about their feelings and can also read their minds. Or they want the guy to be the president, as long as they also have the veto power.

  “The only problem,” Evan said, “is that you’ll find yourself arguing with the alpha guys you date, because often it’s his way or the highway. You want him to want to please you, but you don’t respect the nice guys who do try to please you.”

  Often Evan finds his clients listing off qualities that rarely coexist: an incredibly driven guy who also has a lot of free time to take a spontaneous day trip; a handsome charmer who also won’t attract other women’s attention at a party.

  “You may want both qualities,” Evan explained, “but you have to pick which is more important. I think when you look at it that way, the answer is fairly obvious. And by the way, these alpha males may not be looking for the qualities you have either.”

  ALPHA MALES DON’T MARRY ME

  What the heck did that mean? Why wouldn’t an alpha male want to date me?

  “Well,” he said, “what happened when you dated men like that in the past?”

  I told Evan about a couple of alpha males I’d been attracted to in the past. The trial lawyer who seemed to want to win every argument out of court, too. The successful entrepreneur who was used to having his employees meet his needs and wasn’t willing to give halfway in a relationship.

  Evan nodded. “When we’re dating, we often look for people who are mirror images of us,” Evan said. “A successful woman will usually seek a successful man. But that very quality which makes them successful creates friction, which is how you end up with two strong-willed people who can’t stop arguing. Two people who demand all the attention. Two people who put their jobs before their relationships. But instead of looking for someone who complements us instead of competes with us, we just keep trying to find ‘better’ versions of ourselves, to our own detriment. A guy can be a leader in other areas, but it might not be at the office.”

  “Are you saying that ambitious women shouldn’t date their equals?” I asked.

  Evan shook his head. “I’m saying you have to find an equal whose strengths complement yours. The traits you find impressive in men don’t necessarily translate well in the context of a marriage: ambitious, competitive, opinionated.”

  “But these guys always get married,” I said.

  “Yeah, but do they marry you?”

  I tried to think of alpha males I knew and who their spouses were: full-time moms who had given up careers (and liked it that way), women with flexible low-key careers, and, come to think of it, a lot of people in the helping professions, like nurses. Unfortunately, none of that described me.

  “Think about it,” Evan said. “What does an alpha male get out of dating you? The world revolves around him at work. He likes intellectual stimulation and opinions. He likes challenges. But he already has that all day. What he can’t get at work are warmth, support, nurturing. You may be able to provide that, but you’re also not the most easygo
ing personality, and he wants his life at home to be easy. And you want a guy who can lead, but who can also compromise and let you lead. That might create conflict between you two.”

  So, Evan said, I had a decision to make: Did I want to go out with Mike again?

  “You have to decide what you want more,” he explained. “Do you want the type of guy you’ve gone for in the past, even though that hasn’t worked out so far? Or do you want to try getting to know Mike, who’s a nice guy and a great dad, but isn’t super-ambitious? I’m not saying Mike is the right guy for you. He may be completely wrong for you. I’m just saying that you might not have enough information from a first date to know.”

  He had a point. We’d been on only one date. I’d always used first dates as some kind of test that guys either passed or failed. Passing meant that sparks flew. Failing meant anything else. But maybe I’d overestimated the importance of a first date. After all, I had a good time with Mike—he just didn’t “wow” me. I probably didn’t “wow” him either, but I’m guessing he asked me out again because the date went well enough. Why not go on a second one?

  How much stock should we put in first dates, anyway?

  15

  What First Dates Really Tell Us

  “Ooh, so you really liked him!” my friend Lucia said when I told her I was going on a second date with Mike. I tried to explain that I didn’t like or not like him. I was basically neutral.

  But Lucia, who felt “breathless” when she first met her husband, thought I was being coy.

  “Are you just protecting yourself?” she asked. “I’ll bet you like him a lot more than you’re letting on.”

  I didn’t, but Lucia had trouble understanding why I was going if I was so blasé. As far as she was concerned, why bother?