His Point of View

Recently I have heard several discussions about this book “Marry Him : The case for settling for Mr. Good Enough.”

Typically I don’t read these types of books, I tend to stick to non-fiction and business related reading material.  Although I have not read the book (yet) the article here seems to summarize some of the finer points of the book.  This past week I was involved in a pretty heated debate about women “settling” for a man who is not all that they want a man to be.  I agree with the highlights the article which I linked to above mentions.  I do not think that women should consider themselves to be settling when they are aligning their expectations more with reality, than a dream world where there is a “perfect” man for them.

Life is all about learning and compromise.  I hope that women learn through experience as they age that what they wanted 2,5,10 years ago is probably not what they need at their current stage in life.  As such, they should modify their list of desires in a mate.   If you are single at age 40 and your list of desires is exactly the same as it was at age 20, you have not learned from your mistakes.  Perhaps your list should be longer, or shorter… either way the list of wants should not be the same.

The article’s point #1 is of particular interest to me, as I have seen this over and over again.  The danger here is that usually when a person complains about their relationship to their friends the friends only get the version of the story heavily skewed from their friends point of view and then they continue to demonize the poor dude when in fact the situation is not always as the friend described it to be.  A lot of people have an inflated sense of entitlement these days.  People who can barely afford to buy a cheeseburger on their own feel as if they deserve Filet Mignon, and they expect the next man to give them Filet Mignon. The following line sums it up nicely “you think you’re a pretty good catch…what you think of as quirky, endearing, and cute, is really annoying to someone else.”

Personally I think that the majority of men operate in a world of “good enough.”  We have accepted long ago that we will not marry our “perfect” woman, but we “settle” for that woman who makes us happy and who we can think the world of (or the woman we happen to have gotten pregnant.)  Afterall, if someone is “Good Enough” why would you feel the need to look for more?  Is “Good Enough” not enough these days?  I think Devin the Dude said it best “Never give up your fo sho’… lookin for some mo’.”  I have been told in the past by an ex-girlfriend that I like “regular women.”  She was surprised by the fact that I tended to date women who were “regular” to her, not the women who were flashy, wanna be models or music video actresses [?] ( I can’t call them dancers since most of them just walk around in bikinis & heels…).  Men do like the wanna be models and wanna be video girls for their looks… but when it comes time to marry someone we don’t go for looks as much as we do the qualities that the woman possesses.   Learning to cook will get you farther in the long run with most men than learning to apply makeup perfectly (not that I am saying women have to cook for men everyday…but you gotta know the difference in simmer and saute’).  In fact I think most men will tell you that they prefer women who don’t feel the need to wear makeup often.  Any whoo I will save the rest of that for another post.

I said all of the above to say that the things we do that we feel make us a great catch, may not matter at all to the type of person we think we want in our lives.  If you are influenced too much by magazines, books, talk shows, etc produced by women telling you what men want or like you will not get very far in the long run.  No man has all women figured out, and no woman has men figured out. Your best course of action  is to talk to the intelligent men in your life that you trust, observe the actions of others,  learn from your own mistakes, learn from the mistakes of others, and maintain a honest/realistic view of who you are & what you bring to the table.  Seek council with men similar to the type of man you think you desire, that is your best source of information.

If you have read the book, please comment on it.

If you have not yet done so, read the article (link provided below) and comment on how you feel about the topic of settling.