Another telling excerpt from Lori Gottlieb’s upcoming book, Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough (pages 53, 54):
“Some of my single women friends can’t understand why guys don’t find them unbelievable catches because they made partner in their law firms at thirty, or make a certain amount of money in a business they started,” he explained. “But honestly, the point of being successful for a woman is for personal fulfillment and so that she can support herself. It’s not so that she can attract a man, because men know that we can’t count on women to provide the lion’s share of the income, so we’re more interested in what kind of partner this person is going to be. Do we like being around her? Is she interesting? Will she be a good parent?”
Paul said he was reluctant to talk about this because he worried it would make him sound sexist. Then again, he hadded, “I wouldn’t pursue a woman just because she was very successful, but I know many women who can find a man attractive based on success or wealth, and still call themselves feminists.”
Paul’s colleague Brandon, who is single and 33, told me that the women in his law firm think guys have it made because they don’t have a biological clock to content with. That’s true, he said, but at the same time, when he and his friends are ready to get married, women hold them to impossibly high standards.
“You can’t just be a woman’s equal — you have to be slightly more successful than she is,” he said. “That rules out most of their colleagues, and many men in general. Then if you are more successful — you more senior in the firm that they are — you also have to be tall enough, funny enough, to be worthy of even a first date.
Paul, who is 5’7″ and starting to lose his hair, told me that when he was dating a shoe store sales clerk (they met when he was trying on loafers), his women friends complained that male lawyers don’t want to date their equals.
Paul says that’s not true. “I was dating her for two reasons: One, I genually liked her. And two, she would actually date me! Women say that their equals won’t date them, but they’re the ones who won’t date their equals. They think they’re so empowered or whatever but they just seems standoffish. And I don’t think they’re that happy.
(Marry Him! pages 53, 54)
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The title of the article got me reading. Very interesting. Must think. Top of mind, though? Many of my women friends married equals. Some, no. Some married men who are less professionally successful than themselves. And yes, some married men who are more professionally successful.
When I think of my men friends, I’m hard pressed to think of one that married equal or more successful women.
(Since I’m a researcher, I know the failings of this kind of brother-in-law research. Hardly a representative sample.)
Paul & Brandon in your article see it differently from each other. Paul doesn’t care for a more successful woman and Brandon says successful women don’t care for him.
I think it’s interesting to think about and I wonder if the disparity comes from men or from women. Or both.
I can tell you that my first husband was less successful than me. I did not care. He, after 3 years, surely did. My current hub is an equal for sure.
What about you? Do you date equals?
As my friends know, I don’t even consider anyone but equals. I always joke about dating a show girl but I need to connect with someone. And, to boot, I only ever spend time or even meet equals, which doesn’t mean people with the same IQ or the same ambition or the same bank balance, necessarily, but someone who is curious and who’s doing cool stuff in their space — more than just “being pretty.”
I don’t think Paul and Brandon are very different at all. But I have to tell you that the guys that’re in the law firms here and the women who are in the law firms here are just like Brandon and Paul and the girls they described.
Who knows — maybe I am deluded — maybe the women I date who I think are my equals are, in fact, my superiors. I know my last proper girlfriend believed that. In spades — so maybe my issue is that I date aspirationally — our of my personal pedigree.
Well, I have on a hiatus from dating because it just pisses me off and I have better things to do with my — to me — valuable time: write, learn languages, and grow a 35-person global PR agency. When I am on a date I really don’t tend to have the patience to be in the moment, to be present, and so forth — but I am not alone, as I am discovering from my reading of this book.
Thank you, Wendy, for commenting. I will come back and share even more soon. You are surely a terrific catch and your husband is a very lucky man. Isn’t he even your partner and colleague as well?
I hear you about dating. I joke that if anything happened to Andrew, I’d just blog more. :)
Thanks for the kind words – yes Andrew is my partner, colleague, husband, father of my kids…and best friend.
Chris – I think that more factors in than salary and professional achievement. And age also plays a role. I don’t think of “equal” the way that Paul and Brandon do. I’m more concerned about common goals, values, humor and interests than how much money a man makes. And the men who pursue me? It’s never come up.
I need to do a blog post on what the concept of being “equal” is — that’s a real tar baby. I think you’re rare, Liz — I think a lot of people have an OK time defining what “equal” means, which is why they have “Ivy League Only” mixers and so forth.
What I always say is that I am looking for someone who can “keep up with me” but my idea of what being kept up with is pretty much curiosity, intellectually, and with regards to news of the world and popular culture and technology and media, etc… not in terms of a marathon PR or any sort of thing like that.
And no matter how connected we might be, I don’t think I would make a sports fan happy — in the long term, I feel that while I can deal very well with another religion or another faith or another culture system, I will never ever think that watching sport is a worthwhile use of a human animal’s — or my — time.
Sports fanaticism is a deal-breaker for me.
I wonder how much the idea in the book plays out outside of the law/politics field where folks seem to rely more on their perceived “rank” than normal people. When I think of ‘equality’ I think more of the balance of interaction in a couple…whether one has to do all of the work in the relationship or not.
If I was single, I wouldn’t be interested in dating the hypothetical female lawyer who made partner by 30 because of a lack of common goals and interests not because she’s better than me. I’m assuming a lot here, but I don’t find the idea of spending a lot of time around someone whose main interest is “climbing the org chart” very appealing. I tend to think of my job as enabling me to pursue my real interests when I’m not at work.
Actually if you’re looking at the job/success scale, my wife was way ahead of me when we met. My blue collar/manufacturing parents and farming grandparents vs her attorney father/teacher mother and doctor grandfather/teacher grandmother. While I was just getting started with my career and not making much while I was at it, she was already doing well in hers. She was beautiful, smart, funny and interesting and that’s what attracted me to her. We have a lot of compatible interests and some incompatible interests but it makes things interesting. Almost 14 years later, my rating on the “success” meter is up but we’re still here.
wading into the discussion here. I know soooooo many single women and I know enough single guys– though not exactly those who are into serious relationships at this point.
Women want a man who will treat them as an equal — and truly that’s where the disconnect is. That “equality” and that’s where a podcast becomes very interesting.. and illuminating is what is equality? Men and women have different perspectives. Women want the respect of their accomplishments.. men do but not as a deal breaker where women do consider it the same.
The operative phrase that you state is “keeping up with you” and that’s crucial here to the conversation.. while it might be in different arenas– it’s about being open to those things. I find this a really interesting conversation and hope that others (GUYS) will weigh in as well as women. It’s not particularly easy to bridge that communication gap and while I am as open as the next person, it does take time, effort and the ability to learn a bit about the other person.. beyond their “persona” to see the person on the inside..
I can’t say this necessarily rings true for me and my women friends. Maybe our being in the PNW has something to do with that (pretty laid back). I will say that I like a man who has achieved something. That does not equate with money or titles. That can be an elementary school teacher or carpenter. Whatever. Just do something well and make a difference. If someone just does something for the money or prestige I’m not at all interested.
Maybe this is more about personality types. The successful women you are referring to respect others who are successful and maybe they don’t consider their “equals” as successful because it is something they themselves have already achieved (been there, done that). They like to be challenged and they see partners who are more successful as a kindred partner.
I can’t help feeling that gender equality in the work place plays a part in this. I can’t tell you how many mediocre men I work with who didn’t earn their position like the women had to earn. So a man at my level isn’t generally someone who is as interesting as my female peers. To qualify my definition of mediocre: it is more about someone not that smart, doesn’t do much interesting stuff, isn’t that worldly, or even that interested in exploring the world. Did I just prove your point here? Am I one of those women? I don’t consider them mediocre BECAUSE they are at the same level as me. I consider them mediocre when they don’t challenge themselves or expand their universe. I don’t care what level they work at if they are whip-smart, funny, have traveled a little, are interested in exploring new things, and CARE about something.
Laure, you don’t prove my point. The guy you describe would make the perfect dad, if not financially necessarily, he would be a good dad because he would raise a well-raised boy or girl.
Ah, so is this a biological instinct? We are looking for partners who can bring the game up a notch because we won’t just survive; we’ll thrive.
Isn’t it bizarre to feel like we’re so responsive to our innate and animal needs to pass on the best of all worlds to descendants? To think that we’re just the armour for our genetic code — that we’re merely the keepers… the stewards of our ancestral code — a la Richard Dawkins and the others of his ilk. So simple — and our genes tell us NOT to settle, our genes tell us to do the best we can, and every nesting bird female always wants to wait for a suitor who has the nicest plumage, bluest feet, prettiest song, or finest nest possible. Right?
I understand what Lori has had to say– since we did a podcast that will broadcast soon.
truly it’s a complex issue and one that I would request the same time for podcast with you.. and engage you in a discussion because I think you are on target with what Lori “truly” believes but she’s presenting a dissection of what’s going on in society today in a certain segment or echelon of life. One I might be inclined to subscribe too if I weren’t so jaded by the situations that we all manage to put ourselves.. the testing of our own mettle to figure out what it is we “truly” want from life and figuring out what’s really important and how to achieve that and arrive at that destination.
Life is a journey– as is a relationship– whether it’s friendship, love or marriage.