Fear not, smart women

Those who say that men don't like women with brains and careers are misleading women, says New York columnist Christine B. Whelan, author of "Why Smart Men Marry Smart Women," published this year.

Ms. Whelan, 29, says she wrote the book, in part, to respond to New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd's claim in her 2005 book "Are Men Necessary?" that success decreases a woman's chance for marriage.

"This isn't good news," Ms. Whelan said about reading the book when she was single and had just finished her doctoral degree in economic and social history. "The social scientist in me knew better than to accept this conventional wisdom without doing research of my own."

Ms. Whelan researched U.S. Census Bureau data, commissioned a national opinion survey and conducted interviews with more than 100 high-achieving men and women in nine cities to gather material for her book. What she found was that high-achieving women -- women with graduate degrees and/or an income in the top 10 percent of women in their age group -- married at the same rate as all other women did, but later in life, and that outdated information and misinterpreted statistics had women believing otherwise.

The statistics Ms. Whelan provides in her book show that American women marry by an average age of 30 if they have a graduate degree, the median age for all women to marry is 25, and 90 percent of women marry by 44.

"Ms. Dowd is painting the wrong picture for our generation," Ms. Whelan said, adding that Ms. Dowd was right in saying that prior to the 1980s, it was more difficult for smart, successful women to get married and have children............

A bitter pill that even intelligent people have to sometimes swallow is that people tend to be romantically rejected for substantive, rather than shallow reasons. This is true for men or women.

Exactly right. And this is especially true when you have held off from romance for a period of years when the masses are breeding like bunny rabbits.

The problem here is that people who have matured past their 20s or so do not focus totally on the availability of sex without regard for the consequences as criteria for romance.

By that time, many have had their experiences with enough losers that they are not so prone to plunge into a bad relationship just because the other person looks good and offers easy sex.

A few months ago, a friend and I were sitting in a bar during happy hour on a Friday when this really attractive woman walked in the door. Every guy in the place stopped talking and just looked at her, she was that nice.

To my surprise, she walked right up to the guy I was sitting with and gave him a big smile and a friendly kiss, and then they engaged in small talk like long-lost friends for a few minutes before she walked away.

"WOW" sez I, "what's up with THAT?"

"Oh, that's Amber, that chick I told you about, I broke up with her last spring."

"Man, how could you break up with her, she is FIIIIIINE!" I opined.

"Yeah, but's she's really, really nuts..." was his reply.

That was to HIS credit, and it was a distinction he'd have completely ignored in his late teens or 20s.

I leave not hating them, just... tired, and in need of safe solitude. And grateful to go back to only having to do dishes 4 times a week, as opposed to 10.

That said, relationships are a lot of work, and the longer it goes on, sometimes the tougher it gets. The rewards are worth it but the commitment has to be total, and it very often isn't...note our high divorce rate.

Better to be alone than with the wrong man. That's what I was thinking before Mr. Right found me, and I would still be thinking that, even if he hadn't! It goes the same for men too.

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