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Pretty girls don’t need a lot of education to marry into a rich and powerful family, but girls with an average or ugly appearance will find it difficult. These kinds of girls hope to further their education in order to increase their competitiveness. The tragedy is, they don’t realize that as women age, they are worth less and less, so by the time they get their M.A. or Ph.D., they are already old, like yellowed pearls.
Many highly educated “leftover women” are very progressive in their thinking and enjoy going to nightclubs to search for a one-night stand, or they become the mistress of a high official or rich man. It is only when they have lost their youth and are kicked out by the man, that they decide to look for a life partner. Therefore, most “leftover women” do not deserve our sympathy.
The main reason many girls become “leftover women” is that their standards for a partner are too high … As girls are not too picky, finding a partner should be as easy as blowing away a speck of dust.

When holding out for a man, if you say he must be rich and brilliant, romantic and hardworking ... this is just being willful. Does this kind of perfect man exist? Maybe he does exist, but why on earth would he want to marry you?

Wow - that's more unvarnished truth than we've seen in a single New York Times column in at least 80 years! :)

In looking for a spouse, there is no such thing as perfect. When looking for that special someone, why do people seek something that they themselves don’t exhibit? I have been married for more than 18 years to a woman who is wonderful in a lot of ways, but she is not my idea of perfection. Likewise, she will remind me on occasion, that I am far from perfect myself. But, what has made it work for us is that we accept each other for who we are. That doesn’t mean we don’t fight. We do and we have. But, through it all, I would choose her again. People who expect perfection will end up alone. Those who understand this will be much happier in the long run. Imho.

The male/female ratio is China creates some unique problems that you don’t normally see in the west. The closest thing I have seen to this problem is life in a military town where the number of single males far exceeds unattached females. Other places with such problems include San Francisco (lonely women due to high number of gays) and New York (women over 30 — think “Sex in the City” demographic). China’s one child requirement and cultural preference for males is probably one reason why will it become more aggressive and expansionist in the future.