Digitally Diva

Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good
By Resident Librarian: Kat

I recently finished an interesting book about dating called Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough by Lori Gottlieb. The book release was greeted with much fanfare, simply because of the title. Empowered single women everywhere balked at the concept of “settling” and assumed that this was Gottlieb’s message. In truth, Gottlieb isn’t trying to encourage us to settle; she’s trying to encourage us to *think*.

Gottlieb, a single mom in her early 40s, explores in great detail the road blocks she’s set up for herself in her dating life. Her goal is the impose on the younger crowd how they can “avoid” the same mistakes when approaching their dating life. Largely, Gottlieb realizes that her standards for dating are so severe, they often cancel each other out. At one point, when analyzing statistics, she sees that the percentage of available men that fill all of her criteria is an infinitesimal portion of the population. Realizing this, Gottlieb calls on a variety of dating experts to help her analyze her rethink her game plan in the hopes of meeting with some success.

I liked the book for many reasons, but one in particular would be that if Gottlieb is doing dating WRONG, then I think I’ve been doing it right. This is not to say that I’m not picky, but I’m more apt to give someone a chance rather than not (this comes with it’s own set of barriers, but that’s a different blog post for another day). Sure, I’ve crossed out potential suitors based on height, profession, zodiac sign and whether or not they have a picture of their car in their dating profile. But in the end, I’ve given more guys a chance than not, and that’s had it’s own measure of success.

I’m not making judgments; read Gottlieb’s book for yourself and decide!
Available at Amazon.com or your local library