Why There Are No Good Men Left The Romantic Plight of the New Single Woman

Christina is 31, slim, pretty, a younger and darker-haired Annette Bening. The daughter of a professor and an artist, she grew up in a family where books, politics, and international sabbaticals filled her early life. After attending an elite boarding school in New England, she went off to college where she got interested in women's political issues and began to work in campaigns. In the years following college, she moved into progressively more respon-sible jobs as a fund raiser for Democratic women candidates and causes. At the time we meet, she is working as the director of an international relations consulting group with an income in the high five figures. Yet there's one nagging source of discontent in her otherwise contented and accomplished life. As we chat over plates of mushroom ragout in a trendy Washington restaurant, she says ruefully: "I'm always getting involved with Mr. Not Ready." Christina's last Mr. Not Ready was someone she thought she might end up marrying. They were in a relationship for three years. She followed him from the West Coast to Washington so that they could be together, and soon after they moved in together. But only a short time later, she regretted the decision. It turned out that her boyfriend needed extensive house training. Their story was Pygmalion in reverse. Instead of My Fair Lady, it was My Fair Laddie. She had to teach him, improve him, get him up to speed. It was exhausting. Plus, he wasn't a very fast learner. When they first moved in together, they agreed to divide the housework equally. In the kitchen, they decided, she would cook and he would clean up. But he didn't live up to his part of the deal. "He pretended to do dishes," she says, bristling with fresh indignation. "I would come into the kitchen the next morning and find dishes still sitting there in cold, greasy water." After three months, she had had enough of his helplessness, feigned or otherwise. She dumped him. He still called from time to time to ask for her advice. But she was sick of being his mother and mentor. Then, to her annoyance and dismay, she found out that her Mr. Not Ready had turned into Mr. Ready. With someone else! He was ready to make commitments to his new girlfriend. Ready to follow her to another state where she had a job. Ready to give her an engagement ring. She had spent three years of her life in a relationship that she thought would lead to marriage or at least to a long-term relationship. She had trained the guy. And now her investment was paying off for someone else. Even more depressingly, Christina's women friends were vanishing into marriages. Her social life seemed to be dedicated to going to parties for soon-to-be-married girlfriends. Each year passed with another round of bridal showers, bachelor girl bashes, weddings, and receptions, until finally Christina realized that she was being seated at the cousins' table at weddings. If that weren't reminder enough of her lack of romantic success, her mother kept asking why she wasn't married yet. Christina panicked. She decided to take a break from relationships to give herself time to de-stress, to get therapy, and to think about what she really wanted to do with her life. She gave up dating for a year. All this happened just as Christina turned 30. By that age, she had expected to be married herself. Instead, she had already been in and out of relationships with seven different Mr. Not Readys. Her heart had been broken four times. It didn't make sense. Here she was, a woman who set goals for herself, met deadlines, accomplished all the things on her professional "To Do" list, and yet she had missed a major "To Do" in her life. What made Christina's situation even more perplexiWhitehead, Barbara Dafoe is the author of 'Why There Are No Good Men Left The Romantic Plight of the New Single Woman' with ISBN 9780767906395 and ISBN 076790639X.