Should you settle for Mr or Mrs Good enough?

I eagerly scanned the article written by journalist Lori Gottlieb, (author of the best-selling tome Stick Figure: A Diary of My Former Self), in hope of finding an antidote to the sobering report released last week that claimed there are currently more single gals in circulation than during World War I.
Gottlieb's riposte? "Settle!" Settle? It wasn't quite the inspirational answer I was searching for. After all, aren't modern women told we don't need a man to make us happy? That if we haven't found The One we want to settle down with we shouldn't fret because single life is loads more rewarding than being tied to a relationship with someone you've only got lukewarm feelings for?

Not according to Gottlieb. By her reckoning, despite 30-something women purporting to feel no such panic to hurry up and marry the first bloke to pop the question, Gottlieb surmises that we're either in denial or we're lying. (Ouch.) She also adds that married couples hardly see one another anyway, so why hold out?
"So if you rarely see your husband - but he's a decent guy who takes out the trash and sets up the baby gear, and he provides a second income that allows you to spend time with your child instead of working 60 hours a week to support a family on your own -- how much does it matter whether the guy you marry is The One?"
In other words we should simply say yes to the first douchbag that comes along incase we wind up alone? Sounds like a load of hogwash to me ...

Especially since modern-day weddings cost a whopping average of $28,700. (That's more than a normal family car or deposit on a house!) Not to mention the stress of having to squeeze into a dress two sizes too small in the unflattering hue of white or ivory, plus having the impossible task of ensuring the in-laws all get along. In fact settling seems like the more difficult solution - definitely not the easy way out.
The women at feministing.com concur, describing the article as "anti-feminist porn". They blame this sort of "tripe" on the fact that "the media likes nothing better than a woman telling other women how miserable they're going to be without a man".

Which is exactly what Gottlieb attempts to do. "When we're holding out for deep romantic love, we have the fantasy that this level of passionate intensity will make us happier," she writes. "But marrying Mr Good Enough might be an equally viable option, especially if you're looking for a stable, reliable life companion."
When I first read the story, I wasn't quite certain if her radical hypothesis really would work. True, when it comes to the dating jungle I've found myself settling plenty of times out of boredom, loneliness or jealously that an ex has moved on with someone new and I haven't. Although like my peers, I can never quite go through with it for the long term if I don't see a future. Why bother? Why waste all those precious years dating someone you're not really that into, only to turn around and dump them because they were only Mr. Good Enough? Yep, best to be avoided altogether in the first place.

After attending my bestfriend wedding last 2007 where it was plainly obvious for all to see that the bride and groom were truly and madly in love, and that neither had settled for anything less, it instantly restored my belief in the existence of the ultimate romance, and that Gottlieb is simply pedalling a false ideal of it's non-existence ...