Mr Good Enough may be better than Mr Perfect

A provocative new book says women should give up trying to find Mr Perfect. Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough by Lori Gottlieb, a single woman (and single mother), grew out of an article she had written for The Atlantic magazine in 2008. In it, she described how hard she found it to raise a child on her own, and how she wished that, back in her 20s or 30s, she'd married one of the "unexciting" men she knew.

Gottlieb, 42, says that when a married friend urged her to date nice men who were "older, overweight, and bald", she thought her friend was "kidding" and couldn't do it. But now, with a baby (via donor sperm), she feels she should have taken her pragmatic friend's advice and made finding a "solid, like-minded teammate in life" a priority. She writes, "I wish I'd entertained the possibility when the possibility still existed." Gottlieb calls this "taking the best available option and appreciating it."

"A generation of women tricked"

In a controversial chapter called "How Feminism Fucked Up My Love Life", Gottlieb claims that a generation of women were tricked by the women's movement into "ego-tripping themselves out of romantic connection."

For the book, Gottlieb spoke to matchmakers and courtship "experts", psychologists, dating gurus and ordinary men and women. She also tested her theories by dating men online who said they were in her age group (they turned out to be a generation older) and by trying to date a short, widowed bald guy with a kid (he moved and the relationship ended).

Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough was published yesterday. The Hollywood Reporter says that Tobey Maguire plans to make the book into a film for Warner Brothers.