Maybe all the good men are right here....

I read Kay Hymowitz's WSJ article Where Have All The Good Men Gone a week or two ago (and added her book to my amazon wish list) but haven't gotten around to writing a post on it. Until now.

The article laments the rise of the man-child, the "pre-adults" who aren't interested in marriage, gainful employment, or doing much else but reading Maxim, watching Comedy Central, and playing video games.

First of all, I'm not sure all the cultural indicators that are flagged are proof that there are vast hordes of man-children wandering around being immature. The fact is that it's possible to play video games, or read Maxim, or watch tasteless TV shows, and still be gainfully employed, well-groomed, and family-oriented.

And I don't want to downplay my own failings, either - I'm sure there are plenty of things wrong with me that are the cause of my singleness.

But if women are mourning a lack of mature men, of the kind of men who want to settle down and raise a family instead of existing in a post- college haze, I can't help but wonder if the reason is partly because they overlook guys who are those things because the man-children are more fun/interesting /attractive/exciting, and partly because they themselves aren't interested in settling down, or at least aren't sure what they want.

I use dating sites pretty heavily, and one thing I've noticed is a lot of women have profiles where they talk about how much they love certain activities - travel, extreme sports like skydiving or rock climbing, ect - and how they want someone who does those things. And they will also have selected that yes, they want children.

The thing is that these are typically women in their late 20's to mid-30's - ie they are at the age where if they really do want to have children, biology suggests that they probably should do it soon. Which would suggest that their days of jetting off to France are pretty likely to come to an end for the next decade or two, and that if having children really is something that's important to them maybe they should be focused more on looking for someone who is husband/father material than someone who has been to the Eiffel Tower.

I'll also see plenty of profiles talk about how they want a guy who is employed, doesn't live in their parent's basement, doesn't mooch off them, ect - unlike all the other guys they've dated. Of course, if being gainfully employed and having one's own house was a sufficient condition to at least getting a date, madanthony's life would be much more exciting. My guess is despite their claims, when it comes to a choice of a boring, less attractive, but gainfully employed guy or a better looking unemployed moocher, they will pick the latter.

And if that is what women really want, that's fine. But they need to be honest about it - not just when writing profiles, but with themselves. Clearly their stated preferences and their actual preferences are different, probably because they haven't stopped and thought about what their actual preferences are.