Salon interviewed Lori Gottlieb, the author of Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough.

According to the article by Sarah Hepola:

As in the 2008 Atlantic essay that started it all, Gottlieb’s depiction of single womanhood can be practically monstrous, a misery parade of boring happy hours and appointments with the bikini waxer, nights staring at a phone that won’t ring. She uses her life as a cautionary tale: Make the right choices, little missy, or you could end up like me. As she explains in the book, “I’m trying to help. It’s kind of like those graphic anti-drunk driving public service announcements that show people crashing into poles and getting killed … It’s not until you see people ending up brain-dead, lying in a coma in the hospital and surrounded by beeping monitors, that the message has an impact.”

But Gottlieb, who readily admits she really wants a husband and understands some women just don’t, tells Hepola that her book is less about settling and more about not insisting that a man be perfect. (Note to all humans: Nobody is perfect. Not even me.)

And I can wrap my head around that, for sure. Unfortunately, I’ve met many women (and many men, for that matter) who did settle for a partner who had a loosey-goosey grip on the truth, resisted the idea of fidelity, spent too much time passing gas in front of the TV, and so on.

So I’m not buying into ‘get ‘em while the going’s good.’ Sure, the decent guy you dated in college may be happily married with three kids now, but, if you’re a realistic person, you probably didn’t marry him for a reason. Old boyfriends usually look better in hindsight. Chances are, if you caught up with him for a cup of coffee, you’d remember the quirks that made you doubt you’d ever live happily ever after together.

Take a look at the article and let us know what you think. And if you’ve read the book (we haven’t), we’d love to get your take on it, too.

Keysha recently posted about the value of doing affirmations. I’ve had great success using them in in finding the right relationship, and also to find a house in a neighborhood I dreamed about but didn’t think existed. Long ago, I used them to get a job in a highly competitive industry.

Of course, as Keysha mentioned, the trick is to do them (write them, speak them, sing them, whatever) and to keep doing them. You can feel like a big fat fool sitting around writing affirmations when you don’t have a job, for instance, or when you stubbed your toe and even the dog is giving you the cold shoulder. But keep on keeping on.

When you’re writing affirmations, it really helps to be feeling good. For me, that means turning off Morning Joe, where the panelists mean well, but they’re always talking about life going to hell in a handbasket. Face it; most TV is depressing. Turn it off.

Instead, turn on music that turns you on. Turn it up loud. Take a few extremely deep breaths; fill your lungs to capacity. Say a prayer (not a desperate, pleading, begging prayer. Make a simple request for grace and calm; accept it and allow it to evaporate all bad feelings). Shake off the troubles of the day. When you feel your spirit lifting, start doing those affirmations.

For continued motivation, excitement, and inspiration, turn to a good book about the power of faith, affirmation, and the Law of Attraction.  Skeptics claim that The Secret is hogwash; it’s not, but it may not be presented in a way that’s helpful to you. If you’re a Christian, check out Norman Vincent Peale’s Positive Imaging. Shakti Gawain’s Creative Visualization will appeal to people of all backgrounds, and it’s written simply and accessibly. I’m a big fan of anything by Florence Scovel Shinn or Claude Bristol, as well.

When you use an affirmation, you’re impressing your subconscious with your intention. You may have heard about how Jim Carrey, a man who once lived in his car, intended to make twenty million dollars and wrote himself a check for “for services rendered.” He visualized himself owning a spectacular house in California.

Well, you know how that turned out. To hear Jim Carrey discuss the power of intention, click here.

Teen pregnancy rates in the United States are up for the first time in years. The New York Times attributed this sad finding to a study by the Guttmacher Institute, a nonpartisan nonprofit research group:

While teenage pregnancy rates for whites remain far lower than for blacks and Hispanics, the pregnancy rates increased for all three groups.

As previously reported, births to young women ages 15 to 19 — a statistic that is available more quickly than pregnancy and abortion data — rose from 2005 to 2006, and again from 2006 to 2007.

Since the teenage pregnancy rate is made up of births, abortions and miscarriages, it is likely that the teenage pregnancy rate rose from 2006 to 2007, as well.

The Guttmacher Institute blames abstinence-only programs for this scary trend. Teens are less likely to use contraception now that over a billion dollars has been spent on telling them not to have sex. Teen abortions are up by one percent.

On Tuesday’s The View, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, missing the point, proclaimed that we can reverse the pregnancy rate by telling girls to say no. Once a girl has had sex, she said, the girl perceives herself as “a girl who has sex,” but she should know that she still has the right to say no.

But, Elisabeth and other promoters of the GIRLS MUST SAY NO solution to teen pregnancy don’t take into account that girls, like boys, are highly sexual beings. It’s hard enough for a girl to deny her own inclinations, yet we expect her to do that and take responsibility for her boyfriend’s, as well.

So, here’s an idea: Why don’t we teach our sons to say no? Teach them from a very early age that sex is special and meant to be shared with only another very special person? In other words, what would happen if we raised our sons to “respect themselves” and “not give their bodies away,” the way we raise our daughters?

What if we raise our daughters to view boys who sleep around as “cheap” and “not the kind of fellow you bring home to mother,” instead of playboys, playas, and ladies’ men?

Girls are subject to the same temptations as boys. Sex is not a boy’s thing that a girl gives into because she wants to be loved, or because she suffers from low-self-esteem. Sometimes she needs someone to stop her before things get out of hand. Let’s lose the ‘boys will be boys’ mentality and help a girl out.

An article in Salon about girls suffering genital mutilation set my hair on fire. (Genital mutilation is a euphemism for several grisly procedures, often performed with unsterile instruments and without anesthesia.) Turns out, female genital mutilation  — or FGM –doesn’t just happen in other countries. It’s happening here. In the United States.

The Salon piece, written by Lynn Harris, offers this sobering information:

“Yes, FGM is practiced — or at least planned — on U.S. soil, on girls in immigrant families who were born and/or raised here. Perhaps even among people you know: Not long ago, a concerned mother posted on my Brooklyn-area parenting list-serv that she believed an eight-year-old friend of her daughter’s had undergone some form of the procedure in her home country in the Middle East (and appeared to be markedly traumatized). Archana Pyati, an asylum attorney for Sanctuary for Families in New York, has encountered dozens of FGM cases just in the past six months. ‘The majority of our African clients have been through it, and most often, they are fighting to protect their daughters,’ she says. (Older relatives with ’seniority’ often push for the procedure.) ‘It is our hope that by recognizing that FGM may be occurring under our noses we will become better able to respond to it, just as we would any other form of violence against children,’ she says.”

Check out the rest of the piece here. Violence, oppression, and being sold into sexual slavery are just some of the commonplace horrors women all over the world face, and we can help stop it. We can donate money to Equality Now. Even better, we can take part in one of their letter writing campaigns  to help females who don’t have it as good as we do.

I came across a fascinating article in The Daily Beast this morning about a phenomenon a priest mentioned last summer. He said he wouldn’t have to alter his weekend Mass schedule to accommodate weddings because they’re just weren’t enough weddings to warrant it.

“Nobody wants to commit,’ he lamented.

The Beast’s Hannah Seligson writes:

“The median age for a first marriage in the United States is the highest it’s ever been—27.1 for a man and 25.3 for a woman—and it skews even higher in many cities, giving way to more years of dating before marriage. In fact, 23 million adults are in unmarried committed relationships. Over 12 million unmarried partners live together, a trend that is being exhibited in a large part by the 25-to-34-year-old demo.

‘Dating is not what it was 50 years ago. Dating is evolving into this gradual process of moving in. It involves nights spent over at one or the other’s place. There’s the toothbrush, then a few items of clothing. All of a sudden, they realize they’ve moved in,’ says Pamela Smock, a sociologist at the University of Michigan who studies cohabitation.”

 Seligson thinks she knows why singles don’t perceive marriage as the great deal it once seemed to be. Check out her article here (and then come back and tell us what you think).

It amazes me that in 2010, women who marry still find themselves responsible for most of the domestic drudgery. Check out this sad article by Ann Friedman in The American Prospect.

I have a theory that if more women demanded a better deal, they’d get it (and, by the way, it also bugs the hell out of me that married women’s first names usually appear after their husbands’ on Christmas cards, but since women write the damn things , we have nobody to blame but ourselves).

I’m all for getting married, if that’s what we want, and as long as we’re not caving into society’s low expectations for us. If marriage is on your mind, read this article and decide what you’re willing to put up with and what you’re not.

What I like most about Kathleen McGowan’s new book, The Source of Miracles: 7 Steps to Transforming Your Life through the Lord’s Prayer, is that she doesn’t depict the prayer’s author as The Punisher but as a teacher who loved and welcomed all humanity.

(McGowan has taken flak for her perspective. After cutting to commercial during a TV interview, an anchor called her a “bad Christian.”)

Here’s her take on The Law of Attraction. The first person to comment will receive a free copy of the book.

THE REAL SECRET:
ABUNDANCE DOESN’T COME FIRST (BUT IT WILL COME AND STAY IF YOU FOLLOW THESE STEPS )
By Kathleen McGowan,
Author of The Source of Miracles: 7 Steps to Transforming Your Life through the Lord’s Prayer

Instant Manifestation. Unlimited Abundance. Ask, Believe, Receive!

So many books, DVDs and other programs have promised all of these things over the last few years. Millions of people have flocked to the teachings of “The Law of Attraction” in hopes of transforming their lives and attracting love, money and fulfillment.

And millions of people are also finding that these programs don’t work. And if they do work, the effects are temporary. Why? Because the lessons of these programs are incomplete and totally out of order. They skip the important steps, the elements of personal and spiritual transformation which are necessary to provide a solid foundation to build upon.

Most “Law of Attraction” techniques do not require any kind of accountability and therefore they do not work.

One great truth of the law of abundance is this: We cannot manifest something that is not in the best interest of the world around us. We do not live in a vacuum, we live on a planet with almost seven billion other people. In order to manifest everything that we desire, we must learn how to live in harmony with the bigger picture, and find our own place in God’s plan as a member of the human family. Of course, becoming aligned with our own spiritual nature and destiny will likely change the specifics of what it is we truly desire, making it that much easier to attain.

What we are reaching for here is something that endures in our lives. That is the essence of transformation. Before manifesting abundance, we must dig down into the deepest recesses of our hearts and souls. We must examine our beliefs about ourselves, about a Higher Power (whatever we choose to call it — God, Spirit, the Universe, the Goddess, Divine Intelligence) and about our fellow human beings. Because it is in understanding the synergy of those relationships — that we are all connected and must work together — that we will find dramatic results. It is not enough to know what we want, you must also know why we want it, and what we will do once we have it! All of those elements impact the world around us, and therefore must be considered. Read more »

If you want an easy and effective way to manage the cash you trade your time and effort for, check out Mint.

The site, which receives accolades from Kiplinger’s Magazine, Money, PC Magazine, will show you how to pay off debt and accumulate wealth.

It features a household budget tracker. Advice about which of those credit card offers that flood your mailbox is worth your time. A gizmo to determine which bank will give you – not Alice in the neighboring cubicle — the best deal for your savings. It’ll even give you tips on how to spend less when you eat out.

What makes Mint different from other financial websites?

Instead of offering pure information and leaving you to figure out how to apply it to your own situation, Mint is interactive. It uses details you provide to show you exactly what your money is doing and where it’s going.

It’s painless. Even better, it’s free. Go for it.

Almost every year until this one, I’d dedicate an entire day to scribbling pages of life-altering resolutions. I managed to keep a few of of them (I stopped smoking in 1993, lost weight in 1997, wrote novels in 2000 and 2008), but I blew others (I didn’t find an agent, publish a novel, or double my income).

A few weeks ago, I sat down with my notebook to write out 2010’s slew of goals, which included — once again — find an agent, publish a novel, double my income, and then on Saturday morning, as I got ready for my aunt’s annual Epiphany party, I had an epiphany:

KEEP IT SIMPLE, STUPID.

I have to admit, this revelation came to me after checking out a site called 43things.com that my friend, V, loves and swears by. The idea is to list 43 things you want to accomplish and tick them off as you do. Well, this year I don’t have the ambition to tackle 10 things, let alone 43 (history shows that I’m easily overwhelmed), but the cool thing about this site is that some of the people who’ve actually done the things I want to do offer tips on how they did it.

So, I want to publish a novel, but I’m an unknown (the award I won in college for a bunch of short stories doesn’t count). One of the published novelists on 43things recommends doing what he did: Writing and publishing short stories in small markets.

Which led me to the first of my two resolutions for 2010:

Before I get out of bed every weekday morning, I will write for one half hour with the goal of having one short story worthy of submission at the end of the month. (Then I’ll follow through by actually submitting it.)

My second resolution is to become a good salesperson. Even as I write this, I feel a little ashamed to admit it. My mother always distrusted salespeople, but the truth is we’re all selling something, whether it’s refrigerators or short stories or ourselves (for a dream job or a dream date). If you work for a corporation, you’ll notice that the sales force is better compensated than the folks in Human Resources. The key, for me, is to sell things honestly, for the benefit of the buyer as well as myself. I’ve found the product, now I just have to get out of my own way and do it.

To that end, I’ve come up with a list of prospects and a not-too-daunting schedule to call them. I’ve also committed to maintaining enthusiasm by attending sales meetings and watching the seminars the company offers online.

That’s it for me, but if you’re more ambitious (or you just want ideas on how other people did what you want to do), take a look at 43things. And if you’re not ambitious at all, you’ll probably enjoy this essay by Mary Elizabeth Williams about an easy way to change your life for the better in less than an hour.

Since a lot of us deal with issues surrounding men we love during the holidays, SWR is running two relationship articles back-to-back this week. If you’re happily single and set on remaining that way, please be patient with us.

If you tend to attract men who disappoint you (by cheating on you, not showing up when they say they will, or just refusing to get off the couch), you may be confusing love with pain.

So many of us have been brought up to believe that pain is normal, even expected, in a love relationship. Without it, the relationship seems flat, boring. We crave drama. (Why is it that so many women have great sex after a fight with a significant other?)

A happy, loving relationship eludes us because we don’t recognize it when we see it, or because we simply believe it’s not possible.

According to the media, men are incapable of remembering birthdays, being monogamous, getting through a weekend unless they’re transfixed before a marathon of football games.

Women mistakenly internalize these messages: That’s the way men are. That’s the way life is. Get over it.

And while the media is happy to sell us the myth of the unattainable happy relationship, some of us have come to believe in it because of our own experiences.

Some of us:

(a) Had parents who treated each other indifferently,
(b) had parents who outright hated each other,
(c) had fathers who ignored us as children,
(d) had a parent who suffered from alcoholism,
(e) had mothers who would rather have been doing something else, or
(f) had a parent who suffered from a mental illness.

And so, we learned to associate love with pain. It’s all we knew.

Others among us grew us in happy homes with parents who loved each other and delighted in us, but we still managed to:

(a) Internalize negative messages we heard from our friends’ parents who were unhappily married, or

(b) Internalize negative messages we saw elsewhere (I know a woman who, during her impressionable teenage years, babysat for a couple who gave each other the silent treatment and expected her to relay messages. She also babysat for another family, where the father once came home early and started reading Screw magazine).

As a result of this programming, we set low bars for the behavior we’ll accept from boyfriends or husbands. Hey, it’s better than being alone, right?

Wrong.

If you’re putting up with substandard behavior from men, make decision to stop. Refuse to date anybody until you attract a man who makes your happiness a priority. Keep in mind this quote from the legendary writer Somerset Maugham:

“IT’S A FUNNY THING ABOUT LIFE; IF YOU REFUSE TO ACCEPT ANYTHING BUT THE BEST, YOU VERY OFTEN GET IT.”

When (not if) you attract a better man, treat him as you have come to expect him to treat you, which means with affection, respect, and consideration.

Does this sound boring to you? If it does, please examine your feelings about relationships and see if they haven’t determined the kind of men you attract.

You see, once you stop dating men who disappoint you but excite you, you can make room for a guy who loves you the way you deserve to be loved–and who excites you. Love and excitement are important, but if they’re accompanied by pain, something’s wrong. You’ll never be truly happy with a guy who lets you down.

Ask yourself, “Where did I ever get the idea that love has to hurt?”

Give yourself time to come up with the answers. Take stock of whether your relationship is worth saving. If you speak up, will it make a difference?

Technology keeps getting better and cheaper, but some humans absolutely refuse to evolve. Salon’s Jessica Roy lists the saddest and most sexist iPhone apps.

Read all about ‘em here. (And if the guy you’re dating uses any, he’s an ape. Dump him.)

For all things Chanukah, check out Chanukah.org, which offers recipes, stories, traditions, and a Chanukah How-To. The site features a search engine where you can key in your zip code for events and celebrations in your area. (I keyed in mine and learned about a party being thrown tonight in a nearby town.)

If you like, you can winnow your search to include just women’s events.

In related news, the National Council of Jewish Women is accepting entries for its Jewish Women’s Film Festival. The deadline is May 15, and the entry fee is $35.00 for up to five films. For more information and an application, click here.

(Image courtesy Kaboose.com.)

Some companies do not deserve your patronage.

Eco-Chick ran compelling evidence to support this statement last May, but I think it’s worth another look now, especially during this season when we typically buy a lot of stuff and drive even more than usual to get it and give it to friends and family.

That Walmart and ExxonMobil have put profit ahead of people probably isn’t news to you, but some of the revelations about Nestle, Pfizer, and Chevron startled me. Maybe they’ll startle you, too.

Read all about it here.

I fell in love this weekend with a little movie that just came out on DVD, entitled Paper Heart, in which actress and musician Charlyne Yi wants to fall in love but isn’t sure she’s capable of it.

She sets out on a road trip across the country to find out all she can about attraction, romance, marriage, and divorce in a series of funny and telling interviews with fellow artists, couples in successful marriages, gay couples, divorce attorneys, and officiants at Las Vegas wedding chapels, among others.

At a party, Charlyne meets actor Michael Cera (who starred in Juno opposite Ellen Page) and resists his attention. Eventually, Paper Heart expands its focus to include not just other people’s experiences of love but also Charlyne’s own push-and-pull experience with it.

I teared up and collapsed into fits of laughter throughout this wonderful little film. I enjoyed the guest appearances of Charlyne’s friends, who include Seth Rogan, Demetri Martin, Martin Starr, and others. The song she wrote and performs about halfway through the movie blew me away. I was also inspired by the fashions she wears on dates.

Ultimately, I am in awe of Charlyne Yi and Michael Cera, who don’t look much like anybody’s idea of a leading lady and leading man but may be the most endearing, loveable, attractive actors currently working in movies. 

I highly recommend Paper Heart. You can get it at Netflix.