The Pairing Paradox

COUPLING by Alison Lobron - The Boston Globe: "It's been nearly a year since my last relationship ended, and I keep having the same conversation. It starts with a friend, usually one half of a married couple, saying something like "I can't believe you haven't met anyone. You're so great!" Then there's a pause while the couple exchange a concerned glance, before the other half says, "I wish we knew someone to introduce you to. We know all these great single women - Jen, you, the other Jen - and we don't know any single guys at all. It's too bad you don't want to date women. But you're on our list. If we ever run into a nice guy, we're going to have all these great women to introduce him to."

Each time I get added to someone's "Great Single Women" list, I feel a bit like I've joined a Depression-era bread line, albeit a bread line of well-educated women clad in Ann Taylor twin sets. But it's a line nonetheless: a seemingly infinite queue snaking toward the horizon, necks craned in search of that elusive creature known as the Great Single Guy.

At a recent wedding, my college buddy Will conducted a mental survey of the eligible men at his investment firm for me. He winced and groaned a lot. Then his eyes lit up, briefly, and clouded over again.

"What?" I asked.

"Well, there's Bob. I think he's what women consider attractive. But I don't know if he wants to meet anyone. And he is a little bit . . ." Will made the disparaging noise married men sometimes make about their single brethren, a noise that could mean either "The guy's a louse" or "I've heard him tell too many boob jokes to think he'd be interesting to an intelligent woman."

I never did meet Bob. But the problem is not that single guys don't exist, according to the US Census Bureau. In the cohort of people ages 25 to 44, men outnumber women, if not by much (for every 100 women, there are 100.2 men). And women in this age group are slightly more likely than men to be married already, which means, looking strictly at the numbers, there are more single men my age than single women. I repeat: There are more single men between the ages of 25 and 44 than single women. So why is it nobody knows any?

Part of the problem may be that at my age, 31, women are more interested in "settling down" than are our male peers and more conscious of our single state. It may also be that for dating help, men look to the Internet (60 percent of online daters are male, according to Match.com), while I, for one, am much more comfortable meeting friends of friends. Employment choice can play a role, too. Like me, many of my Great Single Women friends work in female-dominated fields like education and non-profits; I've long suspected there are technology and engineering companies full of men who would give anything for the GSW bread line to do the conga through their cubicles. And then there are the socializing patterns of couples to contend with: Most of my friends are married and - stereotype alert! - the women keep the social calendar, which means the couple mostly hangs out with single women and other couples. Ergo, nobody knows any single guys.

That conversation with Will made me think that at least some of the perceived Great Single Guy shortage may arise from our definitions of "greatness." To single women - and the married people who love us - "great" means "great at being in a relationship": emotionally intelligent, through sowing wild oats, inclined toward domestic stability. We tend to assume these traits exist in women but don't exist in (straight) men until proven otherwise in the court of commitment - which then means the Great Single Guy is no longer single. So, to offer a twist on the age-old lament that "all the good guys are taken," I'd suggest it's less that the good ones are taken, but that the ones who are taken are the only ones who seem good.

I've never liked the notion that it's the woman's job to civilize men - to treat them like lumps of clay who must be taught to put the toilet seat down or make pasta. But I do think it's worth keeping in mind that all those great-but-taken guys may not always have seemed so great, that part of what makes them great is the contentment a satisfying relationship can provide, that they got that way because someone once took a chance on them.

And all any of us can really ask is for someone to take a chance on us.

Alison Lobron lives and teaches high school English in Concord."