Mr Second Best

If the roses have passed their bloom, it's time to move on to the shrinking violets, writes Tymon Smith.

So you're a woman in your mid-30s who's beginning to think that your years of giving handsome but badly behaved men second chances in spite of your better judgment are still going to be worth it because even though he hasn't shown up yet, Mr Right could be around the next corner.

If you are this woman then, argues author Lori Gottlieb in her new book Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr Good Enough, you're kidding yourself and you'd do better to realise this now and start paying attention to all those nice, sweet, not bad-looking, reliable men you scorned in your 20s and early 30s.

Stop believing that the world works likeSex and the City, where Carrie and Mr Big, after years of exasperation and mis-communication, eventually walk into the sunset and live happily ever after - the truth, argues Gottlieb, is that "once you're closing in on 40 you can certainly find love and companionship and all those things but it's probably going to look different from what you imagined. I look at my friends who got married later on and I look at who they married and, let me tell you, it's very different from who they would have married 10 years earlier."

Of course, 42-year-old Gottlieb herself isn't married, although she did have a baby in her late-30s with a little help from a sperm donor, just to get the whole biological time-bomb thing out of the way so that she could carry on looking for Mr Right.

Her book is a chronicle of her failure to find him and the lessons that she learnt from the experience and is now passing on to others.

After all, marriage she argues, is not a "passion-fest" but rather a "partnership formed to run a very small, mundane and often boring non-profit business". If that doesn't get you excited about the prospect, nothing will.

The fantasy of holding out for Mr Right is not good for you and the truth is, according to Gottlieb, that the longer you hold onto the fantasy, the further away and less probable the dream gets. Truth is that Mr Right is not holding out for you, he's dating the 25-year-old supermodel and congratulating himself for still having "it".

As Gottlieb told The Times (UK): "If you are in denial of this you will make bad decisions and end up single. Whereas if you look at the reality and say, 'Okay, the reality is as I get older there are going to be fewer available men because people are going to be married; there are going to be fewer available men in my age group because men would like to date someone who is younger and more fertile; there will be fewer available men that I will be interested in because the best guys have already been married.' Then maybe you can make an informed choice while you still have time."

Gottlieb's book, released in the UK last week, has stirred up some heated debate and she's been accused of cynicism - there are many who believe, as one Telegraph journalist does, that "marriage should not be about bagging the type of man you always thought you'd end up with. Neither should it be based on a checklist of suitable credentials. It should be born of a good, old-fashioned feeling, deep inside, which tells you both that you simply cannot be without each other."

With a bestselling book and a movie deal pending (apparently Toby Maguire wants to produce), the fact that Gottlieb hasn't managed to do what she is advising everyone else to do probably doesn't bother her that much and publicity is a good way to keep the Mr Rights queuing up to get a chance to prove her wrong.

As for those women who don't have bestselling books and movie deals as weapons in their armoury, best you start talking to the small, short-sighted, balding, introverted but sweet and reliable guy sitting in the corner before it's too late.