This article is hilarious, in a “laugh so I don’t cry about the state of feminism in this country” kind of way.

By this bitch’s standards, I should be single and completely fucking miserable. Let’s explore why, shall we?

1. You’re a Bitch.
Here’s what I mean by bitch. I mean you’re angry. You probably don’t think you’re angry. You think you’re super smart, or if you’ve been to a lot of therapy, that you’re setting boundaries. But the truth is you’re pissed. At your mom. At the military-industrial complex. At Sarah Palin. And it’s scaring men off.

The deal is: most men just want to marry someone who is nice to them. I am the mother of a 13-year-old boy, which is like living with the single-cell protozoa version of a husband. Here’s what my son wants out of life: macaroni and cheese, a video game, and Kim Kardashian. Have you ever seen Kim Kardashian angry? I didn’t think so. You’ve seen Kim Kardashian smile, wiggle, and make a sex tape. Female anger terrifies men. I know it seems unfair that you have to work around a man’s fear and insecurity in order to get married — but actually, it’s perfect, since working around a man’s fear and insecurity is big part of what you’ll be doing as a wife. 

This is honestly one of the most anti-woman and completely untrue things I have ever read. Because, get this, I am fucking angry. Like, I have anger issues. And I do think that I am super smart, and I do think that I’m setting boundaries, and I know damn well that I am too much of a bitch about it. I react way too harshly and I’m mean, sometimes without knowing it.

Joe acts like this terrifies him, but it’s 99% a joke. He’s not an insecure child who’s scared of “being in trouble” with Mommy. Part of this is because he’s a grown fucking man, and part of this is because neither of us are expecting the other one to work around us. We both are exactly who we are, and when we fight (and we do) and when we get angry (and we do) we’re mature enough not to be afraid of it, to communicate it like adults and move through it.

Marriage will not change that expectation. Living so as not to offend someone else’s sensibilities is not being a wife - that’s being a codependent doormat.

2. You’re Shallow.
When it comes to choosing a husband, only one thing really, truly matters: character. So it stands to reason that a man’s character should be at the top of the list of things you are looking for, right? But if you’re not married, I already know it isn’t. Because if you were looking for a man of character,you would have found one by now. Men of character are, by definition, willing to commit.

Instead, you are looking for someone tall. Or rich. Or someone who knows what an Eames chair is. Unfortunately, this is not the thinking of a wife. This is the thinking of a teenaged girl. And men of character do not want to marry teenaged girls. Because teenage girls are never happy. And they never feel like cooking, either. 

I wanted to marry an attractive man. Someone strong so they can pick me up like I’m nothing, who looks completely sexy shirtless and will carry all my shit for me. Someone who can lead a war or win a fight, who can annihilate in a game and teach me how to do all the things I can’t do. Who could tell me what was wrong with my car and get it fixed for me because I hate dealing with my car. Someone taller than I am, with dark hair that will be cut as I like it, just above the eyes and kind of messy. Somebody who looks good in a suit and who will let me dress them up to impress my family. Some of these are derivative of deeper elements, but I’d say by and large all of those things are pretty shallow.

And you know what?

I FOUND HIM. 

Without having to compromise pretty much any of my shallow desires. Because it’s not *just* his character that attracts me. It’s his body. His style. His interests and culture. It’s the whole fucking package, and every one of those elements are important.

I have met men of character (or at least men willing to commit) but they didn’t have everything I wanted, and therefore, they weren’t what I was going to commit to. Period. 

And by the way? Joe does all the cooking. 

3. You’re a Slut.
Hooking up with some guy in a hot tub on a rooftop is fine for the ladies of Jersey Shore — but they’re not trying to get married. You are. Which means, unfortunately, that if you’re having sex outside committed relationships, you will have to stop. Why? Because past a certain age, casual sex is like recreational heroin — it doesn’t stay recreational for long.

That’s due in part to this thing called oxytocin — a bonding hormone that is released when a woman a) nurses her baby and b) has an orgasm — that will totally mess up your casual-sex game. It’s why you can be f**k-buddying with some dude who isn’t even all that great and the next thing you know, you’re totally strung out on him. And you have no idea how it happened. Oxytocin, that’s how it happened. And since nature can’t discriminate between marriage material and Charlie Sheen, you’re going to have to start being way more selective than you are right now.

I don’t know if it’ll be said that I am too young to qualify for this, and honestly, if our relationship could even say to be evidence of this, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with women of any age getting their freak on, with anyone they like.

No one is completely enslaved to their hormones. Yes, there were a few fuckbuddies I had that I ended up catching feelings for. There were also many that I didn’t. And the ones I did, I largely didn’t get into a relationship with. Nature may not be able to discriminate between marriage material and Charlie Sheen, but I certainly can. I knew why I was in a casual relationship with them and not a serious one, and they still didn’t meet the requirements of a real relationship - therefore, no-go. This is the adult thing to do, and if you’re incapable of separating their hormonal urges from what’s actually a good idea, you aren’t mature enough to be having serious relationships.

4. You’re a Liar.
It usually goes something like this: you meet a guy who is cute and likes you, but he’s not really available for a relationship. He has some condition that absolutely precludes his availability, like he’s married, or he gets around town on a skateboard. Or maybe he just comes right out and says something cryptic and open to interpretation like, “I’m not really available for a relationship right now.”

You know if you tell him the truth — that you’re ready for marriage — he will stop calling. Usually that day. And you don’t want that. So you just tell him how perfect this is because you only want to have sex for fun! You love having fun sex! And you don’t want to get in a relationship at all! You swear! 
About ten minutes later, the oxytocin kicks in. You start wanting more. But you don’t tell him that. That’s your secret — just between you and 22,000 of your closest girlfriends. Instead, you hang around, having sex with him, waiting for him to figure out that he can’t live without you. I have news: he will never “figure” this out. He already knows he can live without you just fine. And so do you. Or you wouldn’t be lying to him in the first place.

For the most part, I’ll give this one to her. There are a lot of girls who do this and it’s a really bad idea. I literally just saw this happen with a friend of mine. He really wasn’t interested in a relationship, she was, it was a bad deal. But the fact that relationships sometimes pan out like that doesn’t mean that every time someone isn’t interested in a relationship, it WILL inevitably pan out like that.

The very first one-on-one conversation Joe and I had was in the backseat of his car, smoking a cigarette naked, as we’d just had mind-blowing casual sex. The topic of this conversation was how we were both completely done with relationships, and weren’t interested in being in one again, having both somewhat recently come out of bad breakups. 

Now we’re getting married. This isn’t something to depend on, but things very often change in relationships, and if I had given up on Joe because I thought there wasn’t a future with him, I wouldn’t be engaged.

5. You’re Selfish.
If you’re not married, chances are you think a lot about you. You think about your thighs, your outfits, your naso-labial folds. You think about your career, or if you don’t have one, you think about doing yoga teacher training. Sometimes you think about how marrying a wealthy guy — or at least a guy with a really, really good job — would solve all your problems. 

Howevs, a good wife, even a halfway decent one, does not spend most of her day thinking about herself. She has too much s**t to do, especially after having kids. This is why you see a lot of celebrity women getting husbands after they adopt. The kids put the woman on notice: Bitch, hello! It’s not all about you anymore! After a year or two of thinking about someone other than herself, suddenly, Brad Pitt or Harrison Ford comes along and decides to significantly other her. Which is also to say — if what you really want is a baby, go get you one. Your husband will be along shortly. Motherhood has a way of weeding out the lotharios.

First of all, I am selfish as HELL. I think about myself constantly. My future, my career, my thighs and naso-labial folds. Whether my stomach has too big of a pooch. Whether or not I’m hungry. How long it will be before I have to leave the house to get cigarettes. What I’d look like with a new hairstyle.

And you know what? I still manage to find time to do all my classwork, accomplish most of the things I want to get done in a day (the disparity is more due to procrastination than business) and think about Joe in at least as many ways as I think about myself. And it’s the same in reverse. I help him get his life together and he helps me with mine. 

Because being in a relationship is not about losing your self and your needs in another person. Again, that’s codependency, not love. If I was only dedicated to Joe’s needs, and I didn’t think about myself at all, I wouldn’t be the kind of person he wants to marry. Because not every man is looking for a nice sweet and kind doormat. He wants me to be independent and have dreams and accomplish things with my life. He wants me to get a bangin’ career so he can go back to school one day. And if I didn’t think about myself at all, I wouldn’t be able to accomplish any of that.

6. You’re Not Good Enough.
Oh, I don’t think that. You do. I can tell because you’re not looking for a partner who is your equal. No, you want someone better than you are: better looking, better family, better job.

Here is what you need to know: You are enough right this minute. Period. Not understanding this is a major obstacle to getting married, since women who don’t know their own worth make terrible wives. Why? You can fake it for a while, but ultimately you won’t love your spouse any better than you love yourself. Smart men know this.

I see this at my son’s artsy, progressive school. Of 183 kids, maybe six have moms who are as cute as you’re trying to be. They’re attractive, sure. They’re just not objects. Their husbands (wisely) chose them for their character, not their cup size. 

Alright, so that’s the bad news. The good news is that I believe every woman who wants to can find a great partner. You’re just going to need to get rid of the idea that marriage will make you happy. It won’t. Once the initial high wears off, you’ll just be you, except with twice as much laundry.

Because ultimately, marriage is not about getting something — it’s about giving it. Strangely, men understand this more than we do. Probably because for them marriage involves sacrificing their most treasured possession — a free-agent penis — and for us, it’s the culmination of a princess fantasy so universal, it built Disneyland.

The bottom line is that marriage is just a long-term opportunity to practice loving someone even when they don’t deserve it. Because most of the time, your messy, farting, macaroni-and-cheese eating man will not be doing what you want him to. But as you give him love anyway — because you have made up your mind to transform yourself into a person who is practicing being kind, deep, virtuous, truthful, giving, and most of all, accepting of your own dear self — you will find that you will experience the very thing you wanted all along:

I agree with the essence of this. You are enough, everyone is enough for someone, and if you have to fake who you are to be worthy of someone, you’re not in the right relationship. And marriage won’t make you happier. If studies are to be believed, marriage makes relationships more difficult. 

But this contradicts itself. I’m marrying Joe because I don’t have to “transform myself” into anything. I am exactly what he wants and what he has chosen to deal with, and he is exactly what I want and what I have chosen to deal with. I was as “kind, deep, virtuous, truthful, giving, and accepting” when I met him as I am right now, and that’s not going to change - that is who I am, and that’s who he decided to marry. He’s my best friend in the entire world, and I don’t need to be anything other than the bitchy, shallow, slutty, selfish person that I am, because he wouldn’t have asked me to marry him if he wanted me to change.

And this article is existentially contradictory, because since marriage doesn’t make you happy, marriage shouldn’t be the goal. My goal in life isn’t and never was to be “someone’s wife.” My goal is to have the career that I want, to have the family that I want, and to have my best friend, Joe, by my side when I do it.