Why are all the good ones single?

Ever since reading "Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough" I've been thinking about single women, and why kind intelligent women are often left unmarried by 35 or 40, and I think we can blame our parents and teachers...

Don't get me wrong, no one was trying to make a generation of spinsters, I think it was quite the opposite.

Women's Lib did a lot of good things, but I think it put love in the background. Education and career are so important, and no one wants to see their little girl or star student get knocked up and married right after high school, so I think those of us who grew up after 1970 had parents and teachers and mentors that didn't encourage us to develop romantic relationships. Not that they discouraged them, but school and then a career were definitely priorities over love and relationships.

I think that relationships aren't seen as a serious topic, but boys turn into men and boyfriends turn into husbands and relationships become serious and life altering. Maybe we aren't programed to grow in relationships the way we are told to grow up in the rest of our lives. Boys are just these silly things that get us pregnant and ruin our lives, but men become husbands and we become dependent on them; they become our life partners.

Maybe boys don't grow up as fast as they used to. I'm coming up on 25, and I still feel that single males my age are boys, not men. That potential dates are boys, not men. Maybe we're waiting for men, and that's why we're staying single longer.

Am I sad that I went to school and didn't focus on finding a husband? Not at all. 1 in 6 married women say they were happier when the were single. I'm young, I'm not too worried yet... but ask me in 5 years.