KIDS-OR LINGERIE?

"If you're Diane Sawyer, you'll always be able to get married," said George. "But even women who are A's and A-'s can miss out. The problem is, in New York, people self-select down to smaller and smaller groups. You're dealing with a crowd of people who are enormously privileged, and their standards are incredibly high.

"And then there are all your friends. Look atyow," George said. "There's nothing wrong with any of the guys you've gone out with, but we always give you shit about them."

That was true. All of my boyfriends have been wonderful in their own way, but my friends have found fault with every one of them, mercilessly chewing me out for putting up with any of their perceived, but in my mind excusable, flaws. Now, I was finally alone, and all my friends were happy.

Two days later, I ran into George at a party. "It's all about having children," he said. "If you want to get married, it's to have kids, and you don't want to do it with someone older than thirty-five, because then you have to have kids immediately, and then that's all it's about."

I decided to check with Peter, forty-two, a writer, with whom I've had two dates. He agreed with George. "It's all about age and biology," he said. "You just can't understand how immense the initial attraction is to a woman of child-bearing years. For a woman who's older, forty maybe, it's going to be harder because you're not going to feel that strong, initial attraction. You'll have to see them a lot before you want to sleep with them, and then it's about something else."

Sexy lingerie, perhaps?

"I think the issue of unmarried, older women is conceivably the biggest problem in New York City," Peter snapped, then thoughtfully added, "It provides torment for so many women, and a lot of them are in denial."

Peter told a story. He has a woman friend, forty-one. She'd always gone out with extremely sexy guys and just had a good time. Then she went out with a guy who was twenty and was mercilessly mocked. Then she went out with another sexy guy her age, and he left her, and suddenly she couldn't get any more dates. She had a complete physical breakdown and couldn't keep her job and had to move back to Iowa to live with her mother. This is beyond every woman's worst nightmare, and it's not a story that makes men feel bad.