Look again at the author's claim: "any man knows immediately whether or not a woman is someone he’d consider a long-term relationship with"

Really? While this is true for *some* men, it's not true for most - otherwise, there'd be a lot more "love at first sight" marriages. Instead, what the author is describing is closer to "*lust* at first sight", or perhaps the normal result of wearing beer goggles.

Ma'am, I'm retired Navy. One learns a *lot* about men and relationships in the military, and particularly in the Navy. It's not something easily understood by those who aren't retired military, but it has a lot to do with all the problems of maintaining long-distance relationships while being in a high-stress environment overseas, and about the men who come back on board engaged to a local bar girl after a couple nights in an overseas port.

Here's the key: if men *knew immediately* as the author claims, then those instant engagements would tend to be a lot more successful than they are.

But they aren't.

Men don't know right away. The *only* thing men know right away is if they're *sexually* attracted to a woman.

Lastly, what my wife and I have is indeed rare...but research shows that divorces tend to happen in clusters i.e. when one's circle of friends has a significant number of unhappy relationships, one's own marriage is more likely to be unsuccessful. Conversely, when most or all of one's circle of friends are in successful relationships, one's own marriage is more likely to be successful.

In other words, your 34 years of being single might not be due to the fact that men are stupid idiots (which is admittedly true, myself included), but more because of the people who comprise your social circle.