Single women in their 20s and 30s have long been viewed with suspicion. They are painted as husband hunters whose tick, tick, ticking clocks lead them to extract marriage proposals (and sperm) from freedom-loving men. When they can't find men to swaddle them with love and make babies for them, they're labeled something worse: desperate. And not for nothing. When I sent a query to women asking if they had encountered commitment-philic, spouse-shopping men, I got a lot of disbelieving responses. "I wish men like that existed," was the wail from many of my compatriots.

But there are women -- including those who want families, and are nervous about whether they'll ever have them -- who have nonetheless found themselves swatting away wild-eyed daddy candidates. Wife shoppers exist, and ladies, they are ready, willing and overeager to commit to you -- and if not you, then to the next upright mammal (with a checking account and good teeth) that crosses their path.

My friend Sara, 30, a retail associate in Boston, remembered a date with a guy in his 40s who had been impressed when she danced with him at a friend's wedding. Their first date included a trip to a bossa nova club. "As soon as we sat down, it's like a clipboard appeared and he started running through questions," she said. During a conversation about classical music, Sara mentioned Eugene Ormandy, late musical director of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Her date was from Philly and, as she described it, "He lit up. He said, 'Oh my god, I can't believe you know that! I don't know any girl who would know that!' He was so thrilled that I fulfilled this unexpected requirement and then right after that he said, really hopefully: 'Do you duck hunt?'"

Another friend, Allison, a 30-year-old cable executive in New York, met theater producer Aaron through work. They shared a lusty kiss on a subway platform and planned a date. "At the bar he started quizzing me on what music was playing," she said. "It felt like I was being interviewed. He wanted to know how I would feel about living on the Upper West Side, if I would prefer a vacation home in the Catskills or in the Hamptons, and would I convert to Judaism. When I said I didn't know about conversion, he asked if I would consider raising my kids Jewish." Allison said the conversation quickly dampened whatever ardor she'd felt for Aaron. "The questions he was asking were questions you get to on maybe the 28th date," she said. "But because they were coming so early I felt stunned, and bummed because this guy clearly wasn't excited about me. This was a picture of who he saw his future with and he was trying to decide if maybe I could fit into the outline."

Murmurings about real estate and theological differences are not likely to leave anyone swollen with desire, a state that is supposed to be one of the pleasures of early courtship. Like Allison, who said she was turned off by Aaron's interrogation, I found it hard to get passionate about the guy who, after one date, left four plaintive phone messages over a three-day weekend I spent with my family ("Just checking in, missing you"). Nor did my heart beat faster for Ian who, after we'd been together a few weeks, e-mailed me a photo of his nephew with a note reading, "Might we one day have a JPEG of our own?" One guy recently made a bid to meet my parents after just three dates. That's right: He wanted to meet my parents. Not hot. Desperate.

Alexandra Marshall, a 35-year-old New York journalist, wrote in response to whether she's ever dated a wife shopper: "Oh god, yes. Ick ick ick. Overenthusiasm is the world's biggest turnoff." Marshall recalled one guy who, after a first date, sent treasure maps leading to his apartment. After Date 2 came inscribed books and photographs of himself as a child. When she told him to back off, Marshall said her pursuer behaved as if she had "destroyed this elaborately crafted vision he had of our future together." Marshall said her date's zeal made her feel that the desire for intimacy was disingenuous. "It feels like he's more interested in accomplishing something than getting to know me," she wrote, acknowledging, "This is I'm sure the same thing men have long complained about with women who seem like they're in a rush to the altar."

Maybe women should be careful what they wish for. Allison pointed out that wife shoppers are often actually just calling our bluffs. "Women profess to want families and kids," she said. "But most of us have only come across the kind of guys who don't want those things. So it's safe as a woman to say you're ready to settle down, because you think you're never going to get called on it because the men are never ready. But then when you meet a man who is ready, women get super-nervous."

Super-nervous ... or masochistic and self-sabotaging. There is a lot of second-guessing for those who have already eluded a wife shopper or two. Women have been wired to believe that landing a good man is a long shot; we've heard the tall tales about how getting married after 30 is harder than getting struck by lightning; Sylvia Ann Hewlett pursues us down the corridors of our unconscious, brandishing a turkey baster. And yet when these eager partners appear at women's doorsteps, Ikea catalogs in hand, doors slam in their faces. What if this is just another manifestation of that old saying about women not liking the guys who treat them well? Maybe that depressing suspicion is correct: that women always desire what they can't have, and when a guy presents them with the possibility of having him, they blanch and shoo him off the property.

Melinda, a 28-year-old network news producer in Washington, stayed with someone who was more serious than she was for just this reason. "I found myself wanting to be into him because he seemed like such a mature, steady guy who wanted the right things and was family-oriented," said Melinda. When she finally broke it off, she said, "I totally felt like I was self-sabotaging myself, and that my friends thought I was a cold, heartless bitch to not have strong feelings for someone who was so wonderful and who wasn't treating me like a dick."

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