Sometimes the direct approach is best.

My husband might have loosely fit this description when we met, and for me it was refreshing. Neither of us was actively looking for a relationship when we met. We had both recently (within the last year) come out of long dead-end relationships, and were in no hurry to rush down that path again. At the same time, we hoped for the "right" relationship at some point, and we were old enough to know what we wanted. When we realized that there was an attraction we lived in different states and worked together, which made the prospect of actually dating a bit daunting.

On our first real date he pretty much laid it all on the table. He didn't interview me, but instead said, "Listen, I like you, but I'm too old to waste my time or yours if there are things that are ultimately going to be deal-breakers. So here are all the reasons you shouldn't date me." I was surprised, but intrigued. He went on to open up completely about everything from his political and religious views to personality quirks, hobbies, sex, family, priorities, goals, children, etc. For us, each of these topics led to a wonderful conversation and instead of pushing us apart increased the attraction.

We've been crazy in love ever since.

I don't recommend this approach to everyone (in fact, we've specifically warned friends against it, for the very reasons you mentioned in the article) but for me it was a breath of fresh air. I had little patience left for dating. Maybe I'm just not that romantic, but I wasn't interested in wading through months of someone's best wooing behavior only to find out that they were painfully insecure or jealous, they had Peter Pan complexes or hated children or couldn't disagree civilly about anything. For me, the direct approach was magic -- his confidence and directness were unlike anything I'd ever encountered, and as unorthodox as it seemed, it swept me off my feet. Honestly, even if he'd been a committed Republican, a born-again Christian, and a card-carrying member of the NRA we would have parted ways with mutual respect. As it was, he was none of those things and we were engaged a month later, married 10 months after that, and are currently expecting our second child!

-- Leah P.

A single female dangling precariously over the precipice of 30-doom, I too have noticed the phenomenon of the incredibly shrinking male cad. (Frankly, I'd love to meet one. Do they only exist in movies?) Though I agree with Rebecca Traister's observations about this new breed of man, I wonder why she chooses to scold women who find this behavior amusing and off-putting with the familiar cliché that "women don't really like guys that treat them well." I like guys that treat me well, but I like to like the guys that treat me well, too. Ya dig? Do women have to always be the bigger man and settle?

I think it's strange that in her discussion of marriage and dating, she makes little reference to love. Is that no longer a consideration? For me it is and it is the reason that I am alone (naturally). I would also make one last point that I think Traister failed to introduce, and that is after I went to school and then to grad school and then got a job and an apartment and a dog -- in short, after I did everything my mother and my grandmother didn't -- I found myself thinking that a relationship with a man did not necessarily have to entail a wedding and a baby carriage that comes hurtling after. Maybe I started to think a little more like my dad and my grandfather did.

-- Flannery Dean

Now I've heard it all. For the last 15 years or so, I've been hearing that all of a woman's problems can be traced to her man's inherent fear of commitment. Now, Rebecca Traister tells us that men turn unattractive and simpering when their testosterone starts running out. Something tells me Salon won't be running any articles about how women often become fat and overly masculine when their ovaries dry up. Thanks, Rebecca; you've reaffirmed my belief that American women are on the whole childish, selfish and generally unpleasant to be around.

--G.K. Wicker

I've been wife-shopped several times in my life on first dates. One would-be husband had me working from home as a writer and editor before I'd even landed my first job in publishing. Another's eyes lit up when I told him I'd visited the Hockey Hall of Fame and he then quizzed me enthusiastically about how I thought a couple should spend money. Both instances occurred when I was in my early 20s -- more than a decade ago and a million miles away from thinking about budgeting, babies or work-life balance.

I can still feel the bile rising up in my mouth. Why? It's not simply because such talk is offensive -- and a real mood killer -- during a first date. Rather, it's also because then, and now, it's "charming" and "sweet" when men embark on a quest to find Mrs. Right. However, as the writer of this piece points out, when a woman exhibits the very same behavior she's desperate, a gold digger or, worse, both.

-- Caroline M. Levchuck

Rebecca Traister's article on "wife hunters" was full of more false dilemmas than your garden-variety religious tract. Relationships are either marriage or a one-night stand. Men are either clipboard-toting, potential-wife-screening commitmentphiles or jerks who don't call. Women either marry them or slam the door in their faces. Men are either serious wife hunters or just calling women's bluff. And so on.

This sort of article supposes exactly the same sort of strangled, negotiated relationships that books like "The Rules" argue for, and in doing so it's guilty of exactly the sin that a "job interview" marriage hunter really does commit: It's insensitive and ham-fisted, treating men like objectified collections of traits rather than people. None of us fit into this sort of true-false world. We're essays, not multiple-choice responses. Sometimes people are in different places, looking for different stuff. Women don't need to create a defensive caricature of the overeager potential husband to accept that and gracefully break company with men who don't strike sparks for them.

Hey, some people want to dance late at clubs, and some people want to talk during the movie, and sometimes your date doesn't like to dance and thinks talking in a theater is crass. Some people want to get married. Date the ones you like. (And don't talk during the movie. That's just wrong.)

-- Ian Westray

Ms. Traister might've overlooked another reason for the dating Inquisition. Some of us older (and, gasp, possibly infertile) males simply have gotten tired of wasting our time. Too many women claim to be available for a committed relationship, but spend their time (and ours) hashing over the unfinished debris of their lives: their crummy ex-husband, distant mother, even worrying about how the Republicans hate women like them. Life is too short to take on fixer-upper projects of dubious worth, and we want to know before we squander capital (emotional and financial) on women who will not be there in the long run. Hence a lot of pointed questions.

-- Roy Griffis

I'm not a wife shopper, but pretty close to the antagonist in this article. I'm 34, single, and in the last seven or eight years I've given all I had to two relationships that I hoped would end in marriage.

What I found most interesting in this article was the question "Do women hate being treated well?" In my experience, the answer is yes. I've watched several of my exes move on to worse relationships, and the familiar refrain is, "My boyfriend is a jerk. You were the best guy I was ever with."

I would like very much to settle down, but I don't want to become a "wife shopper" (though the thought has occurred). So as I near 35, I've realized I can't win at this game. Not with these rules.

-- William Michael

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