What's a girl to do?

Dear Cary,

I am a 32-year-old woman, attractive, in great shape, well-educated and traveled, with a professional career, an active social life, no debt and my own home. In other words, I am a decent catch. The problem? I haven't met any men in the past several years that I am even a tiny bit attracted to, or when I have, they've been taken. I enjoy my freedom and always have things to do. But now that I am closing in on three years without a single relationship, I am starting to feel like a freak. I slept with one person at the two-year mark of celibacy, mostly just to feel like a normal person again. That resulted in such a negative entanglement that I decided I really needed to wait for something good to come along. The irony of all this is, I enjoy having sex (from what I remember of it).

Should I feel weird about this lack of action in my life? Would a guy think it is weird that I haven't been with anyone in such a long period of time?

Also, do you think my 30s are going to be difficult? It seems like all my friends are married or getting married, and I'm worried that I am going to become isolated, at least until people hit their 40s and start getting divorced.

The Reluctant Celibate

Dear Reluctant Celibate,

Here's how you know when something is wrong with you: Something hurts really bad inside. You stay up all night crying and pounding on the wall. You get drunk and slash your wrists. You're sitting on a bus screaming the name of some long-dead boyfriend. You disrupt a party with a disjointed story about your dad and the doll that he was going to buy you and never did. You cut all your clothes into little pieces, and your best friends try to have you committed, and you are no longer welcome at your local bar because you've pulled the fire alarm one too many times.

That's how you know something is wrong with you. On the other hand, here is how you know when everything is OK: You are a 32-year-old woman, attractive, in great shape, well-educated and traveled, with a professional career, an active social life, no debt and your own home.

Sure, you're a little lonely and occasionally horny, but who isn't? That's normal. You're a little insecure about your social status and how others perceive you. You're probably concerned about the future, about maintaining close ties with others, about growing old alone. Again, those are normal fears. That doesn't mean there's anything weird about you.

Now face it: Not every woman gets a man. There aren't enough men to go around, for one thing. Most of them aren't that good anyway. It's just statistics. Fifty percent of men are below average. Some women will settle for basically a dick and a mouth and call it a man. Some will just wait it out unless they can get one of the good ones. Like you say, maybe you wait until everyone's getting divorced and get one on the rebound. I have a friend who made a career of marrying men and wouldn't marry one until he'd been broken in by some other woman. Maybe, if you wait around for one to come loose, you'll get one who doesn't even pay child support.

But here is the part where we talk about you, where I skate on thin ice and try to get at something more primal that goes on between people. You sound so independent, so competent, and so fundamentally unconcerned that there's something almost -- speaking from a man's point of view -- almost hermetically perfect about you. Perhaps you have become so self-contained, so self-sufficient, that men do not feel any urgency about becoming part of your life.

Men are like firemen. They jump on the truck when there's trouble, but the rest of the time they sit around the station house eating and playing cards. Men respond to situations where they can be of service and make a difference. We admire women who are competent, but we are attracted to women with problems. So if you want a man, get some problems.

They don't have to be monumental problems. It could be as simple as not knowing how to fix a faucet or hang a picture. Get some problems that require the attributes you like in a man. Maybe some problems that require strength. Strength is a nice attribute in a man. If you like a man, ask him to hang a picture for you. Don't tell him you need something hung. That's too obvious. Just get him up on a chair, arms raised, with a hammer, nails and some twisted wire. That could lead somewhere.

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