Waiting for Mr. Right? How about settled with Mr. Right Now...?

The important of being Mr. Right Now before we settled with Mr. Right – keeps looking my friends –

Single gay men all over the places had a good reason to spit out their cornflakes as they read the Sunday newspaper. Nestling among tales of bankers' greed and Elton John’s have-they-or-haven't-they split was arguably one of the most incendiary stories.

It goes like this American author Lori Gottlieb has written a book, published here next week, in which she declares that singletons who’ are still searching for Mr. Right by the age of thirty five should give up and settle for Mr. Right Now, or known in hetro life as Mr. Second Best.

The book, Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough, blames literature, film and TV for leading us to believe erroneously that The One is out there. Hence, she says, in our doomed search for true love, we overlook countless relationships that could have made for "viable" relationships.

How many self-respecting gay mans do you know who dream of a "viable" relationships? We are grown-up enough to know that while the perfect relationship does not exist, we can expect a lot more from long term relationships than just viability.

Gay man wants love and warmth and emotional connection, and they want it to last for a lifetime. The good news, contrary to the gospel according to Gottlieb, is that those things exist, and they can last a lifetime.

Not to believe that is to resign oneself to lifelong mediocrity and to the notion that it is all you deserve. We don't accept mediocrity from our government; we don't accept mediocrity in our careers; and we don't accept it in our friendships. Why should we accept it in partnership? I sure didn't when I said "yes" to Angus fifteen years ago.

This is not the viewpoint of a spoiled, demanding 21st-century gay men. It is the way gay men have felt since their love lives were first recorded. In Craig Thompson the worthy, reserved St John Rivers proposes to Craig because he believes he'd make a good missionary's partner. In a move that Gottlieb would consider foolish, Craig’s turns him down flat, saying, "I scorn your idea of love... I scorn the counterfeit sentiment you offer... and I scorn you when you offer it."

Gottlieb's suggestion is absurd, says Maureen Waller, author of The English Marriage: Tales of Love, Money and Adultery. "I didn't meet Mr. Right until my forties, and now I realize that he was definitely worth waiting for."

Time and again, Sex and the City's Carrie Bradshaw could have walked off into the sunset with kind, wholesome Aidan. But she didn't. Instead, she valiantly endured years of pain while she listened to her instincts and waited for Mr. Big. She was right: just look at them now (as far as we know they are living happily ever after, which is where we left them at the end of the first movie).

Like Craig Thompson and Carrie Bradshaw, most people’s would rather wait for Mr. Right and risk ending up alone than settle for dependable, passionless Mr. Right Now. A single friend of mine who recently hit 35 insists: "You know what, maybe Mr. Right won't ever come along, and maybe some of us will live out our years as spinsters. For some people, it doesn't happen at all. Is that thought so awful?"

Gottlieb, a single man in his late forties, clearly thinks so. Ask any soul-baring, 40-year-old, single, homosexual man what he most longs for in life, and he probably won't tell you it's a better career, a smaller waistline or a bigger apartment. Most likely, he'll say that what he really wants is a partner.

We are constantly told that relationship rates have fallen to the lowest level since records began. But it is still the case in the UK that 52 per cent of gay relationships are in long term relationships. In Australia show that 65 per cents of gay relationships are in long term relationships. Meanwhile in Malaysia, it show only 9 per cent of gay relationships are in long term relationships.

Ideologically, then, long term relationship/partnerships is still the holy grail for many men. Like a big house and a good car, a man-husband is a status symbol. And if you're lucky enough to have a big house, a good car, a gay-husband and some pet, the consensus is that you've hit the jackpot.

So it's easy to see how the temptation to skip down the aisle with Mr. He'll Have To Do Because He Is The Only Impregnator Available is a strong one. But, even so, Gottlieb's watershed age of 40 is fantastically mean. First of all, each gay man's needs and maturity differs from the next. There can be no single age at which Everyman is ready to settle down. That depends on a catalogue of factors, including an individual's goals, lifestyle, experiences and previous relationships.

Second, it is now normal for middle-class men to feel that they have not achieved anything much by the age of 40. They leave school at 18 and perhaps take a year out before starting a degree at, say, 19. That degree takes a minimum of three years. They may then undertake further education, or realize they're on the wrong track and deliberate over a major rethink.
By the time they have got a job worth writing home about, they are in their mid-twenties.

Then they have to put in a few years of hard graft in said job (not least to prove that the previous five or so years have been worthwhile). Along the way, they will probably have experienced a healthy, character-forming roller-coaster ride of good and bad relationships - without praying night and day that each one will lead to the altar.

In any case, according to Kate Figes, author of Couples: The Truth, "the whole notion of Mr Right is wrong. If that is what you are looking for, you are bound to be disappointed. Our expectations of what a relationship can offer are too big. You can't look for somebody to solve your problems, to provide for you. You must be able to fulfill your needs yourself, and come to a relationship as a fully formed grown-up."

Fay Weldon agrees that there is a case for a tweaking of our expectations: "Gay man are traditionally more picky than straight men, who wait until they think it is time to get married, look around the field of their female acquaintances, and make a choice. If that doesn't work, they choose the next one down. Women, no longer having virginity to offer as part of the trade, may well have to train themselves to be more like men."

Yes, we expect more of our relationships, but at the same time, we are happy being single and waiting because we have successful careers, a good lifestyle and a strong social network.

We are hardly sitting at home, crying and weeping.

But I think, relationships shouldn't be about bagging the type of man you always thought you'd end up with. Neither should it be based on a checklist of credentials. It should be born of a good, old-fashioned feeling, which tells you both that you simply can't be without each other

Till the, I need to open the door, my Mr. Right Now is knocking my door, and wish me the best for my screen test to becoming Mr. Right..........