@Lone_Ranger Hi, due to a requirement for me to repost the same article under a different link, I'd like to invite you to repost your fine comment so we can try to reconstruct the thread. Ugh.

"I’m a single woman in my late 30s....." Dis gonna be good!!

The article is not a surprise. It's pretty standard. We've all met these women.

What is a surprise is that response of the agony aunt. Really, what she should have written is "You can ignore reality, but you cannot ignore the consequences of reality". And then explained to her, gently, that she has wasted far too much time, and that to be completely honest, the window has closed.

This is what really defines woman to woman conversations. The terrible, terrible quality of advice that they give each other. The dreadful feeback. It is always the same ...you go girl!

If a magazine like Slate wanted to provide any value at all, they would have a panel of guys to answer all the agony aunt questions. They should have an 'agony uncle'. That is the only way to get out of the female to female doom loop of shitty advice.

I see this as one of the key differences between men and women. Men actually give each other quite good advice. Consider this theoretical example....

Imagine a user on this forum posted a question like this; "I am in my late 30's and I want to train to become a champion swimmer and win competitions". The advice would be pretty to the point: you are too old. If you had wanted to win even small local competitions, you should have started swimming at about age 8. And you would have had to do early morning pool 4 times a week. You would have to have at least 20 competitions under your belt by age 16. You'll need to be at least 6 foot tall. You'll need to be serious about diet and excercise. It is now too late.

The advice would be pretty frank, to say the least.

And what women really do not give each other is frank, to the point, realistic advice.

My honest answer to to the this woman is that she has left it too late. And she seems painfully unaware of what men want from a woman. She wants a man to consider her as an option for marriage and children, and she is just not a suitable choice. To be considered for that role, she needs to have excellent fertility.....and the truth is that her fertility is at about 8% of a woman of 21.

This is the cold, hard truth. And she will never get it from talking to another woman.