On the Virtue of "Settling." Msgr. Charles Pope offers some advice on dating, romance, marriage and life:

Yes, there is a lot of this perfectionism today. Sometimes, as a priest, just observing the external, I marvel at breakups, thinking, “Wow, I wouldn’t have broken up with her….”(or) “Do they really think they’re going to find a better combination?”I also marvel at how many gorgeous women are seldom ask out on dates and never get married. I think, “Come on men! Get with the program.” But it isn’t just them men, a LOT of women just aren’t interested in marriage or are waiting (and waiting) for the right guy to come along. Somehow, the perfect becomes the enemy of the good or adequate. Perhaps romanticism and physical attraction (which, of their nature, peak early and decline) are the problem. For all the “cruelty” of the arranged marriages of the past, they seem to have done better than those of our age where romantic feeling is main basis for marriage. (Regrading arranged marriages, the old song “I’ve grown accustomed to her face” comes to mind). But somewhere, in this age of (strange) idealism and perfectionism, we need to come out of the clouds and realize that, in this world, the perfect and the ideal do not exist. Sinners marry sinners. The perfect spouse/best friend/ideal lover isn’t out there. Perhaps the merely good will have to do. Perhaps the “mixed bag” (that we all are) will have to be tolerated. And perhaps we do well to remember our own imperfection before we look for the perfect spouse. Perhaps we do well to say, “My marriage will not be perfect because I will be in it.” Come on now, young people, lets get those marriage numbers up. Whatever the reasons, it’s time to leave mother and father, and just mixing it up with friends, and find a spouse and cling to one another. And when you get married, have lots of babies and raise them Catholic! Don’t let the perfect cause the good to slip by.

And, as additional value, he offers two jokes illustrating the difference between men and women.