I think part of it is the larger fantasy that men--especially men who imagine themselves as successful--that you are entitled to a really bad chick. There's a lot of really good feminist critique of this sort of male fantasy but it's really hard to reject that path if you feel like it's in your grasp. A buddy of mine calls it "winning at heterosexuality" and I think that really gets at it.


The other part is that if you are in the rat race to be successful (went to college, live in a big city, trying to move up) and want to have a "successful" middle-class family (house, kids, good schools), there is pressure to cross all the T's and Dot all your I's in a relationship in a way that our parents and grandparents didn't have to consider. If you knew you were going to get a job at the ford plant and work there for 30 years you could afford to marry your hs sweetheart and not stress the whole mess that we know as modern dating (not that the past was perfect).