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Single women are used to hearing this complaint, and most don't buy it. "Some in my family think I'm not stopping till I find perfection," says Henneberry. "I don't feel like that. I just want the one who makes me go, 'Finally.'" Harvard sociologist Carol Gilligan notes, "There's now a pressure to create relationships that both men and women want to be in, and that's great. This is revolutionary." Even Ellen Fein, co-author of the notorious 1996 dating guide The Rules, says her man-chasing disciples don't settle for just anyone. "Most of my clients have jobs; they can pay the rent; they can take themselves out to dinner," says Fein. "They want men to value them."
Many women can tell the story of a friend or relative who looked at her and said, "If you really wanted to be married, you'd be married." The comment can sometimes slap like a wet towel, in part because it is true and in part because of its implicit message: You could have compromised, perhaps settled, and been among the married. And so, the logic follows, you have no one to blame but yourself.
But these women have fought for years to be themselves--self-reliant, successful, clever, funny, willful, spirited--and for all the angst that the single life can bring, they're not willing to give it up for any arrangement that would stifle them. "It would be great if I found a relationship that allowed me to be as I am and added something to that," says documentary producer Pam Wolfe, 33, sitting in her one-bedroom condo in New York City. "But I'm not going to do anything to attract a person that means changing. I've worked long and hard to be myself."
--With reporting by Tammerlin Drummond/New York, Elizabeth Kaufman/Nashville, Anne Moffett/Washington, Jacqueline Savaiano/Los Angeles and Maggie Sieger/Chicago