I am eligible. I am as cute as my eligible ex-boyfriend, and as funny, although I am not nearly as highly paid. But I can't appear in a magazine feature on eligible women because People magazine doesn't have such an issue.

Apparently there aren't 100 women in America who are worthy of marriage. Men aren't looking for eligible women -- on the magazine rack or anywhere else. Cosmo and Glamour have taught women how to trap a man and trick him into marriage. Then Ladies Home Journal steps in to tell you how to manipulate him into becoming the husband you want. The Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue is as close as we get to a magazine devoted to eligible bachelorettes -- which only goes to show that men aren't looking for marriage but are just looking.

I adore my ex-boyfriend, for good reasons. He's absolutely adorable. Smart, funny, but unable to prepare a meal beyond a bowl of Cheerios with milk. Sweet, good-hearted, easily overwhelmed by the realities of day-to-day existence. Sometimes I wasn't sure if he needed a wife or a therapist and support staff. His writing consumes most of his daily thoughts, and creeps into most of his dreams. On an analyst's couch he would be an intimacy-fearing workaholic. In a personal ad he would be "drug/disease-free." In real estate terms, a fixer-upper. I wouldn't use the term "eligible" for him -- and probably not for many of the men in the magazine.

What does eligible mean, anyway? Available? Yes, available, perennially so, because they won't commit. Marriageable? Not really. These are the kind of guys who have gotten where they are by putting themselves first. The kind you get involved with hoping you'll change them. The ones whose most intimate female relationships are with their mothers and their vehicles. They bring as much to a relationship as would a precocious 10-year-old with unlimited credit.

Maybe People should rename its issue "America's Successful, Handsome, Self-Centered Men." Or "Men Who Love Their Jobs and Themselves."

If People wants to profile men who are truly good marriage material, I have a few nominations. My friend Dan, an engineer, is shy, kind and handy, he has good insurance and you'd never have to change a tire for the rest of your life. And Bill, a corporate video producer, has traded his dreams of feature films for the hopes of sharing a life with the woman he loves and being a good father to their children. I'd also nominate Brian, who gets up two hours before his first-shift factory job to do laundry and clean the house and works overtime to pay his wife's tuition, but she's smart enough not to let him go.

My humble advice for women looking for eligible men: Don't hit the newsstand. If you do buy People's "Most Eligible Bachelors" issue, allow yourself to wonder why these men aren't taken if they're so damn eligible. And how many of them asked their ex-girlfriends to pick out their clothes.

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