Sex & Relationships

Married away

You’re a shallow, selfish, slutty, lying bitch.

In her original, unabashed list of the reasons most single women are still waiting to receive their glass slipper — entitled “Why You’re Not Married” and first posted on the Huffington Post in February of last year — writer Tracy McMillan just said what your friends, mother, grandmother and aunts have all been saying for years. Except, she said it in a way that was blunt, brutal and obviously soooo wrong.

Or was she?

McMillan’s extended version, published this month by Random House, features new reasons such as “You’re Crazy,” “You’re Godless,” and “You’re a Mess,” along with ways to change your fatal flaws. But what do New York men say are their biggest deal breakers? The Post spoke to local guys for their pet peeves and McMillan reveals how to combat them.

You’re a prude.

Frank P., 29, of the Upper East Side, says he broke up with his last girlfriend because they “weren’t sexually compatible.”

TM’s Tip: Loosen up. “Develop a sexual relationship with yourself that means as much to you as one would have with a man. That way, when the man does come along, he joins a party that is already in progress — he’s not the very first guest.”

You move too fast.

“She went from 0 to 60 really quickly. It was too much to handle all at once. She wanted to hang out every second of every day,” says Brendan, 29, a New Yorker who now lives in Boston.

TM’s Tip: Think twice. “If you have an urge to do something, don’t do it. Generally speaking, an urge is a signal that you have temporarily lost your mind. The stronger the urge, the longer it’s going to take you to find your sanity again.”

You’re too clingy.

“If you go, ‘I’m gonna go watch the game with my buddies on a Sunday,’ it should be, ‘OK, I’ll see you later.’ If that’s not the answer, than we’ve got a problem,” says Darren, 35, Lower East Side.

TM’s Tip: Get a life. “What you need is hobbies. Because hobbies are all about you. They are your passion. That way, when he doesn’t call, or decides he can’t commit, or realizes he’d rather chase after an unavailable woman than be with someone who is right in front of him, you can return to a big pile of you.”

Again, you’re too clingy.

“[If] I leave a room, she needs to be OK without me baby-sitting her,” says Eric, 28, of SoHo.

TM’s Tip: Be independent. “I visualize dependency as a person leaning against something like a table. If the table suddenly moves, what happens? You fall over. No healthy guy really wants you to be that kind of dependent on him.”

You
’re a gold digger.

“When women approach a certain age, a relationship becomes more about, ‘How can this guy set me up? What can he do for me?’ It’s an obnoxious urgency,” says Anthony, 30, from DUMBO.

TM’s Tip: Seek connection, not cash. “Give up on the idea of getting what you want. No one in the history of humankind ever became happy by getting what they wanted. Just ask anyone who’s ever won the final rose on ‘The Bachelor.’ Go for depth. Look at the person inside the man.”