Tian Yi/Shanghai Daily news

I have been pondering upon the question my colleague Michelle posed a few weeks ago - "Where have all the good men gone?"
It looks like decent girls, who have received decent education and got decent jobs with decent pay, have good reasons to be puzzled, if not anxious.
Think about these interesting phenomena: You see far more young women than men who make everyone around them know that they're searching for dream lovers, in vain; and producers of dating programs on TV never stop complaining that they cannot get enough qualified male applicants to go on the show.
But is it really that hard to find a good guy, harder than catching a blue moon? I have a 22-year-old cousin who wants me to set up a date for her with a good guy. Okay, a good guy. Shouldn't be a big deal. I know quite a few good guys.
So I went through all the eligible friends I have in my mind and picked one without much effort. The guy has a bachelor's degree from the best university in Shanghai. He started his career a year ago and now has a fairly well-paid job with great potential in future development. Most importantly, he is a good person.
But my cousin said no, without much hesitation.Obviously, a monthly salary of 6,000 yuan (US$ 740) is not good enough for her, who earns half that number a month. Plus, he is not a Shanghai native, my cousin said.
I was rendered speechless. Another failure on my already dismal match-making record. So here's my response to Michelle's article: There are good, single men out there, but decent girls are too picky to see them.
They want men to be smart, humorous, sensitive, broadminded, responsible, etc. Just name a positive adjective and it is "the" character that cannot be missing in a good man.
More daunting, for men and perhaps for those warm-hearted match-makers too, many decent girls have concrete, sometimes quantified, standards in every respect of a man. Does he live with his parents? Does he have a cute car? When coming across a possible candidate, decent girls measure him against their secret standards one by one, and they're rather strict with the measurement.
Let's say, when it comes to finding oneself a partner, a decent guy is looking for a decent wife, but a decent girl a new life. Natural that it's much harder for a girl to find a guy than vice versa.
And decent girls think they're in a good position to be picky. With all the "decencies" they have, they firmly believe that they will finally find a better man.
Although they grow impatient sometimes, decent girls never really get tired of the game. They complain, rather loudly, when they screen out all the candidates at hand, but don't worry about them. They will soon pull themselves together and start a new round of hunting. In the mind of those decent girls, the sun always rises, although it does set.