London - Tick, tock, tick tock. Sorry, guys, but the party's over. It's time for your mates to take you out for a beer and gently explain that time is running out.
It's time for your mom to send you a little sheaf of press cuttings and a note saying that she doesn't want to interfere, but she thought you might find the enclosed material "interesting".
It's time for your doctor to add a supplementary question to the usual inquisition on units of alcohol, along the lines of had you, er, thought, of getting a move on? It's time, in fact, for the C-word. No, not commitment, but conception.
Yes, guys, it's taken a while to unearth, but finally some research has surfaced that seems to question the God-given, age-old principle that a man's virility, loins and supercalifragilistic semen shall spring eternal.
According to a new study, men over 40 are nearly six times as likely to father autistic children as men under 30. That's autistic not as in alphabetically-sorted-record-collection and all-men-are-a-bit-aren't-they, but as in special schools, special challenges and, no doubt, special rewards - but not, I'm afraid, rewards that many people would actively embrace. Yes, men have a biological clock, too - and links between age and other disorders were not ruled out.
You see, the trouble is, you're just too picky. You want it all: the fabulous sex, the witty repartee, the cosy conversations about how you really feel.
You were holding out for a partner who was your intellectual equal, but who was also happy to share a tub of Häagen Dazs over Desperate Housewives.
Someone who was prepared to pull their weight on the domestic front, but who was always up for the theatre. That's the trouble with you career men. You want the sun, the moon and the stars, and the perfect babies, too.
Whoops, I was getting confused. I was thinking, of course, of the "career woman".
Although no precise definitions of this term exist (a woman who earns more than the national average? a woman who sometimes stays late at the office?), a good-working definition would seem to be a hard-faced bitch who violates the natural order of things - husband, children - in the relentless pursuit of her ambition.
That, at least, would seem to be the implication in the recent comments by Michael Noer, news editor of Forbes.com, who advised men to "Marry pretty women or ugly ones, short ones or tall ones, blondes or brunettes, just, whatever you do, don't marry a woman with a career".
It would also seem to be the implication in Fay Weldon's new book What Makes Women Happy.
"The 'love' of a man for a woman is protective," says the newly fey Fay, "and keeps him at home as long as she stays helpless." That, apparently, is why "high-flying women" are "so often single".
Her chief advice to such women, in a book that seems to be a peculiar rehash of Men Are From Mars is to smile nicely, fake orgasm and not eat too many eclairs.
She has found God and can, perhaps, be forgiven an autumnal lapse into nuttiness. But what you can't quite miss is the venom.
I don't know a single woman - and I know a lot of single women - who set out to be a "career woman".
Women, like men, fill their time with what's on hand. If you're fortunate enough to find true love in time for nature's deadline, you try to do it all.
If you're not, and there's urgent stuff to be done at the office, then guess who does it? Their reward, it seems, is contempt. Time, perhaps, at long last, for the Manolo Blahnik to be on the other foot. - Independent
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