I am a Christian, and although this book is not written from a Chrsitian viewpoint, the advice is hopeful and excellent!

I read a lot, and this is a substantial (not fluffy) book. Buy it!

The only validation is your own. Friends you need. Lovers are optional. Friendships can endure an entire lifetime. Lovers pretty much come and go. Friendships are love born out of reality. Love and romance are the product of fantasy. What is often sought in ideals of romantic love are actually found in deep friendships.

Women (and men to a different extent) have been taught that in order to have a place in the world, an identity, they must marry and have children. If that's the life you truly want, great. But for many women, marriage is only about needing the world to know that someone desires them enough to say, 'Here's a contract to prove that I love you and will commit to you for the rest of my life.' For these women, no contract equals no validation - and, thus, no reason for existing .... Salma Hayek

If you want that diamond ring so badly (even if the rumors of blood diamonds are true) ... go get a right-hand ring and celebrate the day you were born a whole and complete individual. Weddings are one day of your life. But your real life is every day moment to moment ... and it's up to YOU to make YOURSELF happy.

I used this book during the latter part of my single days and it was a great resource for figuring out what I really wanted in a significant other and, more importantly, focused on self-awareness and the defenses that I've created to hide from my own fears. I've read a lot of other self-help books (including Robbins and Dr. Phil), but although their advice makes sense, their effect was always short-term for me and I quickly forgot the lessons.

For some reason, Page's lessons stay with me to this day. The book is well-written and Page effectively uses real-life examples (including her own life) and breaks down her concepts to make them easily understood. The exercises she has in the book were effective in helping me understand the truer underlying feelings beneath the facade that I present to the world (and myself). I'm fairly intuitive for a guy, and the book and its exercises really spoke to me and brought about a lasting change.

With self-help books, you want to believe that it has the answer for you, but this one really gives you some tools to figure it out on your own. I've given this away to single friends as gifts and even though I'm in a long-term relationship, I've used the book often as a resource to continue to work on my self-awareness. The only critique of the book I can think of is the title, which probably scares a few people away.

There are two kinds of self-help books: ones that encourage you to look inside and to change yourself and ones that promise you that by modifying your behavior you can change your life. The first kind inspires you and makes you grow - the latter makes you stagnate. The first kind doesn't make you feel good - it makes you think. The second kind makes you feel good temporarily (because, while you are reading it, you are carried away by its promises of easy solutions), but doesn't change anything - neither inside you nor in your life.
This book is of the first kind. It promotes awareness and honesty to oneself and others instead of using tricks and schemes. It helps you answer the question - why are you alone. It encourages you to look for a partner and advises you how. And doesn't let you settle for less.

I've always read lots of books about singles and how to find a mate, and that rate has sped up since I'm now a Romance Coach. But somehow I had missed Susan Page's "If I'm So Wonderful, Why am I Still Single?" even though it has been out since 1998, the last year I was single myself. Where have I been, and why hadn't I seen this book?

Susan Page writes for "involuntary singles" -- straight, gay, male or female, each and every one of us who is single and wishes we weren't. Relentlessly positive, she starts off right to the point with "So why are you still single anyway?" And then, just when we've gotten over that shock, she states flatly:"Whatever your reasons are for being single, if you want to be in a relationship, no reason is good enough." Then Page goes about tearing apart every good reason we've ever come up with to keep ourselves single.

Here's what Page takes on and turns around: Ambivalence (my favorite), those "Dreadful Statistics," the myth of "There are no good ways to meet people," and having and keeping high standards. Then she works on developing skills in what she calls "Frog kissing": Learning to say no, how to recognize true intimacy, avoiding "commitmentphobes," handling the intimacy gap, and learning to say "yes." And in the last section, "Keeping It All Together While You Look," Page tells you just how to do all that.

This is easily the best, most thorough, rounded and positive book about relationships and dating I have seen. If you are one of Page's "involuntary singles," this book needs to be in your library. Five chocolate dipped strawberries for Susan Page! This is quite a book.