I get it. You want kids. You can feel your eggs dwindling and your ovaries ache. Over time you see yet another new baby announcement on Facebook. You have a nagging feeling that each period could be your last and you want to settle down.
The trouble is, single men in their 30s who have never been married or had children are hard to come by. On the whole it's true that most of the good ones have been snapped up by savvy women while they were in their 20s and are now blissfully happy married.
The chances are, any man you meet over the age of 35 will have been married or in a long term relationship before and will possibly have children already.
If they haven't done any of those things you may be dealing with a Peter Pan - the kind of man who will still be saying he's too young to settle down and 'not ready' to start a family when they are 45. Avoid these men like the plague if you want to keep your sanity and not waste years of your life trying to make them grow up.
So, what should you look for in a man? Kindness is top, obviously, as well as being physically attracted to them. But here are a few things you should never overlook.
Does he have a job?
The only way that not having a job would be okay would be if he had a Royal title or was a philanthropist millionaire who spends his weekends raising money for African orphans.
Not just any old job either - it should be a decent job that they like and are happy in, or you'll find yourself being taken on a date to McDonalds at the age of 37 because they can't afford to eat anywhere else.
Or worse, you won't ever see the light of day with them - you'll sit in their damp flat drinking cheap lager because they are too skint to leave the house.
Where does he live?
I am not saying it's okay to be superficial and disregard a man on the account that he doesn't live in a six-bedroomed mansion. What I am saying is that you can tell a lot about a person by the way they live.
Seeing a man in his late 30s who still lives in a shared house like a student gets boring really quickly. You don't want to be rushing to the bathroom past strangers every time you stay over.
You also don't want a man who still lives with his mother. That has alarm bells all over it.
Does he have friends and interests of his own?
(No, online gaming and 2,000 followers on Twitter do not count).
If a boyfriend doesn't have his own social life and interests, no matter how much they insist they think it's great that you have an active social life and hobbies, they will start to get annoyed when you go out with your friends on a Saturday night. They may not be explicit about it at first, but they will subtly let you know that they don't like the fact that you are socialising with friends (if this starts to happen, nip this relationship in the bud immediately or you will end up as bored and lonely as them).
Does he have a healthy relationship with porn?
Lots of men and women watch porn, and that's okay. Single men watching the odd porno isn't a deal breaker but someone who spends their every spare waking hour sat in front of a computer wanking away has a real problem; being able to name every single current UK porn star and conversing with them on Twitter really isn't a sign of an emotionally healthy 30-something man. They will never have a healthy sex life after that level of porn addiction.
Does he call his ex girlfriends crazy?
As much as you'd love them to venomously hate their exes, this isn't a sign of an emotionally mature person. The more they say their ex was crazy, the higher the chances are that the ex was perfectly normal and they are one with problems.
On the other hand, you don't want to constantly hear about how great their ex was, or anything much at all about them actually. A man who keeps talking about ex girlfriends years after break ups obviously has some issues so it's best to steer clear of them.