Are men really from Mars?

- Buy Men! by Isabel Losada

There is one burning question that most women over the age of 35 discuss all the time - where on earth are all the interesting and available men?

"Interesting men are defined as someone who, when you meet him, you think that you'd like to have dinner with him and, having had dinner with him, you're glad and you'd like to see him again," explains Isabel Losada, author of the amusingly informative new book Men!

"Available men are those who are not married, not 'separated' (but his wife doesn't know), not in any relationship which another woman believes to be long-term and monogamous, and, I've now started adding, in the case of Italians, not having 'lots of girlfriends'."

Of course, many single women would walk over hot coals to find out where these men are, but unfortunately there is no easy solution, according to Losada.

"We've all seen too many romantic American movies, but in real life it's very different," she warns.

"The fact is there really aren't that many of these men around, but on a positive note my book does prove to all the women who are out there wondering, 'What am I doing wrong, is it me?', that they're not mad or even unreasonably choosy.

"We have to be very proactive in our search. Forget looking in clubs or pubs, we need to learn to do things differently," Losada adds.

After listening to "literally over a hundred" of her attractive, successful and financially independent single women friends regularly lament the lack of interesting and available men, Losada says she felt compelled to find some answers.

"I thought that I'd become a self-elected representative of all intelligent women over the age of 35 and try to solve the problem once and for all!" she laughs.

"We're not talking about women in their 20s who want to meet a guy and have fun, as we know that's perfectly possible, and we're not talking about casual sex either, as that's not difficult for women to find.

"No, what we're talking about are women who are genuinely looking for a man with whom to share the rest of their life and probably have a family."