So men can never change? Once a player, always a player, or at least that's how the rather tiresome female mantra goes. Well if this is the case, would someone care to explain why the same men who broke hearts and drove women mad in their twenties are suddenly ready and willing to embrace the wife, kid and golden retriever when they hit their thirties?

I hate to break it to you ladies, but the whole "men never change" argument has more than a whiff of bitterness about it. In all honesty what you mean is he wouldn't change for you and rather than face the uncomfortable possibility that this could be personal, it's far more comforting to assume that he's fundamentally flawed and forever will be.

Not true, however. With the exception of a few psychologically broken individuals – and why are you mourning the loss of them in your life? – most men I know that were unrepentant players in their youth are willing to settle down somewhat when the time, and importantly the woman, is right.

The thing is we just approach the whole commitment issue from a different direction. While women may hit 25 or 30 and decide that now is the time to find The One and make The Baby, we are far more willing to amble lazily through until one day we are caught unawares by someone truly fantastic and suddenly lifelong monogamy and Baby Gap seem like perfectly desirable institutions. I don't think this is a position we ought to have to defend: it seems to me that when you make becoming a Mrs the goal, the Mr in question becomes a means to an end, with quality control inevitably slipping somewhere along the line.

That's not to guarantee of course that the right woman will always induce change. I have numerous friends who grudgingly admit that they let some fantastic women slip away in their earlier 20s under peer pressure not to settle down and the constant need to reassure ourselves that there isn't someone else that 0.25 per cent better out there.

To a large extent, there is truth in the claim that you can't force a man to change. No matter how amazing the potential mate, I've generally observed that friends that carry off the cad to dad transformation are motivated by something more personal first. For some it's been a family crisis; the death or illness of a parent can inspire them to place a previously unforeseen importance on family and commitment. For others it's simply boredom; the novelty of the new does wear off after a while. And yes, there are those that appeared to settle down because all their old drinking buddies had started disappearing on a Saturday night.

"Prove it", female friends always say. "Show me one man that's changed". And in evidence I present to you Warren Beatty. A renowned womaniser, he's bedded half of Hollywood and supposedly even inspired one-time-fling Carly Simon to write Your So Vein. Since then he's been enjoying wedded bliss with Annette Bening for 14 years and counting. And if that's not enough to make you all a bit more optimistic, what is?