When she catches up with long lost female friends, Tarfa Itani usually anticipates their first question: 'Are you married' 'I answer 'no',' says the thirty-something jewellery designer and boutique owner in Beirut. And then they usually follow-up with, 'Why, you're pretty' Her eyes sparkle as she talks to filmmaker Simon El Habre who is on his own personal quest to discover why, at 40, he hasn't yet found the woman he feels he wants to commit the rest of his life to. Finding time for a personal life has not been easy and though Itani's had several relationships, she hasn't yet found a life partner. She feels that women's expectations finding the perfect man are unrealistic, but also believes that many Lebanese women these days no longer feel pressure to see marriage as the be all and end all. It's not a burden or a responsibility. It's about companionship, love and beautiful moments together. It's unfair to link marriage to all these negative thoughts. Tarfa Itani, jewellery designer and owner of Falamank Boutique 'It's not a burden or a responsibility,' she says standing in her jewellery boutique where she supplies a growing Arab and international market. She's referring to social pressures and growing divorce rates. 'It's about companionship, love and beautiful moments together. It's unfair to link marriage to all these negative thoughts.' El Habre comes across a number of factors contributing to increasing numbers of single, thirty-plus women in Lebanon. Women outnumber men by more than 2 percent in the country of six million. It's a situation that becomes more pronounced as people enter their late thirties and early forties and is exacerbated by the sometimes rigid roles imposed by Lebanese society, across religious and cultural boundaries. Getting work has become an increasing problem following the end of the Lebanese Civil War, in 1990. Unemployment hovers around seven percent today, so many men now work abroad, marrying foreign wives. Educated Lebanese women