I think, then, that you and the article are talking past each other. There's nothing in the article that says one should settle for he who "drinks, spends money like crazy, and flirts with every beautiful woman he sees". The examples given are "The failure of one particular partner to save us from our grief and melancholy is not an argument against that person" and "The person who is best suited to us is not the person who shares our every taste (he or she doesn’t exist), but the person who can negotiate differences in taste intelligently", neither of which I see as particularly big sins.

Indeed, I'm a bit baffled by the commenters (in this subthread and elsewhere) that are interpreting the article's main point as "have no standards". It is not contradictory to have high standards and also realize that no partner is going to complete us or make us happy all the time. It just means realizing that momentary unhappiness is a part of life, and that it's worth forgiving the little things if the big things are in place.