Editing Question

[evanslily]

Writing a story for the upcoming contest, seeking other opinions.

In the following paragraph a guy is thinking about some questions. Does this read okay? Is it technically sound? Any suggestions? Thanks.

He'd had several girlfriends in the years since, but nothing serious. When one casual relationship ended, he'd ask himself, <i>So where do I find my next girlfriend?</i> But now, fast approaching thirty, that question was changing from, <i>Where do I find my next girlfriend?</i> to <i>Where do I find myself a wife?</i>

Apparently the italic-thing doesn't work, but imagine the marked lines as being italicized.

(To get the italics in forum posts you need these sort of brackets [ ])

Other than the point sr71plt made about modifying the wrong noun (and if I'm honest, I didn't notice that on first reading), the thing that struck me as I read this was that there's no need to repeat the question.

What do I mean? Well...

He'd had several girlfriends in the years since, but nothing serious. When one casual relationship ended, he'd ask himself, So where do I find my next girlfriend? But now, fast approaching thirty, that question was changing to Where do I find myself a wife?

(no need to say where do I find my next girlfriend? twice)

But that's just me, purely a stylistic thing.