Mr. Darcy, the universal value

I've been struggling to write about the NYT's companion article to the one I blogged about last week, about love in Saudi Arabia. The first article had me thinking about how different our cultures are. The second is making me think about how similar we are. The young women in the article are in their late teens and are either in high school or studying at university. When I was that age I attended an all-girls high school (something my French relatives thought was the summit of American religious fundamentalism), and was just as confused and puzzled by the male species as they seem to be. Of course, I did interact with boys on a regular basis at my part-time job, and even though I didn't really date I did attend several dances escorted by a series of nervous, slightly awkward young men. I, too, spent a lot of time in groups of girls, giggling and watching movies like Titanic, Pride and Prejudice, and a whole slew of unremarkable romantic comedies starring Cameron Diaz or Kate Hudson. Unlike the Saudi girls, though, everything in my culture, from Hollywood to my mother's exhortations to "put on some make-up and smile, for crying out loud," told me to get out there, meet guys, date them, and have marathon phone conversations with my girlfriends about these boys and the strange things they did.

Years later, female friendships are still the most important relationships in my life, even as I follow my society's cultural expectation that I will "put myself out there" and continue my quest for Mr. Right. I have to say, having been on more bad first dates than I care to admit, the thought has occurred to me that it would be nice to get some help from Mom and Dad. How can I be expected to both find guys to date AND evaluate them for suitability? That's an awful lot of work. I do have a full-time job, you know.

It occurs to me that in the States at least (and I think this is starting to spread to Europe as well) online dating sites like Match.com, J-date, e-harmony, etc. are filling the void left by the yentas and Mrs. Bennetts of yore, with the added benefit that the website won't harp on you b/c you rejected a perfectly nice Jewish doctor (or whatever your mother's ideal man happens to be) in favor of a starving artist who gives you butterflies. Personally I would gladly pay the subscription to the matchmaking service just to avoid the maternal recriminations.

I am glad, though, to have the final say in the evaluation of these suitors (with input from the Dating Committee, of course). That said, I've been thinking a lot about Lori Gottlieb's article in The Atlantic, in which she argues that American women need to be less picky about men if they want to get married at all. Her primary audience is 30-something women, but even as a 20-something I see truth in her argument that

what makes for a good marriage isn’t necessarily what makes for a good romantic relationship. Once you’re married, it’s not about whom you want to go on vacation with; it’s about whom you want to run a household with. Marriage isn’t a passion-fest; it’s more like a partnership formed to run a very small, mundane, and often boring nonprofit business. And I mean this in a good way.

Certainly I've learned that what makes a guy attractive for bar-flirting and number-getting (and drunken poor life decisions) doesn't make for a good romantic relationship. It's not that there aren't good people to be met in bars (after all, you're there), it's that the qualities needed to shine on the bar scene do not make a knight (or maiden) in shining armor.

As different as my life is from those of the Saudi girls and women interviewed, there are some universal truths out there:

Shaden sighed, deeply. “When Darcy comes to Elizabeth and says ‘I love you’ — that’s exactly the kind of love I want.”

After all, it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. ;-)