...A thoroughly depressing Atlantic Monthly article with advice for single women age 30 and up: Settle! Ugh.
I will admit, though, that I related to this passage, even though I never watched Will and Grace:
"It’s not that I’ve become jaded to the point that I don’t believe in, or even crave, romantic connection. It’s that my understanding of it has changed. In my formative years, romance was John Cusack and Ione Skye in Say Anything. But when I think about marriage nowadays, my role models are the television characters Will and Grace, who, though Will was gay and his relationship with Grace was platonic, were one of the most romantic couples I can think of. What I long for in a marriage is that sense of having a partner in crime. Someone who knows your day-to-day trivia. Someone who both calls you on your bullshit and puts up with your quirks."
Actually, I think that what the author describes here (changing notions of romance) isn't settling at all, so much as it's growing up. Than again, maybe growing up is about settling into reality, whatever the heck that is.
Interestingly, I have just re-read Joyce's "Araby," a text we'll discuss in my ENG 102 course on Wednesday, and a story all about idealistic, romantic notions being crushed and put away:
"Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger."
Wake me up on February 15, okay?
5 comments:
Heidi --
I Totally Get where that author is Coming from. I think that My Mr. Right would never have been Dateable by My Twenty-Something Standards, mostly because My Twenty-Something Standards required Mr. Right to look a lot like John Taylor of Duran Duran.
And then I Grew Up.
Hang in there, Dr. Heidi!
xoxo,
TDR
Hey Heidi...
You can be my valentine! (just don't tell Mike!)
love,
Shan
I think that settling is a really good way to set yourself up for divorce. Whatever! That article really annoyed me. I could go off on all kinds of rants right now, but I am going to just let it go, because I am sure I wouldn't say anything that you didn't think of yourself, but seriously... Hmpf is all I have left to say.
Also, you should watch "Will and Grace." It is a pretty good show. It comes on Lifetime now. When a friend who shall remain nameless but you know who it is came out to me, the first thing I said was, "Hey! We can be just like Will and Grace." In all fairness to me, I had had a bit (or maybe a bit more than a bit) to drink that night, but the memory of it still amuses me.
I still find myself torn--I agree with TDR and Amber...and I think the author herself does, too.
Well, you don't always get the choice to settle. I was with Daniel for five years, just...happy. He wasn't everything, but for 90%+ of the time we were happy and good. I wanted to get married. He did not. For several years I tried to persuade myself that it was okay, that I didn't have to get married to him, that it was good enough to just be with him and live with him. And I think I could have been...only he decided we could no longer be together in that romantic sense. Which sucks, because he could be my straight Will.
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