Posted by Christine is a woman I met on OKCupid. It was fun communicating with someone from Newcastle upon Tyne in northern England. She and I had psychology, anthropology, and social sciences in common. She went to great schools–Manchester and Harvard. Her writing was smart and fun.
She also was part, or half of a gross marriage. They separated while moving a family with three kids from St. Louis to Scotland. It took five years of apparent acrimony for an eventual divorce in 2008. Now, after five more years she is selling her house, car, furniture, and moving to the United States. Her youngest child is seventeen (and I don’t know where); a daughter attends UNC and will move to Denver while a son now lives in Phoenix.
Despite mutual interests and even affection for each other we were at odds. She wrote a long biopic of her marriage. “No nothing.” I was trying to communicate and help. Basically, she would have none of it.
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For some time my curiosity has been why can’t women around my age deal with a life being single and on their own:
Some (women) can, some can’t, and some are willing to try. The differences in gender roles are real. The role of being a professional or breadwinner as opposed to a homemaker is significant. For about the last ten years I have in large been in the position of homemaker, albeit without kids. I like it. I prefer it to working every day. But it is tough to break out of and become a real contributor to society. This is of course unless you have practiced, and continuously learned and tried to do it.
Back to Christine… I picked-up the phone and called, something some women will not do. I was surprised. She was nice and I liked her laugh, which was frequent. She was concerned, almost overwhelmed, by the huge and unusual task of selling everything and moving to a city she had never been to before. She struck me as being not really in control of the whole situation.
Christine’s profile on the online dating site mentions Pride and Prejudice as her favorite film (I assume she means the 1995 BBS mini-series as this is generally considered superior to the 2004 film). Christine also indicates an affection for the name Darcy/D’arcy. Pride and Prejudice is two-hundred year old fiction. Romance and fantasy is fine, but that is what it is.
It, this whole thing, is not about equal, close, unequivocally-loving by people who want to excel and achieve.