Bloody Mr. Darcy

It’s a result of many factors that my last post was on my first day in my new job, whilst this one is within weeks of it finishing. Quite a bit has happened since then; I’m now single, have made little leaps in the writing department, a real sense of the industry and an unexpected love affair with London.

Funnily enough, the subject which has tempted me back to the blog is one of romance; justified by recent experience, reading and (trying to tenuously link it back) telly.

To preface this, my tube journeys to and from work do, when I am not catching those few extra z’s en route to Waterloo, consist of a lot of reading – most recently an interesting article in a collection of essays on Pride and Prejudice in which discuss the textual, contextual and intertextual impact of the character of Fitzwilliam Darcy.  However, this essentially can be succinctly put, in the words of my good friend Shell: “Mr. Darcy has ruined romance for me forever”.

The article states that a character vacuum is created by the mysterious figure of Mr. Darcy (and indeed, it asserts, any anti-heroic or Byron-esque character) in the original novel which, even more so than its film and television adaptations, only appears a handful of times during the book. This, it argues, allows the audience to project all the characteristics they choose onto him, giving the audience no insight into the workings of his brain until far later in the narrative, where their faith in him is rewarded by his “true” colours; his altruism, his generosity and his love for protagonist Elizabeth. No wonder there’s no hope for us real ladies and gents!

Emotional experiences are now consumed constantly, in ever shorter and more heightened form. Although I’ll reserve judgement on the content until I’ve seen it, I did spot that by the second episode billing for BBC1′s Single Father, the protagonist had lost his loved one, grieved and already hopped into bed with another woman. You only have to watch an episode of Grey’s Anatomy or almost any other serial drama to find characters (mostly women) looking for “true love”, which is ultimately (although not usually indefinitely) rewarded.

Obviously the purposes of the story told often requires this, but I sometimes feel that art is beginning to show life up for the meandering, imperfect and banal place that it can often be. We all hope to fall in love with someone on the train or across a crowded room at a party; someone we can project our ideal qualities onto without the hassle and disappointment which comes from real relationships. Living vicariously allows us the highs and lows without the mess, but how easy is it to distinguish that from our real love lives; if not our conduct, at least our expectations?

Now down to the sordid business of the recent experience (which is all that may have brought you this far). An unusual thing happened to me on the way home this evening: getting on the front of the 23:16 H22 bus from Richmond to Twickenham I spot a dark haired, nice-looking chap around my age on the back row. We share a little look and a polite smile. Later in the journey we catch each others’ eye.  I smile again, this time a little amusedly – we’re both busted.  I get out my keys the stop before I’m due to get off and he gives me a proper friendly smile as the bus stops and he exits. I wonder if I should say hello, or goodnight, since we’ve now exchanged about 8 glances? What’s etiquette here, and how do I avoid seeming sluttish in this instance?

Before I know it I’ve inexplicably gotten off at the earlier stop as well, just as he crosses onto the other side of the road. I laugh at myself for overthinking the entire scenario in my head, but note that although mystery man has not struck up conversation with an intelligent quip or introduced himself, my instincts may be good; he is obviously not an axe murderer, or at least is one considerate enough to wave a thank you to the bus driver as the bus pulls away.

So I figure the extra 100m walk in the cold is punishment for an overactive imagination as we walk parallel on opposite sides of the road. As I wonder when he’s going to turn off, he crosses back over right in front of me. We keep walking up the road until I reach my door – and as pick out my key I see him turn from the corner of my eye (presumably because the click-clicking of my heels has stopped) and look – dead at me.  He’s a little ways away now but there’s no excuse this time. We hold our gaze for a second and he turns away again. Not quite sure what to make of it, I turn my key to go in and then at the corner of the road before he turns off he stops and looks back at me again. This feels a a bit obvious now and the realms of a casual conversation en route home have gone, so I quickly go inside.

Obviously nothing actually happened, and perhaps he’s blogging elsewhere in the stratosphere about some freaky commuter who kept staring at him on the bus home, but I only realised afterwards that we both live just next to the bus stop after the one we both chose to get off at and walk from.

Was there any reason why two complete strangers both got off at an earlier stop which we both knew was further from our homes? And did he get off because I got my keys out of my bag and therefore thought *I* was leaving?

The very fact that my sad brain has even thought about this justifies my larger point, but I don’t think it’s just me. I think our expectations of romance are now warped by Hollywood, by television, by “chick-lit”.  We want someone to pick us out from the crowd, to see something unique inside us and to find us intriguing, interesting and worth their time and effort. I would argue that this is by far a more female preoccupation than male (for reasons I won’t investigate here) but then, there may be a whole other case to make for the unobtainable perfect partner in lad’s mags too.

So whilst my heart is currently unoccupied and the only man to have a place in my bed at present is my hot water bottle Trevor, I do wonder if my love for storytelling is the same thing which causes me to see things like this evening which aren’t there – and perhaps in creating them I actually move further away from whoever the real person was who smiled at me in the first place?

There’s definitely something in spirited mini-series Lost In Austen’s tongue-in-cheek reference to Amanda Price’s request that Mr. Darcy recreate *that* lake scene - and her referring to it as  “[h]aving a post-modern moment”. That mixture of the mysterious and yet emotionally accessible lover figure plays precisely to our fantasies – and is now ingrained in our culture as well.

Bloody Mr. Darcy has got a lot to answer for.

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