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October 16, 2003
Marriage, the new merger
Do all you Sex and the City fans remember the episode where Carrie agrees to give a lecture to a bunch of single New York women on “how to find a man”? Now there’s a lot about the show that I find far fetched, maybe I’ve been living in the land of the pure too long, but that particular episode seemed slightly ludicrous. Could single women have it so bad that they’d pay a huge amount of cash to get tips on finding the perfect man — and that too from a columnist who doesn’t exactly score on relationships?
It turns out that life imitates art. As I write this, a new book (printed in, where else but, America?) by Rachel Greenwald, Find a Husband After 35 Using What I Learned at Harvard Business School is the new single woman’s bible. Greenwald, a business graduate, uses the same tricks of the financial trade but applies it to finding a man. She presents a 15-point strategy in her book — which includes marketing strategies, branding yourself, enlisting support staff and quarterly reviews to name a few. You’re not going to be surprised to hear that she’s already sold the movie rights.
Greenwald rebukes all charges that it is only the desperados who are buying her books or listening to her lectures. “I want to eradicate the word “desperate” from the dictionary,” she said in an interview to the Observer. Despite her novel idea of investing in men as if they were stocks and bonds, what does this say about women who will go to whatever lengths to find a husband?
There’s no doubt that women have come a long way but when it comes to measuring their personal successes, why do they feel that they need a man to complete the picture? Do I think there’s anything wrong with that? No. It’s just that I’ve seen too many phenomenal women give it all up to marry Mr Wrong all because they didn’t want to be alone. How many women (and men) do you know who ‘settled’ when it came to marriage?
I’m not even talking about Pakistani women who have an extra hurdle in the form of family and societal pressures. I refer here to the scores of American women and British women who will be lining up to hear Greenwald the Guru spiel her stuff when the book is released there next year. If I’m going to use Greenwald’s tactics like “telemarketing, ringing everyone in your book to ask if they know of any potential partners...’auditing’ and conducting ‘exit interviews’ and getting a third party to contact unsuccessful dates for feedback” I expect a Nobel prize for patience, not a husband.
Has my Pakistani cynicism got the worst of me? When I first read about Greenwald’s book, I immediately emailed an American friend of mine, FC, to ask her to read the book and get back to me with comments. No surprises for guessing that not only had she already read it, but she was sounding like a mini version of Greenwald herself.
My friend, who wouldn’t know a business merger if it hit her in the face, has, so far, been on numerous horrendous dates with men her married friends had set her up with — a tactic Greenwald tells you to apply. FC even contacted a “friend”, a woman she and I had sworn never to speak to after a particularly nasty incident that took place in 1999. She wrote to me, “if you want to find a man, you can’t afford to be picky.”
Excuse me? I thought the whole reason women in their 30s were single was because they spent their entire 20s promising themselves they would never settle.
This idea of approaching romance in a corporate manner is all very good for Greenwald and the millions that she will mint — which, let’s face it, is what she really learned at Harvard Business School. But what can we expect next? Dating advice from Bill Gates?
Ironically enough, Greenwald doesn’t tell you to look inward and ask her readers to ponder on why they are single or any positive aspects of being single. On the contrary she writes: “It doesn’t matter why you are single. It matters what you are going to do about it,” she said. This is why I dread women ending up in the arms of Mr Wrong.
I suppose I agree with Greenwald on one thing: I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting a husband. But at what cost? Do you want to do what Greenwald suggests which is “brand” yourself, i.e., constantly look your best, accept every invitation that comes your way, and enlist the support of an entire team of people who will be scouring the streets of Karachi for a husband for you? All this for a husband who will discover the following day that he married a slob who’s happier in the company of Labradors? Oh wait, that’s what my husband-to-be can look forward to.
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