Sorry Anita, but New York is the problem, not the "western dating scene." Some combination of New York's culture and demographics make it a toxic hellhole for single women. I moved two hours away (at 39) and met a man on my first try. Three years together and counting--and he has a job! Single women who chose to stay in NYC past age 25 are asking for spinsterdom, not that there's anything intrinsically wrong with that...

chilled - if there's nothing wrong with being single, then why do you use what is an obviously pejorative term for it--spinster? (And I would argue that there's much to be gained from it.)

And here here, tempus...good points.

"Having found a girlfriend or boyfriend from an Internet site still seems the refuge of the desperate and socially isolated."

Yes, whereas fleeing the country and arranged marriages are the refuge of the confident and socially desired?

Sorry, sister. I don't think so.

As an unmarried woman in NYC--yes, dating is hard. It's an expensive and isolating city. I do disagree that dating in NYC = dating in Western (American) culture. I also suspect that many Americans do use a system to find a partner (through school/church/work/family/clubs) especially as more of us sequester behind gated communities and mega churches and join extended social interest groups. Only certain companies really disapprove of dating. Dating is highly prevalent at all companies (big/small and heavily institutional/start up) that I've worked at.

If lack of a system means that I have the possibility of a happy, self directed life--yes, I'm glad we got rid of a formal system. The possibility of being stuck in a loveless marriage and scared of the shame of divorce (I had an aunt in the mid 1940s who had to move to a different town and change her name when she divorced because people were so mean to her)is a hard one for young women to imagine now--how many women throughout history around the world would have loved to have our options.

Jain didn't find someone in college and didn't find someone in her 20's? It must be hard with the cultural load--life being hard at times doesn't mean that the traditional system would have made our lives better.

In Jain's position, I'd be worried about connecting myself to the shifting Indian cultural system that she described. If you get married, but there's a cultural trend that's more permissive to sleeping around--couldn't you face adultery and divorce along with the pressure and shame to stay in a troubled marriage? The movie "Water" about Indian widow houses was set about the same time as my aunt's divorce--along with suttee, the caste system, untouchables, and the misogyny that Jain notes--there are some terrible cultural traditions that she doesn't have to deal with at the same time that she is playing up the benefits of Indian traditions.

I object to the Jain's statements about Western (American) culture: She doesn't consider Christian religions (belief in afterlife, miracles, blind faith, saints, god) and books/folklore/popular entertainment to be proof of interest and traditions of mysticism? While there is that Puritan/Protestant Alpha treatment of independence, we also have just as prevalent concerns about the role of the nuclear family and "family values". American pop culture has a lot of conflicted, hyped double standards--I think largely to distract us from how controlled and dependent we actually are in the West.

I hope the book is more complex than the summary--I'll flip through it at a store.

Ug--I wish we could edit our posts.

Have to agree with the women who are writing about NYC being a problem in terms of dating. I do not live there but have several young female friends living there and have noticed that they do have an extradionary time finding men who are interested in being in relationships. I think that New Yorks ever-changing, ever-exciting, ever-new-new-new culture attracts a certain kind of man who is interested in things that are exciting, new, and ever-changing---and is not the kind of man that is interested in a long-term relationship.

Of course I am painting it with a broad brush, not all the men are like this, but it seems to be a trend that my girlfriends have experienced as they have spent their twenties in NYC.

And that's the part that, I think, leads certain upper-class urbanites to have so much trouble. Look at any given small, working-class town in the Midwest and you'll see plenty of women married in their early twenties. Generally not via arranged marriages. And their husbands don't expect them to do an hour at the gym every day or spend hundreds of dollars on hair coloring or any of it.

But these men out there just waiting to be husbands don't look like Calvin Klein underwear models or even C-list TV stars. They don't make a quarter of a million dollars per year or more. They won't be sending their future kids to elite preschools, they don't live a Manhattan lifestyle.

My husband-to-be (who I have now lived with for two years) is a great guy. I met him online. He's shorter than I am and still has somewhat nebulous career plans. We're never going to be wealthy people, or beautiful people. But we're happy people. So I think it takes setting some priorities. What do you really want--the life that looks perfect on the outside, or the life that feels perfect on the inside?

again?

On the cusp of a madcap adventure that results in either conjugal bliss or continues the trauma of desire?

I think I've read this before, fifteen times.

the US has too many cultures all mixed together to have a successful marriage market.

there's definitely problems with our dating system. online dating sux for the most part, the bar scene sux, the inequality in awareness of biological clocks sux as well. women are forced into sperm banks to have kids while the guys sit in front of their HD tvs.

meetup dot com is the way to go. you find your type of people by what you like to do, and the people are actually _doing_ the stuff, and not just bleating about it in their ads. It worked for me, and I've seen it work for others.