One of the more intriguing and revealing scenes of Pride & Prejudice is where Elizabeth Bennet eats a family dinner at Netherfield while taking care of her ill sister, and where the husband of a a future sister-in-law of her sister, a man who merely looks the gentleman without having the means to support that image, looks downs on her because she prefers a plain meal to a ragout, and has nothing else to say to her after that. This is not a terrible loss, as he tends to sleep though the musical entertainment provided by the accomplished ladies at Netherfield and has no apparent interest in books either. It would probably have been difficult for me to have a conversation with someone who was obsessed with appearance and had no interest in substance as well, and I imagine the same thing to have been the case with the future Mrs. Darcy, so I suspect that she too had a problem finding something both witty and kind to say back to him.

It was more than a little bit of a relief that for the first time recently my enjoyment of a friendly erev Shabbat dinner with some relatively close brethren of mine was undimmed by concern over their matchmaking tendencies [1] on the part of the host. Admittedly, I tend to be rather honest about my lack of skill when it comes to matters of courtship and romance, even by rather pitiful standards of my time. That said, I have not found that the interference of other people within my life in this regard has helped matters any, not least because I tend to be rather resistant to people trying to pressure or manipulate me, and to their credit the ladies involved have felt and acted the same way I did, with a sense of reluctance, if not outright hostility, to being pressured into any sort of romantic intimacy themselves. I tend to believe that relationships are like plants, which although I am not necessarily skilled at dealing with, are organic and must be planted, cared for, and allowed to bloom on their own, and cared for once they bloom.

As it happens, the conversation I had with our hosts was enjoyable, as there was no need for any of the biblical games, but rather there was rather serious conversation about life, family, relationships (or the lack thereof!), and history. My hosts were particularly interested in knowing how and why I became interested in the arcane history of Chilean military history for my MA capstone paper, which was an amusing story told of an ambitious German military officer in the late 1800’s, a Chilean-born German girl, and political intrigue, corruption, business, and matters of high diplomatic sensitivity. When I ponder the lives of others, I wonder about the fact that despite the differences of culture and tradition that there are a lot of similarities between people even across wide gulfs of distance both spatially and temporally. The same longings and nature exist in humans, although the way in which we fulfill those longings in light of the differing circumstances we face lead to a wide difference in personal fates. How to behave justly and wisely and kindly and sincerely are matters that fill a life with ceaseless endeavor and immense challenge, no matter the advantages of birth and circumstance.

Needless to say, while I was happy that I did not have to deal with another attempt to have an enjoyable conversation with a stranger or a near-stranger with the concern of some kind of ulterior motives or agendas, the conversation was not entirely absent conversation of the divorces and the drama of life. Given my own family background, I have a great sympathy for the little ones whose optimism and hope are hurt, and whose ability to trust is deeply harmed because they were born to parents who simply weren’t able to work it out. Without seeking to cast blame on any sides, and while recognizing that as adults we can be stunningly selfish and hurtful in our behavior, my heart goes out most for those who did not in any way ask to be involved in their own family dramas, the innocent children whose lives are shaped and dramatically harmed by the sins of their fathers and mothers. For some day those little children will become adults of their own, faced with a baffling and uncomfortable world of relationships, in which they will seek to fulfill their own longings in the adverse circumstances that they will have to deal with, with the tension between their own hopes and fears, their longings and paralyzing lack of trust.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2014/08/02/matchmaker-matchmaker-make-me-a-match/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2014/08/10/roll-with-it/