For those of you who did not have Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice as required reading in high school literature, it’s a story about two people who were initially not attracted to one another, but because of being repeatedly thrusted in each other’s way, eventually saw through their own pride (and prejudice) and well, fell in love.

I was around 15 or 16 when I first read this novel.

This was the exact same cover of my first copy

Unlike Elizabeth and her sisters, I was then under no pressure to marry for another 10 odd years (creds to the two-century generational gap).

But like Elizabeth and her sisters, I was — or at least, felt — pressured to date.

Almost all my peers were doing it.

All the guys had to do was ask a girl out, while the girls had to sit prettily and wait.

So I waited and waited.

High school graduation came and went, and it was time to move up to the university.

Surely in a new student population of 10,000, I was going to find at least one date-able human being?

After all, all those Austenite and Brontean heroines found their matches in small towns with no more than 2,000 people.

So why was I unable to get a single date?

Who knows, kiddo?

It occurred to me on multiple occasions that I just wasn’t attractive enough.

This, of course, was instantly refuted by friends and family (as can be expected of friends and family).

“You’re just too intimidating,” was another remark I heard all too often.

That somehow, the grades I got had a disproportionate relationship to my chances of getting asked out.

“But I don’t want to get asked out by a guy with so fragile a masculinity as to be discouraged by a girl who gets better grades than he does.”

Which merited eye rolls from my girl friends, but also that which I prayed, was heard by a real-life Mr. Darcy.

Brood. Sip. Repeat.

Somebody who was attracted, not repelled, by a strong, outspoken woman.

And so, once again, college graduation came and went, and I remained the spinster that I was at 15.

I took up a teaching post in an all-girls school with an all-girls staff.

Before I knew it, 99% of my post-university social circle was composed of women.

And I suppose if it weren’t for my last-minute decision to move to Dubai over 2 years ago, life would have continued the way it was headed: a fast-track to spinsterhood.

“Caaattt!” she cried in the pouring rain

But when I finally moved here, I was deprived of my all-female safety net, whose constant companionship almost always distracted me from my hopelessly single existence.

So I started dating.

Which was suddenly less complicated in the Age of Online Dating.

That mini heart attack you get when you swipe right without meaning to

So if you’re still with me, you might be wondering, “What does Pride and Prejudice have anything to do with your life story?”

The answer, like all other real life stories, is nothing.

Pride and Prejudice is a work of fiction.

And if women patterned their lives after Elizabeth Bennet, then in all likelihood, they would end up as spinsters.

Because you can’t count on fate to repeatedly put you in your Mr. Darcy’s way — if you have a Mr. Darcy at all.

(Bingley? Wickham? Collins? Anybody?!?)

What I missed out in my narrative was the presence of a guy who I had considered my personal Mr. Darcy.

Except that he was much more charming right from the start.

And even though we lived in a small city, we didn’t regularly bump into each other like in the novels or movies.

Bewitching

Truth be told, we never saw each other unless we actually planned to do so.

And what with him not reciprocating my feelings and all, we only ever saw each other twice or thrice a year.

Does that make me sad?

No, at least, not anymore.

If anything, it taught me a valuable lesson to take matters into my own hands.

So by the time I saw Adam’s profile in one of the online dating sites, I had no scruples texting “Hey” first.

And it’s lucky that I did, because months into our relationship, he confided that he would never have messaged me first.

He thought that I was “out of his league.”

I thought it was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard.

I laughed but he was dead serious.

It reminded me of a time when I was 14.

There was a guy in school who I’d gotten into a petty fight with before freshman year ended.

I sent him one apology text during the summer, and we ended up texting nonstop for the rest of summer break.

Somehow, it was a lot harder to act normal around him when sophomore year started.

One fine day (a Sunday because I distinctly remember I was preparing to go to Mass), he texted me that he “liked” me.

I replied with a “Haha” and said I had to go.

Tried to play it cool, even though I was over the moon.

He thought I’d rejected him.

If my life were a Jane Austen novel, a serendipitous event would have led to confessing our true feelings to each other.

a la Charles Bingley and Jane Bennet

But I waited too long, and he grew far too resentful of my quote-and-quote rejection.

It didn’t take long for him to get over it (whatever it was we had).

For the next two years in high school, I had to endure seeing him date a string of girls in our class.

That was over 10 years ago.

And I have since learned to be less dependent on fate when it comes to matters of the heart.

These were just some of the thoughts that went inside my mind as I was rewatching the 2005 movie adaptation of “Pride and Prejudice” over the weekend.

I was every bit as entertained as I was the first time I saw it.

I got the same butterflies fluttering in my stomach during Elizabeth and  Mr. Darcy’s serendipitous meetings.

“Mr. Darcy! What are you doing here?”

But I was now able to sort out fact from fiction.

At the end, even Elizabeth had to venture out of her home in Hertfordshire and into the heart of Pemberley to see Mr. Darcy again.

Whatevs, Lizzie