Wow. My husband told me that this woman’s sons probably said, *“Mom!” *
when this letter ran in Princeton University’s newspaper. :eek:
Also, would you want to be the daughter-in-law of this woman? YMMV, but I wouldn’t.
Well, she came off pretty badly but I think she sort of had a valid point.
I think as a general rule, most people - men and women - want to have a permanent relationship at some point in their life. And her point seemed to be that women in a prestigious university like Princeton should realize they’ve got better opportunities around them now then they’ll ever have again. Right now they’re surrounded by fellow Princeton students. In a few years, they’ll be surrounded by co-workers and the guys they meet at bars.
I agree with Nemo: she was blunt, it doesn’t come across well, but she has a point.
The year my SO and I split up I was at drama school, not university. I went to normal bars, tried to meet guys. The only thing worse than guys who were intimidated by me was guys who weren’t intimidated. I didn’t go to Princeton, but the right crowd at a good university can offer such a great place to meet like-minded people. Meeting people who communicate at your level can be difficult in other settings, depending on what you end up doing.
The only thing I disagree with is the gender thing, that this would be more important for women. If I were a guy, I can’t imagine settling for someone who can’t keep up, or is just a pretty face.
I think she has a point too. Being of equal education level isn’t all that important, but being of equal intelligence is, and I think she’s right that if you are of above-average intelligence, your best chance to find a compatible intellectual peer is when you’re at a place like Princeton. Most intelligent people at Princeton would not voice these kinds of thoughts because it can be seen as arrogant and elitist, but I think it’s realistic to admit there could be problems finding someone who can relate to you in the general population if your intelligence and accomplishments are several standard deviations above average.
I think most people do best in a marriage with their intellectual peer, so her advice could probably apply to both men and women, but I can see why she aims it at women especially. I think it’s true that a marriage between a smart woman and dumb man is far less likely to work than between a dumb woman and smart man. There are plenty of guys who are satisfied to be married to a less intelligent woman as long as she has a nice personality, takes care of the kids, provides sex, looks hot, etc. On the other hand, I think most women would have a hard time respecting a man who they know is not their intellectual equal, even if the guy is really hot-looking.
That being said, online dating makes it a little easier to find your intellectual peer than just wading through random people at the bar.
When I was in medical school, I never considered dating classmates because of the drama potential (it’s a small world in med school) though I do think that there were many eligible singles in my class. I was able to find some guys in other careers through online dating that were at my intelligence level or smarter.
Soon I am going to be marrying a guy who did not go as far in school as I did but who I know is my intellectual equal (it’s obvious from how the conversations we have and how he sees the world, but he was also IQ tested when he was a kid, so I actually do feel confident that we are very similar intellectually).
When have women ever been the rate-limiting step in getting married? Is that not the men, typically?
I guess I don’t see why women are the targets of these types of missives, articles and commentaries. Between men and women, generally the latter is the one who wants to get married as young as possible. And it’s the guys who generally delay that in favor of playing the field/investing in their careers/prolonging adolescence. So pressuring women to “find husbands”–while ignoring the fact that it’s men who do the proposing!–seems to be a recipe for increasing early-20 something female angst unnecessarily.
Generally, there aren’t loads of undergrad males sitting in their dorm rooms at night, pining for the girl who will turn him into an honest man. The mother should be advising her son to find a wife and leave it at that.
The article addressed that point. It said that interviews with women students showed that many of them were deliberately avoiding serious relationships while in college. They figured college was a time for serious work and casual relationships. The idea was that a serious relationship in college would be a distraction and their expectation was that later, when their education was complete, they would look for a serious relationship.
I also don’t think relationships are as one-sided as you portray them here. It may be men who traditionally “pop the question” but they’re doing it in a established relationship and the woman has as much a role as the man in building that relationship.
“Your dating pool will never get more appealing than a bunch of Princeton students” is a pretty terrifying message.
Yes, but women still are the ones who are much more marriage-eager then men are. That has pretty much always has been the case and has shown no signs of changing. Do you disagree with this?
I agree with the mother in thinking that women are less likely to see college as a marriage gateway as opposed to a place where they obtain education and job credentials. But I think that’s a positive thing. It’s a reflection that women see themselves as people who have more than just looks and sexual desirability to offer the world. You know, like men. I’ve long noticed that just as soon as women take on the very same attitudes that have contributed to men’s success and enabled them to take on leadership positions in our society, then someone is always ready to treat the ladies to fear mongering so that they remember their “true” place and make them anxious about their choices in life.
I think it’s unhelpful to both sexes, actually. Convince women that “now’s your best and only chance for love!” and they’ll end up marrying out of fear, not because they are ready or particularly compatible with someone. I guess folks don’t care about divorce rates and single parenthood.
(I’ve been in some heated discussions on another message board about the constant preaching to women that seems so popular today, which may explain why I am ultra opinionated about this right now.)
Your experiences are out of date by 20-30 years. Things have changed, at least with more prestigious college educated young people. You certainly don’t have to go to a top tier school like Princeton to find your expectations are wildly off the mark. There are virtually no undergrad women hoping to be made into an honest woman. They’re hoping to get into a great PhD program or get hired by a top Wall Street firm.
That’s the way
Uh huh,
Uh huh,
I like it
Uh huh,
Uh huh
The best part is knowing that somewhere, there’s a Harvard woman telling her Harvard daughter, “Yale is fine, I suppose, but if you’re not careful, you’ll have to make do with one of the lesser schools, like Princeton.”
Compared to the crowd you’re going to find hanging out on a Friday night at Houlihan’s in five years?
It is? 
I take it you’re a Harvard man then?
I’m not suggesting women should go to college with the attitude of “my goal in college is to find a husband.” But if a person’s ultimate goal (man or woman) is to have a career and a family, they should be planning for both goals.
And while college may not be the only chance for finding love, for a lot of people it probably is the best place.
That means the exact opposite of what you think it means. Men are already pulling their weight on the proposal front - it is absurd to claim that they’re still the rate-limiting step because they don’t propose more often, and that women are not despite almost not proposing at all.
In my experience, undergraduate students at any college are a pretty shitty dating pool. I’d certainly rather date an adult my own age with a degree from an average college than a 20 year old college student from Princeton.
I get that the real idea is the Princeton student will mature into a great spouse, but I assume **Tom Tildrum’s ** point was that the statement taken literally makes it sound like you’ll never have a better dating pool than self-absorbed 20 year olds with absolutely no life experience.
And a woman who graduated from Princeton will never work with men from other Ivy League schools? Granted the numbers are in their favor while in school, but it’s not like they go from Princeton University to teaching remedial reading at a community college.
I don’t think this is debatable, but for some reason, it is a message disproportionately directed towards women. As if men don’t need someone to point out the obvious but for some reason women do.
In the case of the OP, the mom really is trying to address her son’s inability to score chicks by guilting or scaring women. His difficulties couldn’t possibly be due to him. It’s that women don’t know what’s good for them. This Nice Guy-like agenda squashes whatever points she made to me.
Princeton is a clown college.
Young people going through school have always been surrounded by their peers. It’s part of the educational system to be grouped with a crowd of other people with the same approximate age and experience you have. Having lived like this for virtually their entire lives, these young people have come to assume this is the way life is.
Then they graduate from high school or college. And just like that, they’re no longer part of the “Class of 2013”. They enter the workplace and go from an environment where they’re surrounded by other people their age to one where people their age are a small minority in the crowd.