Some single women have Bridget Jones. Others have Jane Austen. Increasingly, after spending a lot of time in big knickers, my female friends and I are falling into the latter faction. Just last week, one of them sent me a meme from Pride and Prejudice – the 2005 film (obviously) starring Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Bennet and Matthew Macfadyen as Mr Darcy. “You have bewitched me body and soul,” says Macfadyen, who, in the role of Darcy, has transformed from a misanthropic f*** boy into a full-blown lovestruck heartthrob. “And I love, I love, I love you,” he continues. “And wish from this day forth never to be parted from you.”
Over the top of the reel, a quote read: “It’s always ‘wyd’ and never ‘yhbmbasaililily’.” To those unfamiliar with textspeak, the former can be translated to, “what you doing?” and the latter is an acronym for the aforementioned Darcy quote that myself and literally every other single woman I know would love to hear. If for nothing else than to diversify a lexical canon that is mostly comprised of phrases such as: “wuu2”, “wanna hang out 2nyt?”, and “I’m not looking for anything serious.”
Clearly, I’m not alone. The reel in question has been liked more than 137,000 times. “GIVE ME THIS MAN NOW,” reads one of the hundreds of comments. “Bring back yearning,” begs another. On top of that, Spotify recently reported a 75 per cent week-on-week spike in listens to the Pride and Prejudice audiobook since Netflix announced its incoming adaptation written by Dolly Alderton and starring Emma Corrin, Jack Lowden and Olivia Colman. Streams of the BBC adaptations soundtrack have also soared by 120 per cent, The Times reports, noting that Strictly Jane Austen Tours has also seen a 50 per cent boost in bookings in the last six months, with a noticeable surge in Gen Z and millennial clients.
Frankly, I’m not remotely surprised. With modern-day dating rituals sucking the life out of all of us, one half-hearted swipe at a time, it makes sense that single people are craving a return to a simpler time, one without smartphones, dating apps and invitations to “Netflix and Chill”. Austen’s Regency era sounds so much more inviting. Without the mind-numbing madness of technology, romance was free to blossom more organically with rituals such as courtship, where couples would go on walks together to get to know each other before agreeing to be involved. Sometimes, the women would be accompanied by chaperones to ensure they were respected throughout the exchange. I daren’t think about the litany of disastrous dates I could’ve been spared had a benevolent chaperone been by my side.
Obviously there are some archaisms best left in the past (single women were practically second-class citizens) and many of the ones we know about (think Bridgerton-style balls) would’ve been reserved for the upper echelons of British society. But even marginally less old-fashioned traditions, such as writing love letters, walking someone home, and generally just taking a little more time and care over the whole dating process, would be a welcome change to our current romantic reality. Or at the very least, an antidote to some of its deeply modern brutalities: yes, ghosting is still a thing.
Don’t get me wrong, my friends and I are still “on the apps”, as we say. But we’re trying hard to wean ourselves off and look for love in the wild instead. Although to be completely honest, it’s not something I’m desperate to find right away. Because I know that I could open my phone and, within a matter of minutes, probably find someone quite quickly. Not a long-term partner, necessarily, but a fling. The kind who I could spend one night with only to never hear from again until, out of nowhere, they send a 1am text: “wyd?” It might take a little longer but I think it would be worth it to wait a while longer in the hope of eventually receiving a more comprehensive message. One that says, oh I don’t know, let’s go with: “yhbmbasaililily”.
