Welcome to Douglas Wilson's Blog and May Blog, presented by Canon Press.

I'm avoiding romantic reverie, May 18th, 2022.

Dear Darla, in my last letter, I talked about the surreptitious competition that women

tend to engage in, as opposed to the out-and-the-open competition is preferred by men.

Women tend to compete about everything, women included, while women tend to compete over

men in a way that extends into everything.

Not only is this the case, but there are gradations to that surreptitious competition.

Take a hypothetical case, the one I used earlier.

Say that an eligible bachelor moves into your community, into your circle.

One of the first things that people do is that they start matchmaking in their heads,

and they start doing this almost immediately.

This can be done in a way that exhibits really bad manners, and it can be done in a way

that is characterized by modesty and good taste, but it is going to be done.

All the older church ladies immediately begin wondering if, quote, he would be good for

so and so.

The bad manners come in when they start wondering this out loud, or if they fail to

give the young gentlemen a minute to unpack his suitcase.

The younger women do the same thing, but will usually be more reticent to talk too much

about it, because their circle of friends includes others who might be lining up the options

differently.

Quote, I hope he gets to meet Susie Q.

That is less likely to be said if you are present and you are not Susie Q, and of course

...