Creative Class

An insightful piece from a few weeks back titled A Single Girl Tries Global Dating from the Wall Street Journal. Author Dana White shares her recent dating experience and explores her mating market; comparing both to those of her grandfather’s era. According to White,

“My grandfather Randolph, born in 1896, knew something about the world. So when he spied a black and white couple walking hand in hand in Charlottesville, Va., in the mid-1980s and remarked, ‘They will always live on an island and you can’t live life on an island,’ I took note.

Well, grandfather, here I am — living on an island, literally. I’ve settled into a new job in Hong Kong, a mini, mountainous Manhattan in the South China Sea. People of every race, ethnicity and nationality freely intermingle here. The mixing of the matchmaking market has gone global…

People of every background seem to find common ground here. Often conversation begins with commiseration — for instance, over the ordeal of small, closetless apartments. But there is more to friendship and intimacy than strangeness and difficulty. I’ve worked in the U.S. and in Asia. I’ve traveled from Beijing to London. And I speak four languages (not all well, admittedly). I am far more likely to be attracted to someone who can understand my experience and share my interests, and I am more likely than ever before to meet such a person while living an expat life. Here, where nearly 4,000 corporations base their regional offices, I have a decent chance of finding him — or at least I’ll have fun looking.”

White’s piece highlights one of the ideas behind my next book — which is about how people pick the places they live and why that’s the single most important decision they’ll ever make.

BTW, if you’d like to share a story or two of your own describing how you chose your location and how it has changed your life, please do — here is the blog entry where I ask for your help in compiling stories for the new book. Thanks again for your help.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 4th, 2006 at 8:34 am and is filed under Talent. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.