Every year, in the first two weeks of February, cities all across the world face a pink invasion. Pink balloons, posters, teddy bears, flowers, stickers, cards and whatever else conceivable stare out through shop windows, smile from café walls and even internet spam takes on a pink tinge. It’s the time for Valentine’s Day fever.
Globally, the message seems to be, fall in love and show your love. Despite threats from certain thugs who declare it anti-national (in India at least) and others who declare Valentine’s Day to be a marketing gimmick, the fact remains that globally, a large number of people are celebrating love.
With so many people celebrating ‘love’, the question arises: does love really exist? Do people really believe in the idea of a soulmate, the one meant for you, the idea of perfect love? Celebrating their 60th anniversary, Harlequin Enterprises Ltd – the publishers of Mills & Boon, Harlequin and Silhouette romance series – conducted a global survey over 30 countries to find out. The answers they came up with in the Harlequin Romance Report 2009: Perfect Love? Fantasy Meets Reality is telling. More so when it seems that more men than women believe in love.
Who believes in a soulmate?
From the latest vampire flick Twilight to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and the late 80s megahit Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, perfect love has been stuff of fairy tales, fantasies and films. But does it really exist?
If late marriages and rising divorce rates are to be believed, perhaps not. The Romance Report also says something similar with a 50-50 divide between reality and fantasy.
However, given that traditionally it has been women who are seen as hopeless romantic – and are considered the primary readers of romance books – the survey turned up surprising results. According to the Romance Report, more men – 52 per cent to 51 per cent women – believe in the notion of perfect love.
Global figures are even more surprising. While 91 per cent of Australian men believe in perfect love, only a mere 55 per cent of Aussie women wait for it. The results are similar in Hong Kong and Ireland where 80 per cent of the women do not believe in it at all. Indian men can take heart though, as both men and women seem to believe in the idea.
Anything for love
Despite the fewer percentage of women believing in love, men in these countries need not get despondent; there’s someone looking for love, even if it’s across oceans and borders.
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The trick seems to be in, er, housework. ‘Choreplay’ rather than foreplay – vacuums versus Valentine’s Day! – seems to be the mantra for winning women in America and the Netherlands. Men who help out with housework are preferred by 44 per cent American women and 62 per cent Dutch women respectively. Elsewhere in the world though, keeping fit is the secret to lasting love.
Australian men (82 per cent), Italian women (67 per cent) and American men (52 per cent) will fall in love with someone who is physically fit. In France though – with 43 per cent women more interested in good looking men and half the men wanting more ‘cultured’ partners – it’s a better idea to invest in a finishing school than in a gym membership. Somehow the message seems to be lost on Spanish men though as 80 per cent of them work out obsessively in order to please a woman. Get the apron out boys!
Money makes the heart grow fonder
‘Love flies out of the window when poverty knocks on the door’ has been a popular saying. The Romance Report suggests that it might just be true!
While myth suggests that men who sing attract more women – James Brown anyone? – the truth is far from it. Men in stable jobs score in the race for being the perfect mates.
Fire-fighters and policemen are the ones to make a quarter of Australian women swoon while 71 per cent French women lust after doctors. In Germany, athletes are the desired objects of affection for 67 per cent women while Italian women are happy with any of the above.
When it comes to men though, stereotypes still rule. While most men fantasise after models and actresses, they prefer to settle down with the girl-next-door. Australian men (46 per cent), Canadian men (32 per cent) and Dutch men (29 per cent) all wish for someone ‘sweet tempered’.
With 70 per cent women believing that men base their expectations on movie stars and adult magazines – and yet want a ‘simple’ girl for their wives – it is no surprise that fewer women believe in being able to find a soulmate. Expectations and reality do not seem to match.
(Jhoomur Bose is a media student and blogger)
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