Translator: Robert Tucker Reviewer: Elisabeth Buffard
Let me introduce myself;
I'm 35 years old, and my ovules are almost out of stock,
and I've no time to lose.
Nevertheless, I've tried everything:
bourourou, folk remedies, marabouts' recommendations,
but nothing works.
I even consulted with half of the clairvoyants of the Tunisia.
No use.
I attend all the family weddings, whether it was close or distant relatives.
I never miss an opportunity to flaunt myself there.
I go to all the trouble of hiring low-cut dresses, getting all spruced up,
putting make-up on, spending 100 dinars at the hairdresser's,
it just doesn't work.
Yet I'm charming, kind, friendly,
I'm not over smart, but no.
I'm ready, but it's a man that's lacking.
And then men became an obsession for me.
Today, I see them everywhere, I seek them out,
at the market, on the train, in the streets, everywhere.
It seems that the famous Cupid with his much-spoken-of arrow
has failed me, missed me, or doesn't like me.
It's awful, finding myself every evening in my cold bed, hugging my pillow.
Sometimes I cry until - I run out of tears.
I comfort myself, telling myself (Arabic) one shouldn't argue with destiny.
Who knows?
So to somehow overcome my blues, my loneliness,
I found a hobby that is extraordinary:
It's Turkish soap operas.
(Laughter)
Do you know Mohanad ?
He's just too gorgeous.
(Laughter)
I'd really like to marry a man like Mohanad: handsome, virile, romantic,
oh, OK, not as handsome as Mohanad,
but that he has some of his character at least.
OK, I think you've kind of guessed why I am here today:
I'm here to find a husband.
(Laughter)
(Applause)
Well, listen, I was told that TED audiences are cultivated, interesting.
(Laughter)
So I said to myself, 'This is your chance!'
(Laughter)
No, no one interested?
(Laughter)
[A few hands are raised] (Applause)
Well guys, we'll meet later
but one at a time, not all at once.
(Laughter)
No, but seriously, what I just said to you,
is an excerpt from a text I wrote a few months ago
that I shared on Facebook.
When doing so, I put a little comment below, I wrote:
P.S: This note has nothing to do with my private life.
It was easy to believe for those who saw me,
because they knew very well that I am not 35 years old.
Err - I hope you didn't think I was a 35-year-old woman.
Reassure me!
(Laughter)
Except that I admit that I lied a little in that post,
because I actually projected myself into that woman,
I saw myself as her, I felt myself in her skin,
and OK, I admit that the image was a little caricature.
That somewhat neurotic woman who cries all her tears
waiting for that blessed day when a husband will slip a ring on her finger,
for whom happiness can only come from one single word
which is a husband or marriage -
I'm not like that.
Except that I had something in common with this woman: the plight of celibacy.
Today, the National Office for Family and Population in Tunisia
tell us that the men's celibacy rate is 80%,
and the women's one is 62%,
in the 25-to-34 age range.
And if I take the women's celibacy rate,
and go back a little to 1984, we will find that the rates were 24%.
So a jump from 24% to 62%, it's huge isn't it?
These celibacy rates in Tunisia are shocking some people,
and do not stop going up from one year to the next.
And with these absurdly high rates, this ant hill, if I might call it that,
of unmarried men and women,
anything goes when it comes to seduce the other.
On this subject I often hear quite mixed and divided opinions,
and I'd now like to share them with you now.
Two opinions have intrigued me.
The first concerns women and I hear: 'The competition is tough
to catch a guy.'
Yes, I did say, 'catch' like if it was a hunting game,
that would take some doing.
The more one is at one's best,
the more chance they have of getting someone.
Men don't let themselves get impressed too easily by anyone.
Coming from men I hear sentences like:
'There're no more nice girls around, they've all become materialistic,
they want a guy ready with a car, a house, a bank account.'
Looking at these two opinions, we can see there is a crisis of confidence
in regard to romantic relationships, there's a state of mutual reproach
between the two sexes.
And yet the two parties accuse each other of the same thing:
placing excessive requirements.
Today to be with someone, your intention isn't enough,
you need to put some effort into it.
Such efforts being, we hear: infinite choice,
being well presentable to attract the other,
being cultivated enough for animated conversation,
having a car to take my beloved to cafés or wherever.
And in this regard, I too, have had to make an effort,
and to comply with these seduction standards
some of my friends would not hesitate
to come to assist me with their suggestions,
and I heard everything, really.
To start with, I was told to change the way I dressed:
'You're not going to get a man wearing jeans and sneakers!
You should wear skirts, dresses and so on!'
OK, well, I complied and I found some fun in dressing like that.
Then their second suggestion was about my face,
I should wear makeup to look good, etc.
Then came the day they suggested I changed my accent.
I'll digress a little here,
I'm originally from Le Kef,
which means I have a purely regional accent,
which is a little different from that of the capital.
In asking me to change my accent a little, it implied that - well, I'll tell you:
the Kefois accent sounds a bit unrefined, not very seductive.
Obviously, I didn't change my accent, that was out of the question,
a red line not to be stepped over that threatened my identity.
(Applause)
Thank you!
(Applause)
But, why I'm tell you all this is, after trying myself at that kind of seduction,
some ideas I accepted and others not,
I started to ask myself a few questions.
I said to myself, 'How far are we ready to go to seduce someone?
To what degree are we ready to become another person
in order to charm Mr X or Ms Y?'
Plato said: 'Beauty is the splendour of truth.'
Why is my 'real' side no longer enough to seduce today?
Why do I, today, find myself constrained to live projecting a false image
and to comply with standards supposedly those of seduction
I never asked for?
Unfortunately, we live in an age where superficiality has no limits.
This superficiality affects not only our material consumption;
it also affects our relationships.
It also seems to me that we can already understand
why some girls tell us that the competition is tough.
It's normal, everyone wants to get in front,
to have ascendancy over the other, to the point of becoming a stranger.
We are swept away by a frenzied mad race
about appearance which has lost all limits.
We forget that the human being, very intelligent but also limited,
will, at the end of this race, be out of breath, exhausted,
ready to throw in the towel.
You could take me to be a person who is too spiritual
or moral;
it's not that I'm out to save the world's singles,
as much as I'd like too,
but I say to myself, 'If each of us made a little effort with his true self,
if each of us tolerates the faults of others and accepts his own shortcomings,
he allows the other in front of him to be human, perfect in his imperfection,
I'm firmly convinced
that our relationships with other humans and within our couples will be much better.
To close my speech, I will talk about Jacques Brel,
who one day wrote down a set of wishes,
a list of a very touching subtlety.
He said: 'I wish you never-ending dreams,
the songs of birds, the laughter of children, etc.'
And then he closed this list with a sentence very simple in appearance,
very deep,
and it's what I'm going to close my speech with.
He said: 'Above all, I wish you to be yourselves.'
And that is what I wish us all.
Thank you.
(Applause)