this opening also applies to Darcy, who is likewise single and rich.

Then in Ch. 3 we read: To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love...

This also refers to Bingley. Darcy has not yet been introduced. But I think it accounts for the general prejudice against Darcy in the rest of the chapter. When he first enters the ballroom, "The gentlemen pronounced him to be a fine figure of a man, the ladies declared he was much handsomer than Mr. Bingley, and he was looked at with great admiration for about half the evening...". A short time later, "not all his large estate in Derbyshire could then save him from having a most forbidding, disagreeable countenance, and being unworthy to be compared with his friend."

Darcy had refused to dance with the local women. That was as good as refusing to fall in love with any of them. What an affront! Was not he, like Bingley, "the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters" (Ch. 1)?