I am single, as regular readers will know. Next year, I will think about hunting down a Gentleman Caller with my newly-flexible thighs and sensational collarbones. I will then pin him down until he relents, buys me an enormous Georgian rectory in the country and DEMANDS that I spend all day making jam and cake. He will also insist that I listen to Radio 4 all day and have a horse called Kind Horsey and a dog called Dog; for my birthday, he will give me a tiny little spider monkey called Geoff and a penguin, who will have sole rights of access to the second bathroom.
Until then, I have decided that it is Important that people are more sensitive around single people, most of whom don't enjoy being single and feel like spastics when they're at parties with millions of couples arguing and/or holding hands and licking each others' faces.
Do not ask any of the following questions:
"Ooh, aren't you worried about your biological clock ticking?" (Accompanied by random TICK-TOCK sound effects)
"Ooh, doesn't it feel weird when all your friends are married and you're not?"
"What's wrong with you?"
"Oh, picky, are we?"
"So, when are you going to settle down?"
"Shouldn't you hurry up and have a baby?"
"Can't you find a husband then?"
"Are you a gay?"
"Are you a COMMITMENT-PHOBE?" (In my experience, these types do not exist. They just didn't want to commit to me.)
"So, you haven't got children because you had a career?" (Answer: no, I had what can loosely be described as a career because I didn't have a family. If I had a family, I would stop working immediately and spend all day changing nappies, weeping and going to coffee mornings with other mothers with whom I have nothing in common, apart from a child. All of these things are better than working.)
Please avoid the following patronising comments which are meant kindly, but only serve to infuriate:
"You've got to love yourself before you can love anyone else"
"It'll happen when you least expect it!"
"A friend of mine had her first child when she was 40!"
"Don't worry - a friend of mine met the love of her life when she was 52. You're 36, you say? Oh well, not long to go."
"But you're still young!"
"You could always freeze some eggs."
(Delivered by a GP about 4 months ago): "If I were you I'd go home and start trying for a baby right now - time's running out!"
These lines aren't funny:
"Always the bridesmaid, never the bride!"
"Aren't you, technically, a spinster?"
"You've got more chance of being kidnapped by aliens than getting married now!"
Under no circumstances should you say the following thing within 200 feet of me. If you do, I will kill you with my hands.
"You see, this is what happens when women want to have it all. They end up with nothing."
On a lighter note, you know being single and living by yourself? It means you can do whatever you like, constantly and the whole time, without having to think of anyone else. Granted, it's lonely sometimes, but if I want to lie in the bath wearing a fez and smoking a small clay pipe at 3 in the morning, I can. So there. (Although I'd rather be in the bath with a Gentleman Caller in a matching fez also smoking a small clay pipe, if I'm honest.)
NB: I do not include the kind of single women who think their cats are babies in this. They need help. If you know any, refer to them to a Freudian psychoanalyst, pronto. The Tavistock Centre can be reached on +44 (020)7435 7111.
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16 comments:
What a GREAT post! I laughed and laughed and then had to go tinkle cuz I've had babies, then I came back and laughed some more. Thank you!
Always a pleasure, never a chore. Please do tell your friends. Single ones. You know.
You are right. But not yet.
x
What code? I salute Dave and his book. I think everyone should by E-luv, immediately.
And thanks for the record stuff.
There's a pome by C K Williams (sorry, I always revert to pomes at some point, hope I don't sound like a twat) that has a line in it that goes "the old, sore heart, the battered, foundered, faithful heart/
snorting again, stamping in its stall." I think it's something like that.
Hey ho. Not as serious as it sounds.
Dude, you couldn't have put it better. If one more person ASSURES me that I'll want kids in the future, my protestations to the contrary, I may have to stab someone in the eye with a grapefruit spoon.
Make it a very, very sharp Global paring knife. Works a treat.
I am not single, but I have decided not to have children, so in a way, many of those comments relate to me as a child-free broad too.
I have decided to start telling people who ask when I am going to make mini-mes that I am profoundly infertile (which I might well be after all these years on the Pill). And if I manage to time that with a lonesome tear on my cheek (or at least a trembling lip), they should be off my back in no time...
I heartily endorse this approach. My own goes:
Rude person at party: So, no kids?
Me: No. Born without a womb.
Works a treat EVERY time.
Or try: "Had one, but I ate it".
I think you've struck a chord there Monkey.
Just tell them there's a sperm crisis.
You can adopt mine, he's seventeen, and monosyllabic. I wrap his sandwiches in an OS map everyday, but he still comes back ;)
I read this and thought about my mate Justjude - then saw she had already left a comment. Spooky eh!
I read your blog and I spat out my coffee, all over my white top. My education is complete. I will wear a bib on my return.
Cx
The pokey marrieds are just asking those questions because they are miserable and fat and highly jealous.
I like the idea of a fez while bathing. I sometimes clean the house in an evening gown because tafetta makes scrubbing toilets less yucky. But a hat whilst washing never occurred to me. I think I will try it. I look good in hats.
JB: You win, Imaginary Friend.
Darling Apprentice: Sounds good - does he like cake?
Caroline - honestly, people across the country are spitting "hot drink" (don't you HATE that expression) across their computer screens and keyboards, down their fronts and (if some recent correspondents are to be believed), in the face of colleagues and friends. I am delighted this made you laugh. What do you reckon to a Non-workingmonkey branded bib? (The plastic ones with the bit in the bottom to catch the food). I'm up for it if I get 5 people interested.
HCG - HOW MANY TIMES? You are QUITE hot enough as you are without jaunty hat-wearing in the bath, although if you insist I will launch a range of non-workingmonkey sunhats, with ribbons that tie under the chin. The only hat I looked really bad in was a tweed trilby bought in Wales. But it was Wales, so ...
I love you all.
Interior. Day. The sales office of one of the UK's largest regional newspaper publishers.
Present: Tired Dad. Everyone else is out on appointments (or seeing their mates as it is called outside of office hours)
Sales Manager enters.
SM: Fucker
TD: How did it go at the doctors?
SM: He had the nerve to tell me not to worry too much. And that many people of the age of 34 begin trying for a baby for the first time.
TD: Well....you know. Reassuring stuff surely?
SM: I went to see him about my FUCKING STOMACH ULCER!
TD: Oh. Yeah. That probably was a bit out of order then. What with you not even having a boyfriend and that.
SM: Do you like working here?
Fade to black.
Ugh, one nice thing about being 49. Except now people ask if I have grandchildren! No, I don't thank you very much. Your blog did cause great snort laughs around here.
My "children" are two large and very spoiled standard poodles and a demented cat that likes to chew electrical cords and chase shadows. Yes, my mother, who finally realized no human grandchildren would happen, calls herself "Gwandma" when she visits the kids, er pets.
I insist. I will trade you a terrible painting for one.
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