Once again the other night I found myself sitting at a cramped dining table in a part of London I didn’t know existed outside of Dickens novels. And I wasn’t happy. It wasn’t the food that bothered me. (Although why, in a shepherds pie, is there always five inches of potato to half an inch of meat?) It wasn’t that I was worried about my car parked outside in this particular neighbourhood. What bothered me was the purpose of this dinner: for me to meet Sarah (I’ve changed the name).
I love my friends. But something terrible happens to them after they get married. They become marriage evangelists. With the starry eyed zeal of Victorian missionaries, they proselytise the benefits of settling down to the unhitched masses. As if my life, like theirs, could finally have meaning if only I would welcome matrimony into my life as the one true savior.
They pity me for not experiencing the joys of holy union. As far as I can tell I could experience what my friends are ‘enjoying’ if every six months I traded in my girlfriend for one 10lbs heavier, burnt a pile of cash, stopped going out and swapped my elegant Chelsea pad for a house with uncomfortable furniture in London Underground’s Zone 3.
The wives are the worst. They genuinely seem to despair for me… like I’d lost a limb or had to live the rest of my life in a hermetically sealed bubble. They cock their heads to one side, rub my shoulder and condescendingly tell me that they’ll help me find someone. As if they – as housewives – have access to a mother lode of hot women I’m unaware of. I have to admit they work tirelessly on my behalf. I suppose I should be appreciative as they line up what they think are eligible women… ‘what they think’ being the operative words.
I looked across the table last night at Sarah. She was perfectly nice and relatively interesting. But I couldn’t help feeling that she’d be happier grazing on the marshy plains of Canada or searching for truffles in a French forest. You get the picture. How could my friends even think I could be interested in this woman? Then I realised that it’s the wives who are behind it.
The sad fact is, women are the worst judges of female beauty. Why? Because they take irrelevant things like personality in to account. As if ‘personality’ has anything to do with looks. They also add ‘hair cut’ and ‘shoes’ to the equation. Yes, I’d like the girl to have hair and, if necessary, shoes, but the style of either (within reason) has nothing to do with my finding one or another girl attractive. But YOU try and explain that to a woman. They’ll never understand that having ‘really lovely hair’ will never mask the fact their friend is literally a funsize Snickers shy of obese. Or that being ‘an absolute riot’ is not an acceptable substitue for having a face straight out of the casting call for Middle Earth dwellers. They clearly believe that being married to ANYTHING is better than the misery – no, humiliation – of being unmarried at my age. A little bit insulting
May 27th, 2008 at 11:53 am
You crack me up! I can only say I’m sorry for the behaviour of my people- there’s hope though, not all of us are those wives and not all of us are expecting to become one!
May 30th, 2008 at 8:23 am
Marianna..what’s your number?
June 10th, 2008 at 6:31 am
That got a laugh of me. Aye, I’ve been there… nice writting skills, congratulations!
June 11th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Hilarious and soooo true. I can see my hand on my husband’s only single friend’s shoulder. I’ve done it!
But I was still single in my early 30’s and got set up on equally foul dates. The same question ran through my mind: what must my friend(s) think of me if they could for even a nano second believe that I’d be remotely attracted to this lizard-tongued freak (one I so nicknamed) they work with? As a woman, this whole experience is even worse I’d say because you take the pity much more to heart: most women DO want to be married; they DO feel desperate when the old clock is ticking and yet they’ve got to try to play it cool or they’ll scare ‘him’ off. Oh the lies I told (even to my now-husband) about preferring to stay single than rush into something. Lies. All lies. It worked on him, thank God.
July 3rd, 2008 at 9:31 am
Good one. Truth is a woman will never set up a man with a female friend more beautiful than they are. It’s part of the female code.
July 7th, 2008 at 10:14 am
Lol. You Got That Right Dave.
July 8th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Am going to send it to my married girlfriends with a “on pain of death” note attached to it. Thanks to you, no one will set me up with their husband’s friends.
Keep up the good work.
August 11th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
I ADORE this site. You speak the absolute truth. I think Bridget once coined these folks “smug marrieds.” The crazed married folk who try to set you up. And the disturbing consequences make one want to avoid dating for life. And their choices of girls to set up are more of a reflection of their self confidence that you. The “hotness” of the date can be insulting and frustrating. It’s rare to find a fixer-upper who has no stake in the game… I’ve run into this myself where people just don’t quite want you getting the guy you’d adore. Alas, it’s a tough game. Good luck to you.