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Do married women see singletons as typical Bridget Joneses - cigarette
smoking, alcohol swigging, insecure obsessives, while the unattached view
Smug Marrieds as dull, interfering martyrs? Two writers go head-to-head ...
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Happy and contented singleton Chrissie Russell says that marriage transforms
women into condescending bores:
Marriage changes people. Suddenly the friends I used to hit the town with,
down shots with and talk about men with have morphed into completely
different people. Efforts to secure their company on a night out start to be
met with looks of benign condescension. "Oh we can't," she will say. "We've
got a mortgage to pay now."
Hold on a second ... 'We'? This is the first thing that drives me crazy
about married people - they cease to be individuals capable of their own
opinions and separate social engagements, they become a We. A single unit
that must be conferred with on every issue before making the unanimous
decision on where they will both be at any given time. Even if you do manage
to separate them, the other half will be on the phone, texting or waiting
outside to drive them home. Ultimately they start to only hang around with
other married couples, groups of Wes that have sensible dinner parties where
everyone can enjoy a single glass of Chianti, chortle over a mutual
appreciation of DIY disaster stories and trips to B&Q before heading home at
a reasonable hour because the babysitter starts charging double time after
midnight.
It would be fine if they just kept their boring lives to themselves, but
with the enthusiasm of religious zealots married people feel compelled to
convert others to the cult of Married Life. Having achieved a life's mission
of settling down, and now presumably having nothing better to do, they start
taking an overwhelming interest in the love lives of their single friends.
They start telling you 'not to worry'. They start having 'the perfect person
for you to meet'.
It's possible that, like a salesman who truly believes in his product, they
want to foist marriage on other people because they genuinely feel others
are missing out on a lifetime of joy.
There is definitely, as Bridget Jones rightly pointed out, a certain
smugness that married people cultivate the second they've walked down the
aisle.
As a single person you could be running a highly successful multinational
company, with the body of Beyonce while simultaneously jetting around the
world cultivating passionate affairs with the hunkiest men alive, but you'll
still get a look from a married person that says 'poor single you. I'm sure
you'd trade it all in for a ring on your finger'. Oddly, as well as being
smug, married people also start developing a perverse sense of martyrdom. I
find my plans to go out midweek/have a quick and easy dinner/talk about a
new man or buy a great new outfit frequently get met with a pursed lip
expression and the line "it's well for some. I remember when I could do that
before I settled down and got responsibilities" .
Married people are allowed to revel in the trappings of their new life -
I'll call and coo over wedding photos, new homes, new babies and I'll mean
it - but the second I delight in an element of my single life, I'm flaunting
my Peter Pan refusal to grow up and accept the life of a proper adult. If
they're going to be smug about their new life they can't also act as if
they've committed a selfless act and if I can be happy for them then why on
earth can they not be happy for me?
It's because single people make married people feel old. We're a reminder of
what they're missing out on and that's the real reason they want everyone
else to get married - so that we're all in the same boring boat together.
Single people's love lives are exciting but, with the exception of trained
therapists, no-one ever wants to talk about married sex, it's just not sexy.
Married people are shackled to insane mortgage payments but single people,
homeless as they may be, have a lot more disposable income to spend on the
fun things. We all know which one is the sensible option but, realistically,
what is it easier to feel envy at - someone going on a weekend to Barcelona
or someone with a regular lump sum coming out of their bank account?
But single people aren't supposed to be having fun, they are supposed to be
trying to get married, gazing ruefully through the windows of wedding shops
and jewellers. Well, times have changed and there's more to life than a
constant quest to wed.
Irritatingly though, I know married readers will have stopped reading this
by now. "Not another jealous single person," they'll be thinking. "All that
bitterness ? if only she could meet the right man. I'm sure I could fix her
up with the perfect person. Darling, are we doing anything next week? I
think we might set up a dinner party ?"
...*and what married women can't stand about singletons
Presenting the case for wedded bliss, Jane Hardy says singletons are
irritatingly smug, self-centred and patronising:
In the Bridget Jones novels, Helen Fielding created a breed that many people
instantly recognised; the Smug Marrieds, probably hyphenated and definitely
living in wedded bliss somewhere like Cultra, while making the lives of
desperate, single friends miserable by references to dinners a deux and
their use of childish nicknames (we call each other snooks, since you ask).
I think she actually got it badly wrong. The smug ones, the ones with the
really knowing smile on their faces on Monday morning, are the Smug Singles
or the SS-es, who in their endless romantic campaigns share a kind of
fighting spirit with their Nazi soundalikes.
After all, they have the choices still ahead of them and can really relish
the thrill of the chase whereas we Not-So-Smug Marrieds would probably have
to resort to swingers' parties to get the same result. Smug Singles flirt
outrageously with anybody they want to - that is, anything on two legs - and
even conduct parallel relationships (that's the polite term).
They're patronising about their married colleagues, us, implying that they
don't have to put up with the inevitable slightly taken for granted feeling
which can settle on a mature relationship after a period of years like a
worn duvet. That you-don't -send-me-flowers-anymore sensation which at one
level, we married people argue, means there is a real depth and ease in a
relationship but at another means you don't feel you necessarily have to
prove anything so he doesn't politely open doors and you don't put on your
best frock when going out.
Smug Singles get all this gallantry by right, of course, as they're
constantly in the first, excitable phase of a relationship and are acting a
part.
They're self-obsessed and constantly agonise about how they look or how they
appear to others, indulging in endless tedious "What does he/she really
think of me?" and "Should I ask him/her out?" conversations. They're always
aiming to impress, which can jar. Smug Singles also enjoy an enviable
freedom. They can chill out while wearing a tracksuit when not on a hot date
(sartorial contrast is the order of the SS's day), eat baked beans on toast
for supper just for the hell of it and don't automatically have to provide a
decent meal of an evening if they don't want to. They can even decide to
skip a meal altogether or go out to a gig or theatre performance at the last
minute, instead of having to fit in with a partner's plans. Spontaneity is
the SS's middle name. Their money isn't totally ring-fenced for the
mortgage, bills and school uniforms, but wads of it go towards new outfits
and make-up from brands other than Rimmel or No 7 which they then
infuriatingly parade around the office.
Another thing that grates is the SS's automatic assumption that married life
puts men and women, but particularly women, into some kind of purdah. That
we can't enthuse over good-looking men in movies or the music biz or even,
dare I say it, in the flesh. That fun is no longer part of our vocabulary.
They, of course, are always having a fabulous time. I have one young
colleague who is very shocked if I even hint that I think a man is
attractive. "But you're married ... " she squeals affrontedly.
Another aspect of the Smug Single which is unappealing is the egocentricity
of the species, the belief that s/he is the centre of the known universe,
something that living with somebody tends to rub off.
And finally, the lack of scruples of the SS, who probably regards chatting
up your other half as a jolly challenge at the Christmas party and never
mind the emotional consequences.
I regard SSes with about six parts irritation to four parts envy but would
not change places. For the SSes also experience the loneliness, the 3am
angst without the bear-hug and lack the relationship shorthand that makes
sense of it all. Maybe I'm a Smug Married after all.
Source: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/features/btwoman/article3221507.ece
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