Finally, I’m in Vogue. Apart from the time I appeared, labelled ‘The Daily Mail’s Rottweiler’. Well, I like dogs! I was just thrilled to be noticed.
Now, I’m part of a sea change, a zeitgeist. On the British Vogue website, Chanté Joseph has written an article titled, ‘Is having a boyfriend embarrassing now?’
Apparently, if someone begins a sentence with ‘my boyf–’ on socials, they’ll be muted and lose hundreds of followers. You have been following someone for fun, fashion, new ways with eye liner and how they’ve renovated their ancient cottage, and suddenly you get ‘my boyfriend’-ified. Boring! And totally uncool. A woman with a boyfriend becomes blurred, like a ghost. She’s a throwback. She thinks she now has the holy grail, a plus one; in fact, you become a minus one.
So now, rather than showing off about a new relationship (ick!), women are obscuring the men in their lives. Why? Because in a relationship, women are no longer themselves. They’re no longer reliable, as they put the hairy oaf first. Claiming a man, posing with him, feels lame and, if you break up, the smooching photos are a harsh reminder of what went wrong.
Boyfriends are as out of fashion as snow-washed denim because, well, they simply haven’t been good enough. And, of course, being in a loving relationship is mind-numbing. Coupled-up women are so desperate to hang on to him they spare his feelings (something I’ve never done) and thereby lose their wit, their edge, their gossip. Wasn’t Taylor Swift a better songwriter when she was wreaking revenge? Would Lily Allen have a hit album if it had all worked out? As Joseph writes: ‘Where being single was once a cautionary tale (you’ll end up a “spinster” with loads of cats), it is now becoming a desirable status, another nail in the coffin of a centuries-old heterosexual fairytale that never really benefitted women to begin with.’
Yes, dating can be exciting. The texts, choosing an outfit, waiting in a bar, crossing and uncrossing your legs to find the best angle. But isn’t the reality… underwhelming? He doesn’t make you laugh, get the bill or shower you with compliments. And, let’s face it, I’ve had better sex when he wasn’t in the room. I’d whisper to my last boyfriend, ‘You can do anything you want.’ His reply? ‘Why do you always say that?’
‘Because you always do the same thing!!!! How did you get to 60 with no woman pulling you up on that?’
Being chosen by a man is no longer seen as an achievement. Have you seen couples, shuffling along Oxford Street? I want to karate chop their clasped, sweaty hands when they block my path. To rely on a man is to be a loser. It’s ‘normie’ as, apparently, the hotter the girl, the more devastating her love life and it’s true. The men at this level are sparse, like their hair.
And think. Do you really want the ‘I think I’m getting a cold’ mew? The ‘I have to cancel’ text or, an actual text from Sainsbury’s: ‘What is the name of the cat’s – I forgot her name – special biscuits?’
I’m not settling for the bare-minimum treatment. The crashing disappointment. Having to make an interested face. Pretending to climax to spare his ‘feelings’. What feelings? You cheated on me on NYE after I’d bought groceries!
I’ve never been a ‘pick me’ girl. I believed there was something wrong with me. That I had to change. Try harder. Get a powerful job, a beautiful house, designer clothes for him to deem me worthy of his lumpen presence. Now, bruised and battered (after dates with the last one, the insides of my thighs were purple; stop using me for leverage!), if I do ever meet an attractive man again, I will ask: how will you enhance my life? Will you entertain me, nurture me, be useful, proactive, kind, funny and reliable? Because if you think I’m so desperate, so unfashionable to put up with any ghosting because you’re too lily livered to engage in an actual conversation, any boredom or uncertainty or disrespect and the fact you’ve never heard of The Ballad Of Wallis Island, because you believed the lie that women are desperate, that we need a man to make us complete, think again, Sunshine!
Oh, and I love this woman’s Insta response to the fact that having a man is now as embarrassing an accessory as Jibbitz on Crocs: ‘Turns out I wasn’t depressed. I was just married to a piece of s**t.’
Yes!!!! Thank you!
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JONES MOANS… WHAT LIZ LOATHES THIS WEEK
A male reader emailed me, ‘Remember you are not 47, you’re 67.’ Why are people so obsessed with telling me my age? How about, every time we mention a person’s name, we print their weight instead? Or their IQ? How about that?
