Age Old

I sometimes wonder what a fly on the wall would make of some of the stupid conversations Mr. S and I have. I also think about what our thought bubbles would look like in a cartoon.

Twice in the last week we have had idiotic conversations.

I never imagined myself becoming the type of woman who would say things like ‘well that’s just typical of men’. I always loved the idea that intellect outweighed any silly sexisms that existed. What a waste of time, we’re all just people. IF has made a fool of me and that theory.

I was telling Mr. S about how gobsmacked I was to learn of a former colleague’s pregnancy, and how annoying it is that this stuff creeps up and slaps me in the face, just when I feel there will be no more preggy surprises.

My former colleague Jazz is over forty and has been pretty much single since her divorce years and years ago. She is stunning – tall, thin – so much so that a friend who met her at a work function asked if she was a supermodel. But you know, life being what it is, she never seemed to meet the ‘right’ man. Plenty of men would ask her out, but there was always something wrong – tight-arses, broke, stupid, ill-mannered, (I would love to go on and on here), so unbelievably a single, beautiful, highly paid woman seemed to be forever single.

A couple of times we talked about kids – me saying ‘yes, one day we’d like them’, Jazz saying ‘I just think I’m getting further and further away from that’.

Many times in the last four years, when I’ve been at work dinners or company functions I’ve been the boring ‘two drinks’ colleague. Many times Jazz has been blind drunk ‘another bottle of Veu.ve please’.

Last week I was told she was 14 weeks pregnant, to her 28 year old boyfriend of 5 months. I’m like ... so she got pregnant after knowing him six weeks? FUCK.

I like her, so I texted her to say how happy I was to hear her news and that I thought she’d make a great Mum. You know, it IS truthfully how I feel, despite my own misery, and texting is so easy for this stuff. She texted me back to say how excited she was, because she never thought she’d be a Mum.

Relaying all this back to Mr. S – you know how she’s boozed through the last 4 years I’d known her, and how boringly I’d been on the sidelines, watching what I ate and drank and how unfair it was.

‘Yeah well - there’s stories like that every single day’ he replied nonplussed.

End of conversation.

Jeez, this is ‘my’ story ‘today’ was my thought bubble. Bloody hell men are stupid.

Then again yesterday.

Mr. S had a ‘men’s weekend away’. Almost all these friends have children, so I was catching up via him with all the news on everyone.

‘Well I haven’t seen most of their wives or partners since our wedding, since the men only ever socialise together at the pub, or they organise their big effing ‘Baby Get-togethers’ - which of course, we do not attend. Mainly due to me, because I became so nauseated some years ago, with being unable to contribute to the rehashing of the ‘birthing story’, or staring at the backs of some women while they talked only to those in the Club about secretive stuff ... I think sex stuff when you’re pregnant. Of course someone that hasn’t had a baby is not allowed in that circle.

Anyhoo, slow-forward to the present.

‘You know it’s partly our fault we’re not in closer contact with people’ Mr. S soap-boxed. ‘We withdrew ourselves, we’re the ones that haven’t participated’.

‘Not true, we did not do that right at the beginning’ I argued.

Four years ago is pretty much the time everyone started popping them out. Right back then, I was still naively thinking we’d be next. While I was hoping back then ‘this might be the month’, I was sitting listening, not saying anything snarky (only thinking snarky). Several times it became apparent that some people would prefer the company of others with children, rather than those without. Several times we’d hear about dinners organised between our friends ‘with children’.

‘So it wasn’t all us, I was told to my face that some of those dinners were the parent get-togethers’.

‘Well it wasn’t a malicious thing’ Mr. S. exclaimed, now getting exasperated.

‘So now there’s the bloke nights, the Baby Get-togethers and then there’s the social world that only parents have together’.

He labours on ‘once people have children, there is a natural movement to spend time with others that have them, it’s not a spiteful thing, if people said things to your face, it was said unintentionally and without knowing it would hurt’.

‘Well good, I can’t wait till I have my baby, I’ll make my own ‘natural movements’ to form my own clique, and I’ll say whatever I want, and nobody can reproach me – because I’ll have a baby and can be an effing bitch to whoever I want!'

End of conversation.

Thought bubble? ‘Well isn’t that just like a typical bloody man!’.

On the upside, Deadwood 3 has started, so Mr. S and I can sit happily together swearin’ along like troopers with the crims and whores.