I’ve been awake for hours and so I decided not to languish in bed but rather to get up and get on with some writing. I wasn’t terribly inspired but I did get some done, which is pleasing, but as I came to a natural pause, i.e. the end of a day on the Singles’ In India tour, I thought I’d make a coffee and update the Journal.
I made the mistake of watching the Britain’s Got Talent final last night. I only tuned in because I was certain that Jack Carroll would be the winner. He’s such a natural comedian and his observational humour is light-years older than his fourteen years. I loved the way he put in the ad-lib after the silly girl lobbed the eggs. Although, given the result she should have lobbed them at the Great British Public and not the judges. I started to get wound up when Attraction were top of the bill again, just as they were in their semi-final. (MANIPULATION, PEOPLE. MANIPULATION!) Their act, which is like something you’d have seen at the end of the pier forty years ago, was a cheesy as it was brown-nosed. Yet, they won. In a grotesque parody of the present state of our country, the talented fourteen-year-old British boy, whose quality of life could be so improved by winning £250,000, lost out to a group of Hungarians who had already been chucked out of talent shows in three other European countries. Only in Britain! Only in Britain!
Good luck to Jack! I hope Cowell pulls some strings and gets him on the Royal Variety Show anyway, because that’s where he deserves to be.
The observant among you will have seen that I’ve entitled this journal-entry COUPLES. Now that’s not a word you often see me use, is it? It’s usually SINGLES. But the two funerals the Sister and I attended this week got me thinking about couples. Both women who had died had been in long, loving marriages with devoted husbands. My cousin gave his wife’s eulogy and spoke very movingly and lovingly about their love for each other and their life together. A few weeks ago I was at my friend M’s wedding and saw her parents who have been married for 72 years; she’s 93 and he’s 96. I couldn’t help wondering what they find to talk about. And yesterday I met up with my lovely friend K and her husband C, who have been married for nine years and are clearly besotted with each other. They actually met on a singles’ holiday! It’s no secret that as a double-divorcee I’m very cynical about marriage. In most marriages – behind closed doors and in some cases even out in public view – one gives far more than the other. And the one doing that is usually the woman. And while it works for lots of people it’s not for everyone. The unhappiest times of my life were when I was married. And it’s not that I’ve never fallen hopelessly in love! I have! Just not with the men I married. (Full dirty, depressing details will not be revealed in this Journal; you’ll have to wait for the autobiography!). When I’ve looked at women who married their first boyfriend and stayed with them, I’ve always felt sort of sorry for them. I mean, imagine only ever having had sex with just one person! And if you’re going to play around then why get married in the first place?
I’ve always felt that marriage wasn’t for me – and I still do. Men talk about finding their soulmate, when really what they mean is they’ve found a woman who does what they want. The problem for me has always been that I’ve yet to find a man who didn’t want to tell me what to do. And I don’t like being told what to do. One of the reasons that it’s lasted so long with the Fella Who’s Far Away (seven years!) is contained in the words Far Away. Okay, at the moment we’re apart far more than either of us want or like, but over the last seven years we’d have driven each other nuts if we’d been together all the time, I’m sure.
I love living alone. I’ve always enjoyed being single. FACT.
But after my observations of couples lately I’m wondering if the concept of a soulmate does exist. Perhaps there was someone out there for me all the time and I just never met him………
