I don’t know if you can recall it, but a few weeks ago we had a TEENSY bit of sun in London. In true British style, we immediately stripped down to bikinis and flip flops and descended upon the Common the moment the weekend struck, lightly misted in the lowest possible SPF, and sun soaked the shit out of our poor pale English bodies.
When I say we, I’m actually referring to my newly skinny self (yes, I wore a bikini on the Common damnit and I looked fiiiiine), the always-has-been-skinny-even-though-she-never-goes-to-the-gym-the-lucky-bitch Bridget, bikini-less Geordie (who spent most of the day bemoaning the fact that she’d forgotten a bikini AND a bra so couldn’t even strip off to her undies like the indecent girl spread eagled beside us in La Senza’s finest) and Geordie’s posh boyfriend.
I think Blondie was entertaining millionaires somewhere, and Irish is still in Ireland (LONG STORY there which I will get down to another time) and fuck knows where Flora was as we haven’t seen her for weeks. I think she’s all happy and shiz. I know, I don’t get it either.
Anyhoo, we’re sitting/laying there, eating Mr Whippy ice cream with extra flakes and drinking cocktails from a can (we know how to do it) and Geordie’s posh boyfriend gets onto the subject of his kid brother’s recent unfortunate predicament.
Long story short: irresponsible young man did not take necessary precautions and now has a two year old daughter, who weirdly has the same name as his dog. Which apparently gets a bit confusing.
The latest development, was that the younger posh boy had finally decided to bring his new girlfriend home to meet the family, including the small child (let’s call her Rover).
‘She does know about this kid though, right?’ I just had to check, frankly I’d had one too many Pimms in a can and in my defense, I’d been lying down in the sun for three hours. My mind tends to wander in that situation when the conversation is about someone or something I don’t know.
‘Yeah, he told her straight away before they even started dating. She doesn’t mind at all.’
Thankfully the sunglasses I was wearing that day were ridiculously enormous and hid my unavoidable eyebrow raise at this response.
And here we are, on a very difficult subject. Especially when there are four people in a park (in Clapham, home of tiny dogs and adorable small children), two of them are in the warm fuzzy starting stages of a relationship, one of them is planning her wedding, and one of them is Ritzi Cortez who is bitter and single and HATES KIDS*.
I completely appreciate the fact that, as we get older, the prospect of finding a man who hasn’t irresponsibly sown his wild oats or fucked up a marriage already, gets thinner and thinner, but however nice the guy, if he came as a package deal I genuinely don’t think I could sign up to it.
The thing is, I know in my heart of hearts, that if I somehow manage to one day stumble across the love of my life (although after recent forays into the dating world, I’m not holding out much hope and have several abandoned cat’s homes on my speed dial just in case) and we live happily ever after and he tricks/cons/bribes me to put my body through the most hideous experience a woman could possibly imagine to squeeze out a mini-me, I would maybe-possibly-probably consider it. So long as he’s happy to pay for the reconstructive downstairs surgery and a nanny for at least eighteen years. And about twenty five thousand pairs of Choos. A year. For the rest of my life. But coming into a fully formed situation like that? Good lord no.
Unfortunately, I made the epic error of voicing this opinion out loud, and was immediately crushed by falling tumbleweeds.
Am I a horribly selfish person for thinking this way?
Probably.
But I also don’t have to pick up some one else’s kids from school…
RitziCx
*Except the Illegitimate Godson and Baby G. But only because I know I can give them back.
