I can't wait to see the new Bridget Jones film, writes Róisín Ingle, for various reasons which include the prospect of Hugh Grant being all dastardly, Colin Firth being all Colin Firth and Renee Zellweger pretending to be fat when really all she is doing is sporting a healthier version of her usual carbophobic look.
In real life she should win an Oscar for her portrayal of an errant thread hanging from the hem of a designer gown. As Bridget Jones, she glows.
Even though Bridge is all loved-up this time around, the film will doubtless put the whole singleton vs smug married issue back onto the popular culture agenda. Not that it ever went away, you know. Standby for loads of articles about Chardonnay-slurping, big-pants-wearing, Silk-Cut-smoking women of a certain age and their dalliances with emotional illiterates. Just as we were getting over the demise of Sex and The City, along comes Bridget to spice up our "Men! They should all be taken out and shot!" rants. Thank the Lord.
Personally, I have always had to fake my way through these little conversational minefields. I was in the company of four women recently who were all bitching madly about their partners, all trying to out-do each other with demeaning stories about their hapless men. I mouthed sympathetic noises before making my excuses. It's not that I have the perfect relationship, if such a thing actually exists, I just found their willingness to slag off the people they live with in front of people they didn't know very well a little perverse. I am Woman, Hear Me Bore ... you with stories of how lazy/stupid/drunk/aggressive the man in my life is. That's the new game.
I suppose it's about respect, really, but when I complained about this new brand of men-bashing, a friend had another view.
This gorgeous, fun, intelligent woman has got to the stage where she doesn't believe anything the men she meets tells her. They either take her number and never call, or take her number and then text her asking for a date which never happens. She and her friends have been sent X-rated texts from men they barely know and picture messages from married men showing off their "wares". I've lost count of the number of times she has told me about a potentially interesting date that went nowhere because the guy didn't bother following up.
She is not desperate and she doesn't want to be a man-basher but she just wonders if this is the way it is supposed to be. When a genuine man pursued her recently, expressing real interest and not messing her around, she was flummoxed. "All the rejection and the confusing let-downs result in your self-esteem and confidence being reduced to nil," she told me. "You convince yourself they are all a waste of space and that attitude means you don't give the genuine ones a chance. It's a nightmare."
And for some of us it's another world. Not counting one-night stands, holiday romances or pen-pals, I have had two proper relationships in my life, and one of them is still going strong. I pursued both parties with the zeal of a well-oiled Prince Harry looking to have a late-night chinwag with a paparazzo. I did not follow The Rules. I did all the running. One of them is still running and, for the moment anyway, the other one doesn't seem to mind having been caught. Looking back, I think the prospect of doing the dating thing and then it not working out and then doing it all again ad nauseum freaked me out early on so I always went for relatively easy prey. (I ran this last bit past my boyfriend and far from being offended, he totally agrees.)
A friend reminded me the other day about the time I told her I was getting married to man number one. Apparently I called her from London and said: "You know the way I always wanted a boyfriend, well I have one and now we are getting married so - ha! - I am going to have a boyfriend forever."
Basically, if I had to go to the lengths that numerous attractive, intelligent, solvent women tell me they have had to go to, to find an acceptable man, I would have filed the enterprise under "Not Worth It", along with such things as making home-made pasta. And if this one doesn't last, hand on heart, I really don't think I could be bothered bothering again.
Anyway, I'm sure there must be lots of men out there who identify with my friend and are fed up playing these games. (I'm no Cilla Black but I will forward all e-mails.) My friend's last relationship was four years ago and she says she would quite like another one while she still has her own teeth. "The older we get the bigger the barriers get," as she puts it herself. And the pants.