I am Not Bridget Jones

Posted by Andree Lachapelle Aug 7, 2006

As I get older I sit and ponder: which of my literary heroines have I become?

As we - women, that is - age, gracefully or not so gracefully, there is a bit of a stigma attached to being single. I never felt it when I was in my twenties - I was young, beautiful and oh-so-free. In my thirties, I became obsessed with finding a man. I devoured Cosmo and searched for suitable date-worthy men ... without thinking 'relationship.'

I vowed to remain happily single and to date as many hot men as I could, until the right one came along. This search would be a glamorous affair, not a last-resort mission: my search would involve trendy clubs and martini lounges, sexy clothes and stunning designer shoes.

The glamour associated with my marriage-less life would prevent me from being seen as a sad spinster.

'I think 'singleton' is a very useful word to describe yourself if you're not married: much better than spinster or bachelor,' Helen Fielding once told the New York Times.

I would never allow myself to be a Bridget Jones; to me, even Carrie Bradshaw reeked of despair. Times had changed and even though ages ago, I had seen poetry in Cathy and Heathcliffe's stormy affair, and beauty in the tragic love shared by Mary Shelley and her poet lovers - now I only saw talented, gorgeous women doomed to be single.

Singletons.

Whatever.

Unwilling to remain single, some of my friends married men they did not really care about and moved to suburbia, making peace with Danielle Steel and with their own lacklustre lives.

I stayed behind and remained a cynic-single, enamoured with Dorothy Parker's cutting wit: "I only require three things of a man. He must be handsome, ruthless, and stupid."

Deep down inside, however, I knew that one day I would find my One, and we would be bound to each other by true love, wild and passionate.

These days my single female friends all share a similar fantasy: to find a good man with a decent job, good manners, a healthy attitude towards sex, and a respectful attitude towards women.

He is more Mr. Darcy than Mark Darcy, and more Will Lightman than Daniel Cleaver ... He can mix a mean martini but won't insist on having it 'shaken, not stirred' as he indulges in Pussy Galore.

The perfect man is Big-with-a-Heart to our Carrie-with-Guts.