As we approach not just wedding season, but (more significantly) Reboot of Bridget Jones Film Franchise Season (movie number four starts shooting in May), I am mistaken for a single person.
‘Why’s Polly single? She’s so great!’ a friend’s friend asks. My friend laughs, explains I’ve been with someone, like, forever, but he’s v antisocial so I generally go out without him, also: I am singularly (pun intended) unbothered by marriage, therefore ring-less, so, yeah, it may look – from a distance, across a crowded drinks party, yadda ya – as if I’m single. In fact, I’m not. Friend then tells me. I also laugh but, on reflection, grow defensive of my theoretically single self.
What if I were single? What if I were perfectly happy? Uncompromised in sharing the bathroom and remote control, fully in charge of my own destiny and whether or not I plucked and ate ham slices straight from the fridge, called it ‘dinner’? Answerable to no one and never disappointed by their flagrant lack of interest in what had happened to me that day? What if I took lovers for brief periods, otherwise: suited myself ? What then of my friend’s friend’s confused, pity-tinged enquiry?
And while, yes, I am great (thanks for acknowledging), why would that make my (faux) single status mysterious? Are we of the opinion that single people are generally not great–which explains their single status? In my experience, people are single for a vast range of reasons, a handful of which might, admittedly, be associated with them not being great (but mostly aren’t).
Mostly, the reasons are anything from: one definingly bad experience; to being widowed; to being in a long-term affair sitch with someone who’s married; to ‘I like it better on my own, ta all the same’. Also, there are a ton of married-yet-really-really-not-great people out there. Greatness is no predictor of singleness. Being a woman, however, is a predictor of how much you will be pitied and shamed for singleness. How desperate you’ll be presumed to feel because of it.
On which: much has been made of the ‘toxicity’ of Bridget Jones. This irritates me. Yes, some of the things we said and thought 25 years ago seem preposterous in retrospect, but that’s how time works. I’d argue the only truly problematic thing about the films is that society is no better adjusted about single women now than it was when the first flick came out. We’re probably worse, Instagram having made an arms race out of things like how, when and if we get engaged. Maybe we should shift focus to ending mass, tacit Single Shaming now, lest in 25 years’ time we find ourselves self- flagellating ’n’ pearl-clutching about how we used to do it all over social media.