COUPLES

Couples suck - well to be precise, the type of Couple that Bridget Jones described as "Smug Marrieds". She is spot on and I hope I never turn into one or you will have free license to shoot me.

Some Couples are cool, they are fun, they do stuff together and seperately, they don't live and breathe off eachother, you can tolerate their presence. Other Couples do EVERYTHING together - and refuse to do ANYTHING apart. And if one person doesn't want to do something but the other does, they still stay together but one looks miserable while the other has a whale of a time. They turn into a single unit - a two-headed monster, so stupidly dependent on eachother that they have to ask permission just to go down the shops and buy some milk.

As a fiercely independent girlie I will never understand this. I've seen equally fiercely independent girlfriends of mine meet a guy, and suddenly they transmogrify into Coupledom, and suddenly they no longer want to go out anywhere unless he comes, they're happy to just sit around and watch TV instead, as long as he's watching it too. If he goes out with his mates they sulk and pout and whinge and get paranoid in case he's talking to other girls....she can't attach herself to him while he's out having a lark so instead of saying "sod you then I'm off out on the piss too", she stays in and whines and shrivels the night away.

Luckily the guy I'm with at the moment doesn't expect this element of Coupledom from me, I think he knows that if he tried it I'd tell him where to stick it. However, we do socialise quite a lot with some Smug Marrieds, and every time we've been together as a foursome (ugh I hate those couply nights out) the Smugs NEVER FAIL TO MENTION MARRIAGE. Phrases such as "when you two get married...." and "You may as well be married cos you bicker like you already are....." and "You've got a house now so you should get married..." leave me waning to scream at them. Why do the Smugs always want everyone around them who is unmarried or single, to get hitched? Why? So we can all turn into them? Such fun!

I can't understand why some girls don't want to keep seperate interests up...it's nice to go off and do your own thing for a day, leave him to do his, then meet up later on. Keeps things fresh. You have something that's still just for you, despite sharing everything else. I would get so bored and frustrated living in someone's pocket and I'm sure he'd get bored and fed up of me too!

But I'm 34 in January and a lot of my mates are getting hitched .... I don't feel left behind, marriage has never been a Life Goal Reason Why I Was Put On This Earth, but I do dread having to see all my friends at gatherings if they turn into Smug Marrieds and constantly ask me why I'm not married like them yet, and teasing me about being a spinster. Rather a Spinster who is independent, than a two-headed monster!