I don't want to imply that there's no point whatsoever to heterosexual married men. That would be unfair. I'm sure some of them are quite good at their jobs, for example. And I'm willing to admit they are necessary - for impregnating wives, mowing the lawn, paying plumbers in cash, sustaining the golfing industry, getting the car washed, indulging in extra-marital affairs they will come to regret and so on. Socially speaking, however, they're redundant. Certainly, they have no business whatsoever spending time in places where single heterosexual women hang out, and talking to us.
Let me make this quite clear to those married men who might be reading: when we're all dolled up, out on the tiles with our cleavage packaged alluringly in satin, clutching an expensive cocktail in our newly manicured paws, we do not want to talk to you. When we're at the supermarket, bulk-buying quavers, our leggings clinging to our peachy buttocks as we reach for the Tropicana, we do not want to talk to you. When we're chatting up your mate, running our fingers over the lapel of his suit jacket, laughing giddily while looking him right in the eye, we do not want to talk to you. You are nothing to us; you are there, inevitably, but individually you are alike and forgettable, like dust particles, or pigeons.
It's not that we're bitches. Although it's likely that we are. We're more than happy to congratulate you on the birth of your firstborn or ask you about your weekend, over the water-cooler at work. In most circumstances we'll be polite, friendly and accommodating. But don't get it twisted. You should know that we don't care about your jokes, your hobbies or your opinions on the economy. We might pretend that we do, because social conditioning means we're programmed to act outwardly inferior to men who've had their confidence inflated by a woman making a public commitment to provide blow-jobs on tap. But we don't. We have our regular retinue of female and homosexual male pals to offer hilarity, social commentary and networking opportunities. Heterosexual men are for flirting with in anticipation of sex. And if you're married we are going to feel bad about doing that.
I'm not suggesting that marriage necessitates your becoming a recluse. By all means, head out with your boys to the gym or a 'nightclub' or a football match. By all means, invite your existing female friends to the pub and challenge them to game of pool in order to neutralise the bubbling sexual tension. By all means, take your wife out to dinner and make feeble witticisms at the waiting staff. But on absolutely no account whatsoever are you to approach a single woman when she is out in public and behave as if your charisma is reward enough. It is not - unless you are uniquely charismatic, like Jack Nicholson or Jesus. Which you aren't.
It's not that we single women want to sleep with everything that moves. Although some of us do. It's more that we want our social relations to carry a frisson of possibility that it is simply not possible to create with a married person. We put up with our married female friends because we know there will be a time when our lives are back on a level playing-ground; they'll get divorced or we'll get married and we'll find each-other's company bearable once again. And sure, at that point, once we're married ourselves, things will be different. Once I'm married you can invite me to dinner parties and we'll argue about the merits of the public vs the private school system, until my husband takes me home because I've become shrill and obnoxious after too much port. I might grow to like you then, and regard you as a friend. But that's the fictional future.
Right now, my life is hard enough, even though I spend seventy percent of it sleeping. I have no idea what I am supposed to talk about with heterosexual men who there is no possibility of my ever having sex with. There is no guidance for that in popular culture (unless they're a manual worker doing labour at your house, in which case, offer them tea). I suppose you do get the odd one that's into theatre or The Sopranos, but they tend to have that annoying habit of banging on about the factual minutiae of their interests as if you haven't got a PhD.
Right now, the only concern I have with married men is meeting their eligible bachelor mates. Because a girl can't write a sex blog if she has absolutely no sexual encounters whatsoever.
*Image is "Young Couple Sitting On Sofa" by imagerymajestic at freedigitalphotos.net.
This post was first published on Reasons to be Single, Katie Beswick's award winning satirical sex and relationships blog. You can check it out here.