"We didn't burn our bras for this shit!"

Meeting up with a friend for lunch yesterday we got onto the topic of "the future of love" which more concerned her's than mine, as I'm perfectly happy to consider this an adventure - or, when it's bad, myself as a character that it's not actually happening to.
This is a very good friend of mine from school who yo-yos from relationship to relationship like a man goes through x-box games; when they're completed it's time to find a new one as fast as possible, otherwise they'll be wasting 80% of their time. You can die from not playing x box you know.. The minute a girlfriend manages to lure one of them away from the tv into a private wooded area...Well, we're all making the world a better place, one wanker at a time.
But she'll be the first to admit this 'half-of-a-whole' behaviour. When she's single she moans about not having anyone (astonishing when she has such funny and insightful friends) and when she's all tied up in commitment even that's not enough! She can hardly wait for the day that life (and everything amazing that comes free of charge with it) ends as we know it: getting dolled up and marched down between rows of extended family and friends- who you really don't know that well, it turns out- by a man who carries knives in his socks (and in some sort of bum-bag thing over his skirt) like a lamb for the slaughter. Which is how I'm sure it must feel for many woman that blanch at the idea of not having a dishwasher. And this fiasco is just the beginning of my friend's 'dream'.
Yupp, she simply can't wait for it all and as I stood there in the street scaring tourists with what must have looked like a violent expression trying to stage an intervention, desperately calling for back up at a group muslims (the point was wasted on them) she delivered the death blow to feminism everywhere: "Well yeah, I'd rather spend my husband's money than my own."
It was worse than I thought and I considered hitting her with the Bayswater Mulberry I had bought for myself only a few months ago but, then again, I'm not going to damage good leather for a lost cause - which was what how it seemed.

But I did spend about five minutes trying to scare it out of her verbally (and concocting a plan that involved her mother and I abducting her) but when she wasn't budging I drew out the big guns and waffled a speech which was as painful as swallowing nails along the lines of: "for the sake of your children, have something to show for yourself". At the 'c word' her eyes lit up, god help me.

Now, don't get me wrong - I want all of the above, but I don't think about how good it would be to put up with now and the last thing I would want to do for the rest of my life would be looking after cretins that start off: screaming at you and keeping you up all night; then throw crap all over the walls and furniture (child-proofing can bite me); run away from you in your local supermarket (I would probably use a trick of my mother's which would be to run away from it, too); become a smart-ass little shit at school; start giving you back talk; have underage sex (imagine the dent on the car after I have to go and run some young boy down); screw up their exams because of all the drama drama drama that is their lives; squeeze every last penny out of you and then fuck off to some educational establishment to drink themselves into an early grave.
By that point I'd be years ahead in the race.
Sure they eventually come to their senses in their twenties and apologise but by then, with my lack of patience.. well I'd probably tell them they were adopted to get them off my back. It's probable social work would get to them first though:
"Is this your child?"
"Only if you're willing to buy it.."

A casing point of my lack of feminine instincts - I'm more femme fatale - would be the fact that I attempted to cook last night and, after googling what the pan looked like and even then managing to use the wrong one, I ended up with hot couscous and cold salmon fillets. In my opinion it was totally justified as the story I had been telling whilst cooking (far more important) was well worth the potential food poisoning. I must say, though, bless my man for wolfing it down, although the illusion was shattered when he proclaimed, "I'm easy - I'll eat anything!" In my view, such an insult deserves the punishment of not cooking for him for a year. However, that may have been his plan in the first place..

I'm going to see my friend for lunch again today and, as long as she doesn't ask whether or not I used a non-stick pan last night with genuine interest, there is still hope.