GEMMA ROSE

SINGLE AT CHRISTMAS... HELP?

 

Okay it’s Christmas. Now don’t get me wrong, I like Christmas. I like Yule log, I like Christmas trees, I like mulled wine, I like Christmas parties (but I can never remember much about them, only the cringing embarrassment of lurching up to some stranger who is just as intoxicated as me and telling him that I love him and always have done), but most of all I like opening very expensive presents.

 

However, what I don’t like is the common assumption held by everyone from advertising executives to my granny, that what I really, really need for Christmas is a man.

 

Men are fine; they have their uses. Such as getting spiders out the bath, changing light bulbs, making strange consoling speeches about ‘big ends’, ‘alternators’ and ‘catalytic convertors’ all of which are apparently parts of cars, but none of which are as exciting as a new pair of TopShop heels.

 

Now, if we get down to it, what I really hate is the image portrayed that any female of approximately my age needs a man to make her life complete, especially at Christmas. I am reduced to spluttering fury by the inane adverts on television where the doting woman looks on fondly at some Take That wannabe beaming with gormless gratitude as he tears the wrapping paper from his ‘super smooth Mac 3 quadruple duple bladed no cut lubricating strip razor’.

 

I can easily manage without a doe-eyed partner slobbering stupidly on my shoulder and becoming all misty eyed at the thought of some stupid king looking out on snowy streets on the feast of someone called Stephen, whom no one is actually familiar with in the first place. Anyway, snowy streets make it awfully difficult to walk in my new heels.

 

Even worse is the torture of visiting middle aged relatives where they give me a knowing wink and growl in what they think is a seductive voice “how’s the boyfriend?” Well, Uncle Andrew, there is no boyfriend right now, so don’t dust off the top hat just yet.

 

Before you label me a modern day, female feminist Emily Scrooge there are things about Christmas as a singleton that I like. For example, a carefully chosen DVD selection will enable me to spend my days (and nights) throughout the festive season with absolutely any man I choose. Brad Pitt on the 23rd perhaps. On Christmas Eve, since he hasn’t got a game until boxing day, perhaps some stolen time with Ronaldo.

 

 By Christmas day I am sure I will be tired of the perma-tanned twinkle toed winger, or should that be w… never mind. And it may be time to snuggle up on the sofa and watch the Queens speech with the gorgeous longhaired, slight bewhiskered Johnny Depp. That’s the beauty of my ‘singletons select’ system. I can choose to have him in anyway I like including boxed, wrapped and left under my tree.

 

Looking back at these words again I’d like to correct any misapprehension that I may be a fickle, unfaithful, self-centered egocentric.

 

It doesn’t matter what time of year it is, I don’t want a boyfriend just to get me a big box of chocolates, some nice underwear and a cuddle when I cry at the Muppets Christmas Carol. If that were the case, I’d have dumped him by New Year anyway. I intend to spend this year with my loved ones wearing Christmas jumpers, playing Cranium and eating all the green triangles out of the tin of Quality Streets sent to us by a long lost relative. And to me that sounds perfect.

 

Merry Christmas!