Me: What are you saying?! Troll 2: (sighs) I’m saying, Mom, it’s OK if you want to go run around looking silly and trying to find a boyfriend. It’s cool. Really, it is. But you shouldn’t do it for me and Troll 1. We’re fine without a guy here. You’re much nicer when you’re not dating someone, in any case!
Me: But… I thought you guys were still on the New Daddy tip!
Troll 1: Yeah… That was last year. Try and keep up, please!
Me: I hate you guys so much! (bursts out in tears… and then runs to hug them)
The kiddies and I were having one of ‘those’ conversations. I was hysterical, peer pressured into feeling some kinda way about my lacklustre love life, and they were sitting there with those exasperated ‘Mom is having a girly moment again’ expressions, staring at me like I am petulant five-year-old throwing a fit in a supermarket.
In my defence, my little breakdown was a long time coming.
I’ve been bulldozed by ‘you need a man’ comments lately.
From readers who feel my love and financial woes would be something of the past if I would just get off my raggedy, tired and thirsty high horse and ‘get a man’.
By female friend The Mermaid who is knee deep in wedding plans, pregnancy hormones and loved up pheromones and feels its ‘only a matter of time before The One rocks up’.
And by my elder sister, best friend and confidante The Wise One, a woman who is obviously tired of seeing me make the same ol’ romantic mistakes and keeps reminding me that I need to start looking at ‘grown up personality traits’ when considering my next love interest.
Some people’s Cupboards of Shame have cobwebs.
Mine has full grown hairy tarantulas and scary demon-looking monsters. And the ‘you need a man’ cupboard is so full of creepy crawlies, guilty feelings, moments of inadequacy and insecurities that is literally bursting at the seams, friends.
At the bottom of all horrible, tear-jerking feelings regarding all my failed relationships? That pit-in-the-stomach feeling that I have always had to push harder, try harder, relax my standards even lower… so that The Trolls don’t grow up man-less.
And now here we are.
Obviously no longer in ‘last year’ as my first born so poignantly just pointed out.
And I am so relieved to no longer be in ‘last year’ that I just said I hated them and broke down sobbing. Because… no longer being in Last Year means that for the first time in years… the pressure on me to ‘get a man’ is finally off.
Regardless of what anyone has to say on the topic, regardless of any ‘if you don’t hurry up you’re going to grow old alone’ anecdotes, regardless of no longer receiving invitations that require a plus one… the fact that The Trolls no longer care about me dating or finding them a Man Person to look up to, hold onto and have.
They don’t care because they’re OK without a guy. And they’re OK because they think I’m OK without a guy too.
How did we get here? Lord knows.
But we did. And now that the pressure is off… What could possibly happen next?
