Bitching

Being of the female persuasion, I have thus been imbued with an almost pathological need to bitch. In much the same way that I assume boys had seperate lessons at school in ‘how to undo a bra one-handed’, ‘never calling when you say you will’ and ‘saying things you don’t really mean’, I have to assume that we girls were given lessons in ‘bitching and backstabbing’ ‘falling in love with an entirely unsuitable man’ and ‘eating your bodyweight in chocolate’ though I really can’t remember them at all. I’m confident that, as with most other subjects, I passed with flying colours, since I can do all of the above quite successfully and often at the same time. [At this point it would be wise to specify that I refer to lessons 1 and 3 since I am now happily married to the DH, who is infinitely suitable and was off sick the day they taught the boys classes.....] I’m fairly certain I could bitch about anything. Life can be frustrating when you spend all day with a one-year-old who has yet to learn to speak English, a dog who thinks she is God and a house that needs a lot of TLC. Bitching is way cheaper than the therapy I should probably be having, yet without the calories that accompany chocolate consumption.

I’ve moved on from the backstabbing kind of bitching that used to occur if you got more than one teenage girl together. God, I hated being a teenager. Everyone was so mean. Sad to say that you still come across the odd soul who has yet to shake the teenage mentality, despite having a mortgage and a partner and a career. In that setting, it’s quite sad really. In an appropriate setting bitch-therapy can be highly entertaining. Monday nights currently provide excellent televisual assistance in this department in the shape of Four Weddings. The blurb says “Four Weddings sees four brides-to-be put their special day under scrutiny, inviting three rival brides to critique their nuptials, all in a bid to win every newly wed’s dream prize – a luxury honeymoon.” Frankly it didn’t sound that appealing. The reason I started watching it is because there never seemed to be anything to watch on a Monday night [I can hear my mother saying "You don't have to watch the television just because it's there- read a book!"] and I thought I’d watch it whilst faffing about on the interweb. But somewhere along the way I got a bit hooked. I don’t know why. It’s fascinating seeing what other people consider to be the perfect wedding (cue comments like “It’s not a really a good wedding if there isn’t a fight” and “I just want to get drunk as quickly as possible”). Then there are the four ‘brides’ (there have been a number of gay weddings) start out being very polite about each other then slowly get more and more critical of the weddings and each other as the days go on. I’m assuming that, in order to make the best television, the TV producers matched the foursomes up slightly since one bride will often say their idea of a wedding hell is a pub reception and then you cut to bride two who is having their reception in a pub.

It is perfect viewing for a Monday night, ideal for me since I do the Great Commute on Monday and am invariably frustrated and annoyed when I get home. It’s also great entertainment- DH will sit and watch with me, by which I mean he will read the newspaper, all the while muttering things like “what was she thinking?”, “that looks ghastly” and (my personal favourite) “our wedding was much better!” Last week we had a sitting room filled with people eating curry, all of whom spent an hour happily critiquing the weddings. It actually makes me wonder whether men weren’t given the bitching gene too….

So, if you need me this evening, I’ll be on the sofa getting my fix.

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