knows what they’re putting up with and shutting up with in order to make it “work” with the stupid fucking man they’re stuck with.’
Megan is in the enviable position of having completely given up on romantic love, and, as a result, is probably one of the happiest, most content people I know. I mean, it helps that her parents are loaded, so she’s inherited a two-bed flat in freaking Kensington but, as she says herself, ‘what I inherited in money and property, I also inherited in a fucked-up family dynamic and major issues’. She reaches out and pulls my head out of my knees. ‘Think of all the married women we know, then look at their husbands. Is there a single one of them, a single one that you don’t think is a bit of a dick and wonder how she puts up with him?’
I pause as I run through all my ‘happily married’ friends’ husbands. There’s Joel, Steph’s husband, a Chelsea season-ticket holder and has therefore never once spent a whole weekend with her, apart from their two-week honeymoon. Even then, she says he watched football on the hotel TV the whole time. Then there’s Stu, Kim’s husband, who corrects her on her grammar in front of people. Even Katy’s husband, Jimmy, is someone she constantly complains about. ‘He just doesn’t do anything,’ she’ll moan. ‘It takes so much effort sometimes to get him to just mend a bloody shelf without me asking a million times.’
‘So, these are my choices?’ I ask, spelling them out on my fingers: ‘a) accept that all men are problematic cretins who don’t deserve us, but try to find one to love anyway. Which is what I’ve been trying to do, but men don’t seem to want to be with me because I’m not like Gretel, despite the huge personal compromises I’m making in trying to love their pathetic arses. Or b) give up, live my life without a man, continue using a vibrator and find a sperm donor if I get really desperate to have children?’
Megan points to herself proudly. ‘And you will notice I’ve gone for option B. Look how happy I am. How young I look.’ She jabs the uncreased skin around her eyes.
‘I want there to be more options than these. I get more options for how to take my fucking coffee. I’m so depressed.’
Megan tilts her head. ‘I know, hon. It hurts. And I’m sorry.’
‘Is there … am I …’ I can hardly make myself say it, the inkling in my stomach that makes me feel sick and useless and desperate. ‘Am I just … unlovable?’
Megan pulls me into her so tight that I can smell her Chanel Coco Mademoiselle. Only Megan would still wear perfume on a lazy Saturday. ‘Of course you’re not unlovable! You’re so lovable, I love you!’
‘You have to say that because you’re my friend.’
‘No. Because it’s true.’
‘I’m too damaged for love. Ryan fucked me up beyond repair and men can sense that. They want someone perfect; they want a Gretel.’
‘Everyone’s damaged, hon,’ she reassures. ‘And men are the most damaged of all. It’s nothing to do with you. You know it. Deep down, you know it. And, how many times do I need to tell you? Gretel ISN’T REAL.’
I hear her words and I know they are right but I still don’t believe them. I remember the look on Simon’s face when I revealed a tiny part of myself that wasn’t easy-going. It’s the face I’ve seen time and time again, over the years and the heartbreaks. So many different men, with different features, temperaments, eye colours and bone structure – yet all with the same drawing up of the eyebrows, the lowering of their chin, the face they pull when they realise you are too much and they’re not sure they want you after all (though they’ll still be willing to sleep with you and hide all of this until you catch on).
I can’t do it any more.
I can’t see that face on a man again. Especially as so many of those men weren’t even all that. It’s exhausting feeling so permanently powerless.
What does it say when a man you’re willing to compromise on isn’t willing to compromise on you?
‘Are you OK?’ Megan leans forward, her face the picture of concern and love and understanding. The sort of face it would be amazing to see on just one boyfriend, just one. If men could love women the way women love each other, everything