How I Don't Want To Be

One of my greatest fears is that I will turn out to be a certain type of person who I don't like. Yes, the possibility exists, too, that I will turn out to be a person who other people don't like all that much, but that bothers me less than the idea of realising the terrible fate of the unmarried, middle-aged woman, who has a persecution complex and feels she has to prove herself…similar to many of the members of Wedge, I suspect.

At a dinner last week with my family and various others, I came across a middle-aged woman called (for the sake of this story) Sue. She had been invited by the host because, as I found out later in the evening, as the host whispered to Sue in the geriatric fashion that results in everyone within a 10 metre radius overhearing, "There's no need for you to be all alone!" I'm sure this irked Sue – nothing worse than being pitied.

Back to earlier in the evening…

We sat down at the table to eat, and unfortunately I was placed next to Sue. Someone then mentioned something about the Masters dissertation I'm (theoretically, at this stage) completing. At this point, Sue turned to me and spoke for the second time that evening (the first time was when introductions were done): "I, too, am about to hand in my dissertation for my Masters degree. But it makes it so much more difficult when you work at the same time."

Hmmm, so clearly the hard-worker assumed that I was merely a full-time student, messing around and skiving off. Definitely not as smart or focused or serious as she is.

Anyway, conversation continued as my family teased me about giving them all grey hairs a number of years ago when I decided to start working on my Honours research report three weeks before it was due. This prompted Sue's third attempt at conversation: "I thoroughly enjoyed my Honours, for which I got a first-class pass. There's nothing like the feeling of walking across the lawns knowing you've achieved a first."

The self-congratulatory stuff carried on intermittently for the rest of the evening until she left – mercifully – about 45 minutes before the rest of us.

I subsequently found out about her being a Wedge-ie yesterday, and it all made sense. Sue is the Wedge stereotype I described in my post last week – she's in her early sixties; lives alone; has no children; has to have the last word, and can never be wrong.

Anyway, I was left wondering if, in 30 years' time, *I* would end up being invited by elderly widows to join them and other families on Friday nights for dinner.

Not the most cheery of thoughts.

I dread the idea of having throngs of people feeling sorry for me should I not end up getting married and having children. And I dread, too, becoming a humourless old git who cannot laugh at herself, nor allow the possibility that numerous people out there can do what I do at least as well as I do, and most probably a lot better.

Why do so many women turn into this type of person? Why so rigid? Where's the fun? Why does it seem that their lives are balancing on a pinhead? Did they become these smug but insecure individuals because they didn't have their own families? Or was this tendency always in them, regardless of whether or not they married?

I need not to be like Sue. However, I also need not to get married simply because I'm 30, and everyone has already done it, and it's the only way people won't feel sorry for me.