How not to get married

Getting married.  It’s a daunting prospect. No – not because I have absolutely no idea what we are going to talk about for the next 70 or so years.  But because you can be pretty near certain that everyone at the ceremony – absolutely everyone – would love to see a real life cock up...  Am I being paranoid? Not at all. 

At public speaking classes they tell you that your audience is really on your side – that watching someone fuck up a much-prepared speech or performance is nearly as painful for the audience as it is for the performer .... that your public are willing you to succeed.  And there is a certain amount of truth in this.  Watching someone royally humiliate themselves is painful.  But it is the sort of pain we relish. We positively seek it out. Sure it makes us squirm, it may even trigger a wave of genuine sympathy. But, just like we love watching a good tragedy, so do we revel in a real life displays of public humiliation. And what better chance to humiliate yourself than by turning up to your own wedding DRUNK. Too awful to be true? Think again. I did it.

A small and humble family affair? Yes. A calm, composed bride? No.  

What really upsets me is not the fact that I was rendered pretty much incapable of receiving Joe’s wedding vows with a straight face, nor the fact that I gurned pretty much the whole way through the ceremony, but the fact that there is photographic evidence of every single gurn.  My wedding album will portray not an elegant charm of a bride, but a frilled-up pisshead. Dressed to impress and pissed of my face. 

And, I don’t care what anyone says, the photos are what count.  Yes I enjoyed myself, yes I was convinced I was elegance incarnate, but that all means jack shit if the photos are bad. And they are bad.

I have a photo face.. its the expression I distort my face into whenever a camera is pointed in my direction. It is the face I have developed for just these sorts of occasions – for weddings, for birthdays, for walking past the tourists at Trafalgar square. If there’s a camera anywhere near me, chances are i will be pulling my camera face. I plump my lips up a bit, I narrow my eyes in the hopes of creating the illusion of two almonds, I  tilt my head slightly backwards in order to avoid multiple chins, and last but not least - if my facial muscles allow, I  also try to fashion something resembling a smile. My camera face is the product of many years of anguish at the photographic evidence of the far from perfect assemblage of flesh that is my face. It is something I have developed on the off-chance that I will one day have an acquaintance who knows me only through my photos. So that my ancestors – when compiling some sort of an album in tribute to my life – will think I had only one chin, plump lips, and pleasing almond shaped eyes  - instead of the thin lipped droopy eyed truth. Ridiculous. But true.

I only wish I had known that my camera face is not as it should be when I am totally bladdered.  Our self appointed wedding photographer (AKA Mike) had the pleasure of taking many photos of drunken gurning bride – what an accolade.

If this sounds all a bit down-cast, here are some of the wedding highlights:

1.       The groom.  He is lovely. Although he did ply me with alchohol before the ceremony and then somehow manage to regain total sobriety just in time to show me up as the unstable member of the partnership.

2.       No huge family rows. At least not from my side of the family (the sane side.)

3.       My dress...  Altghough come to think of it, my dress also managed to show me up, being all pretty and lacey and tiny-er than I. But unlike the groom I forgave it. I love the dress. Too much.  So much that right now if one were to look in my fridge, there one would find it - well protected from pesky moths.. who also love the dress too much. (The very same little bastards who loved my wedding shawl so much that they muched their way through it but days before the wedding .)

4.       Es was lovely and cute in her little dress. And she didnt poo once. Result.

How I met my match

Babies cant swim, and they cant dance, but don’t let that lull you into a false sense of security.  They are smart...

So busy have I been making plans about how to maintain control once Esme is walking, talking, answering back, and so on, that it altogether slipped my attention that I have already lost it.

Pre-Esme, if you had asked me what sort of mental faculties were required to outsmart a sane adult human being (like me),  my response would have made reference to
a) the ability to understand language,
b) the possession of some sort of concepts, and
c) the ability to engage in reasoning. 

(So for instance, say that child X wanted to develop a means of resisting parent Y's sleep-encouraging gestures.  In order to develop a realiable method to ensure that they were never put to bed in the day time - say - they would need  (at the very least) to have the concept ‘being put to bed’ (which arguably requires some linguistic competence). They would also need to understand the simple argument ‘If I cry I wont be put to bed, I don’t want to be put to bed, therefore I will cry’.)

 I now know that no such mental faculties are required. 

Esme cannot yet talk (hardly surprising as she is only 9 months) and Im as good as certain that she lacks the ability to engage in abstract reasoning. (We are pretty much on top of bum-shuffling, but inferences and deductions are not yet in our repertoire.)  However she definitely knows how to outsmart me.... Much to my dismay,  mid-day naps are now a thing of the past.

Babies operate according to simple principles of conditioning.  Rewarded behaviour is repeated. When put to bed, Esme cries. I take her out of bed, she rewards me by ceasing to scream. I am conditioned. Next time she cries, I repeat in search of my reward. A vicious cycle.  That is all that is required to get the better of me.  PHD or no PHD I am no better than the dogs and monkeys - I cant resist a reward. And this reward is more valuable than you might imagine. ..

I have spent the last 26 years learning how to conduct myself in public in such a way as to avoid provoking anger, hostility, resentment, blame and so on. It has taken that long. But I now have it down to a fine art. I am pleased to say that even the subtler rules of etiquette now feature in my personal code of conduct. Not only do I refrain from eating on public transport, I also know to walk at a reasonable speed in the ‘walking aisle’ of escalator traffic, and so on. The learning process was - as it is for everyone – a hard and gruelling task. But one that was worthwhile in light of the payoff- the chance to live in virtual anonymity. Bliss.  But for the females among us this bliss is short-lived. Anonymity is hard to maintain - on a train say, or in a cafe – when there is a distinct smell of poo coming from your general vicinity. Top this off with a small human strapped to your front - one who is busy screaming in the faces of those around you, and -like it or not - the limelight is yours.  Babies are not concerned with blending in. Keeping a low profile is not among their lists of priorities. Yes they are cute, and chubby and yummm... but they are not discreet. 

Not being one to enjoy the spot-light, I will jump on any chance I have of restoring peace. I would do practically anything. Whether it is lifting Es out of the buggy, sugary cakes, a dummy,  – she wants it she gets it. Its that simple. The reward is too tempting. I just cant resist.

I live in hope that I will one day learn  if not to appreciate then atleast to ignore  the attention of strangers. I live in hope that one day control will again be mine ....