In Sex in The City, Charlotte bemoans the fact she has been dating since she was 15 - now, in her 30s she is exhausted looking for Mr Right - where is he?
In 2001 I could relate.
I had passed the stage of attending weddings alone; (always at the ‘singles table’ natch) and was entering the era of friends getting pregnant and announcing those pregnancies at said weddings. I had been on so many bad dates the crew I worked with at a production company would beg me to regale them with the horror stories as soon as I walked through the door. At yet another wedding, my friend’s Dad asked, while spinning me around the floor: ‘why haven’t you been snapped up yet?’ The idea being that I had chosen somehow to remain unwanted, on the dusty singleton shelf.
In true Sex and the City style (it was the dramady that defined my single girl era) a good friend hosted a ‘trash or treasure party.’ The idea being that ‘one girl’s trash is another girl’s treasure.’ (Another Charlotte quote - but our fav was always, always Samantha). I brought a mate who was delighted to be my trash - (very late 90s) and he duly scored. In fact everyone did. I was the ONLY person at the whole fucking event to go home treasure-less, without even my trash.
So it was no surprise to me when my good mate Max, the then showbiz boss of LNN (London News Network), asked me to bring some single mates and attend the Bridgit Jones’s Diary premiere in April 2001 and then agree to be filmed afterwards to give our opinion. I called my mates Sam, Esther and Caroline and roped them in. We had agreed to being filmed getting in a black cab, attending the film and then giving our verdict on it afterwards. Did we relate to it as single gals? I assumed that we wouldn’t even make the cut and assured my mates that we would simply get to see the film. VG.
We’d all obviously hoovered up the book years before. My life was also terribly Bridgit (though I couldn’t afford a flat by myself like Bridge - seeing as they weren’t V cheap in a sexy part of London) but like Bridge, I worked in telly - had been a reporter for 2 years at an insane cable channel where I read the news in front of a 6 foot man in a rabbit costume. This is no lie. I also liked a drunken fag and was fairly regularly drunken. I took to putting gold stars on boys I liked at parties - which always got them talking and had a gold star of my own - a tiny tattoo just lower than my hip. The boy would get to see said tattoo if he was v v lucky. I hoped for love, but somehow, it escaped me.
Boys I dated: The Hollywood director who dumped me for Joely Richardson and then married a supermodel; the terribly, oh so nice Sound man that my flatmates loved but was simply too nice; the white haired director who made me canapés and then treated me to his black and white fuzzy dots horror wailing film (like the beginning of the horror The RING) which he proceeded to lecture me on for…. 2 hours straight. Standing. (We never had date no. 2). The boy from school who I was devoted to and because of the script in my head, determined he had to be equally devoted to me. He was not. The comedian who was anything but funny on his own turf - who then introduced me to his girlfriend at a BBC party. Nice. The A-list actor who had a HUGE black and white photo of himself at the end of his bed and a teeny tiny one of his girlfriend next to it. He forgot to mention her. Turns out I had met her… (she was a PR for Nivea). The TV hot shot who looked like the devil and had a cocaine addiction as big as his ego, who would pick me up in his red Porsche and phone me at 2 in the morning. The Lenny Kravitz lookalike who was setting up his own bar in Paris. Tattoos down his arms, from New Orleans, wore yellow shades and was v v hot. Oh and getting married - a little detail he chose to omit when he wined and dined me. (I hasten to add I did NOT sleep with all these dates - although why I feel the need to put in that detail is probably more to do with growing up in Northern Ireland than anything else! Or maybe because my Mother just subscribed to these here posts). The Kiwi I met in New Zealand and fell for, only to try and rekindle this in London, but by then he had moved in with his girlfriend. The 90s TV star who wooed me at the Met bar and then disappeared… to call his then wife. The cute boy who worked in a cookie store who I thought was 21 (I was 27 at the time) but turned out he was a mere 18. Which I found out, when his best mate told me this. In front my channel bosses at the Flextech Xmas party 2000. Not a good look. Was it just me, or were there far more Daniel Cleavers than Mark Darcys???
Anyway, back to 2001. We watch the movie. If memory serves me well, the TV company even paid for us to have some drinks afterwards (at Titanic - the most 90s of bars, except perhaps the Met) and then we were (separately) interviewed. As Bridge makes a total shit show of cooking; falls out of a cab hammered; holds karaoke for one parties and sports skirts that are far far too short, I did feel a gnawing sense that perhaps she and I were more alike than I had first assumed. I think I just mumbled something about loving the film and drunkenly we all made hasty exits back to our respective flats/flatshares.
Next day I settled down to watch the news and squealed when on came the report, featuring clips from the movie, shots of Renee Zellweger and Hugh Grant and then us! All three of the others simply said: ‘She is Suzanne.’ Excuse me? They were single too!!! But no mention of Sam’s bizarre choices or Caroline’s lack of any choice of men - just the fact that me and Bridge were one and the same. Fine, fine, no really it’s totally fine, that my singledom and seemingly desperate quest for a partner had been broadcast to the country. VG. Plus the camera adds 10 pounds. Not so VG.
But, looking back, the one thing that Bridget did do - was make it OK to be farking single! Because everywhere else in life, it was not ok. All my schoolmates had got hitched, family queried my lack of spouse and there was a sense I needed to ‘settle down.’ Bridgit had to put up with smug marrieds and the endless pitying looks and the sense that somehow she hadn’t ‘achieved.’ IT WAS SO WRONG. Why is every woman’s accomplishment of that era connected to a man? Got married - Yay. Had a baby - yay you GO GURL! Where are the celebrations for women simply for getting a bloody great job? Or buying a property alone? Or doing anything by themselves without needing a ruddy partner?
What was stopping me finding Mr Right? (Why did I even have to find Mr Right?). Well, one boyfriend in my early 20s (the dullest man in Britain) told me my personality was ‘too much’ for him. I had one he didn’t. My step-father told me I just needed to ‘quieten down,’ at one excruciating dinner where I was being used as a connective social tissue between his new partner and her family and his. He said that my endless chatter was driving away men. (I did like a chat to be fair). Was I too curvy at 9 and a half stone? (V Bridgit - and the horror when I realise Renee added 20 pounds to play her. I mean how tiny is that?). Maybe I was too blonde? Too Irish? Or was I simply having too much fun to park it for some bloke that frankly didn’t inspire me. And did we just talk about the list? SO MANY DANIEL CLEAVERS.
As it happens, I met a bushy browed Australian only 3 months later, just after I bought my first home of my own. (V Bridgit). We’ve been together 24 years this summer. He was neither Darcy nor Cleaver. He didn’t try to quieten me in any way. He loved me for who I was/am. With all that chat. My own diary entries stopped, on the day of our first date.
However, when I read back on those diaries of old, or reflect on my Bridgit-ness - I feel aggrieved. Why did I ever see it as a slight to be Bridgit? How bloody GREAT was it to be her? How much fun did I have? (Answer: A LOT). So many long nights and shorts skirts and dancing and parties. I was presenter in those days, my flatmates bookers - and I had VIP passes to Reading, V festival, album launches, premieres (Grease 20th anniversary meeting ONJ - swoon) after parties, London and Paris Fashion weeks ‘97’98’99 - and all the glitz and glamour that came with.
Thank god I did, because now I do not have the energy or inclination to attend anything during the winter months and it’d take a rocket to get me out of my small market town even in the summer. Life is smaller, calmer, more cold water swimming that hot man chasing. So thank god I had the Bridgit years.
The fact is, she was (and still is) loved because she feels like one of us. I have been in my male physio’s office, with back issues, as he explains that I need to try to mimic running leaning against the wall. In my bra and knickers. As I do this, I keep feeling the label of my knickers sticking out and go to put it back in. Time and again. Then it hits me. The label won’t go back in. Because my knickers are on inside out. My gusset is all out there. And I have to stand there and pretend that it is all ok. Mimic running. Bend and move and try to hide my flashing gusset. So Bridgit. This kinda stuff happens to me on a daily basis. The shame, not the gusset flashing.
I know that the first Bridgit film (I rewatched last week) hasn’t aged well in its descriptions of gay men, or blatant sexism (BUT WE DID FACE IT EXACTLY AS DRAMATISED) and that films two and three weren’t much cop - but if I had one wish for old Bridge in the new one: Mad About The Boy - is that post Mark Darcy she is having a lot of VG (and not PG) fun. That she isn’t trying to find yet another man to save her - because she doesn’t need saving - and never did.
It was everyone else who needed to change their expectations.
How about you - do you relate to Bridgit then or now? Pop a comment down below.
Love Bridget, love this post. VG.
I liked the gruesome reminder list of your previous paramours. One of them popped up in my Linkedin 'connect with' today. Dearie me. Never read Bridget or related to it in the past. Someone told me that Helen Fielding based Darcy on Kier Starmer when he worked at the DPP (?!) which spoilt it for future me, so now unlikely I ever will.