One Day film: Think you've found The One? Or have you just settled for Any One?
Given its perfectly possible that you have not yet seen the Hollywood blockbuster One Day, or read the bestseller on which its based, let me enlighten you.
The story begins in 1988 and follows our two lead characters dowdy blue-stocking Emma, who abandons acting and enchilada-filling in a cheap Mexican restaurant to become a teacher, and Dexter, a rakish, handsome, privileged young man who finds fame on television.
These two spend the night together just once after graduation, and we revisit them once a year, on St Swithins Day, for the following 20 years. They are best friends. They make each other laugh. They flirt, and reach out for each other when life has, yet again, kicked them in the teeth and they are lonely.
Ideal love: Jim Sturgess as Dexter and Anne Hathaway as Emma in the film One Day
You and I are supposed to think that they are meant for each other, but pride, fear, circumstance, other people, geography and a careless postman get in the way.
I dont want to spoil the denouement if you have yet to read the book or see the film, but lets just say it doesnt end well. I saw the movie on Friday and have the puffy eyes and swollen throat to prove it.
But the reason I was, and am, so upset is not just because of the tear-jerker of a plot. Its because the idea that there is The One out there somewhere is surely patent nonsense.
The whole premise of the book by David Nicholls which is, nonetheless, funny, touching and insightful is that there is, for all of us, a Great Love. Its just a case of finding him or her.
Get him: Colin Firth as Darcy in Pride and Prejudice
This is what we, as women, have been force fed since early girlhood. The One. Mr Rochester. Mr Darcy. Mr Big. The list is almost endless.
Women are peddled romance from the cradle and Ive started to wonder why. Maybe its nothing more complicated than the fact that life is hard and we wouldnt get through it without this gloopy Vaseline over the lens, this delusion.
But whats wrong with believing in true love, I hear you ask. Isnt it heartening to think there is a Dexter out there for all of us, just waiting in the wings for us to open our eyes and realise we want him?
Unfortunately, two things happen to women as we sail through our 20s, thinking, like Emma, that the landmark of 30 will simply never arrive, that we have all the time in the world.
The first thing is that the perfect man does not exist. Put simply, we are disappointed in our 20s, time and again, because post-feminist women raised as they were to expect the best, and to be able to get their talons into anything they want set the bar too high.
As 20-somethings became more independent, they refused to settle, to compromise. Its rare these days that anyone marries their childhood sweetheart, or the person they met at university.
Banker: Catherine Middleton did not look further than Prince William of Wales
(You might cite William and Kate, but I have to interject here and say that Kate, unlike most modern young women, knew early on that she had bagged the best, therefore there was no need to trawl her net for the next decade, throwing deadbeat men back into the sea until she found the one who would at best make her giddy, at worst not pick his feet in the front of the telly.)
Waiting for Mr Right: Anne Hathaway as Emma in One Day finds you can't always get what you want
Second, unlike Kate and Jane Austens Lizzie Bennett, for us, work gets in the way. For anyone born after 1958 and with a university education, to get married young is seen as a bit common; to have children in your early 20s is positively feral.
Even if we have found the love of our lives early on, it feels too soon; we want him to bugger off for a decade or so while we make our mark, stand on our own two feet, and experience life.
When women suddenly wake up in their late 30s, as I did, and discover they are still on their own, their ovaries rapidly desiccating alongside their empty wombs, panic sets in. You can see it in our eyes: they become beady, focused. We might have the house, the car, the Conran sofa and the expense account but what we dont have is a man.
And this is exactly when it happens. That awful word: compromise. Aware that time is passing us by at a fearsome rate of knots, we pretend we have found the love of our life. But the truth is that we havent found The One at all. No, in desperation, weve simply settled for Anyone.
Which is exactly what I did when, at the age of 41, my gynaecologist declared: Enjoy your hormones while they last! I married a man 14 years my junior simply because he seemed keen and didnt make me gag.
We werent suited in any way: in our class, race, age bracket, attitude to work, religion. But we married, despite everything. The reason? He happened to be there.
Sun seekers: Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess in One Day
I have seen this happen time and time again. Five of my eight best girlfriends have got married in their late 30s, while two have married in their early 40s.
One, in her 40s, who is gorgeous, sweet and kind, e! nded up with a man who turned out to be an alcoholic. Another married a man who was clearly gay. Another married a big lump who bores the hell out of me and whom she sees only twice a year.
Predator: Jennifer Ehle as Lizzie Bennet in Pride and Prejudice
The same thing happens to Emma in One Day only whats worse is that she settles not once, but twice.
Before her story with Dexter reaches its natural conclusion, she ends up with a dreadful bore, Ian, whom she knows she despises on their first date. She hates his jokes, his clothes, the hair on his back, the fact he belches into his fist.
So, what does she do? She BUYS A FLAT WITH HIM! Why? Because any man is better than no mans land.
There is no great love where such women are concerned, merely a great lurch towards the finishing tape of fertility.
Ihad thought I was a nice person, but, like Emma, merely picky. But tomarry a man because you are 40 and he happened to bob his head above the choppy waters of commitment is just cruel, and unforgivable.
If you have a teenage son, warn him now:women are ruthless when it comes to mapping out their perfect life. They will trick you, and by this I dont mean by merely dyeing their hair and extending their eyelashes and dropping their passport in the pool so their date of birth develops a smudge (guilty as charged).
At the age of 42, a friend of mine embarked on a relationship with a man who had expressly stated that he didnt want children. She, however, was eager for a family, so what did she do? She facilitated an accident.
Love in vain, again: Anne Hathaway as author Jane Austen and James McAvoy as her love interest, Thomas Lefroy, in the film Becoming Jane
The 11-year-old daughter who resulted is now ! an innoc ent pawn in their great big game of hate. Not exactly the plot of Love Story, is it?
I believe women are only really capable of great love, free from the distortion of procreation and a detached house, when they are either very young or very old. There is no desperation at either end of the life-cycle.
When I was in my 20s, and unfettered by the pressure to procreate, I fell madly in love with someone whom I met precisely twice.
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He was unattainable (actually, I think on both occasions he was married to someone else), but more significant was the fact that I was so lacking in self-esteem that, like Emma, I didnt think any man would want me, but especially not him.
He was a manwho, like Dexter, was gorgeous and famous and surrounded by groupies and Scandinavian models. How could he possibly love me?
As Dexter writes to Emma, stuck in a dead-end job in a Mexican restaurant while he backpacks around the world: Youre gorgeous, you old hag, and if I could give you just one gift ever for the rest of your life it would be this. Confidence. It would be the gift of confidence. Either that or a scented candle.
Ive lived my life with plenty of scented candles, but without a shred of confidence.
That is something that only comes with time, and which is why I think so many women make so many mistakes, misjudging their true worth, and, when push comes to shove, settling for anyone who asks.
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