I got married a few weeks ago and I don’t remember a thing about it.
Not the man’s name. Not the man’s character and I have no clear idea about the probability of a happily ever after because that would most certainly require having laid eyes on the fella.
What I do know is that one Frank Colucci is ecstatic for us.
He tells me as much on Twitter on a sunny Sunday morning and I realize I must have married a really ace specimen of human being when he sends this tumbling madly cross the cybersphere:
“Was an absolute joy to see this guy marry @marth__vader yesterday…”
The wedding, if you’d like to know, was in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Home of Shakespeare, land of bangers, mash, Brexit and a well-documented enthusiasm for tea.
There was also a mezzanine.
This I glean from clicking through to the Instagram post Frank adds to his tweet which reveals two men grinning into the camera. One Frank. The other my husband.
He looks just as shocked as I do and I don’t blame him. There’s a woman he’s never met vividly imagining she’s his wife and that fits snugly into the realm of alarming in every version of reality.
About two clicks before I hit high level stalker, I stop and silently congratulate him for marrying the kind of woman who would name herself for ‘Star Wars’.
Like me, Married Marth must be the grandest of geeks and the sterling caliber of creation who saw fit to change the Darth to Marth and just be beauty and a riot.
We share a Twitter name but she’s been much luckier in love than I have. By this, I mean she’s clearly had a man look in her direction without reaching for a situation- improving can of Doom.
Bogus social media marriages aside, my love life is unadulterated tragedy and sham.
So much so that guys don’t even bother to ask me out. They simply grin at me in Ster-Kinekor before drowning the both of us in a shower of popcorn and awkward as they miss a step, plonk down beside me and start chewing. Loudly.
It’s about twenty minutes before the movie ends so I’ve already decided this guy is a savage.
He’s missed the beginning, been doing God knows what during the action and now he’s watching ‘Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children’ (2016) above his own personal soundtrack of Slush Puppie slurp.
He also seems to think I’m handsomely employed by the cinema company.
Job description? Catch-up Narrator for Latecomers.
“What did I miss?”
“Who’s this guy?”
“Whoa! Did you see that?”
“Atatatat!”
I take deep breaths and answer as politely as I can because I’ve made a lifelong vow which forbids telling people exactly what I’m thinking and making them cry.
It’s a souring promise and a terrible time but I reign myself in because I know I’m a little out of my comfort zone.
See, as cinema-going squirms below Netflix’s foot on its neck, I bask in the empty theatre joy of a failing box office.
I sprawl, I watch alone and I pick the best seat in the house where I review movies in peace and as though the director has invited me for a private screening.
Needless to say, this guy is messing with my delusions of grandeur but I suck it up because one day I hope to meet Jesus.
However, in some of the meantime, the film ends and we walk out into the bright lights beyond the dark cinema. A reality revealing place where he pushes his 3D glasses up onto his head, pointedly looks me up and down and says: “Oh. It was dark in there and you looked so small.”
“Bitch, I’ve been working out and I look fabulous!”
That’s what I’d say, if dignifying the remark with a response would result in anything but tears. So instead I zip my lips and listen to him ramble on about his mother. An elusive woman who broke her arm the week before and deposited him at the cinema before rushing to a doctor’s appointment.
I wait with him a while before I have to leave myself and his mother still hasn’t appeared but he assures me that’s he’s a big boy who can stand to wait alone.
I believe him and bid him farewell only to have him call out to me in front of Fruit & Veg half an hour later from beside the womb from whence he came.
He tells his mother I’m cool, says his name is Junior then asks me for my number so we can see each other again and I can’t help but laugh because it’s the most unequivocal expression of interest I have ever received from the male species:
A compliment, a formal request to see me again and an introduction to his mom.
I’d really have hit the big leagues if Junior wasn’t 11.
Precocious, pre-puberty and pretty much a one-way ticket to prison:
Pedo Division.