Sob sisters and scolders

Without meaning to come the Big I-Am, I’ve got issues with the whole premise of this book, which probably stem from my very healthy level of self-esteem. I mean, once we’re out of our teens (when admittedly I spent rather too many nights pining after a dreamy 19-year-old Oxbridge undergraduate called Max, of all the naff admissions) is there really any sentient female who genuinely whips herself into a lather when Whatsisname bails out, and before Thingy appears? To paraphrase some smug old sod, a man is only a man — whereas a gram of coke is a kick.

Of course, I know that a lot of adult women seem upset when they get the heave-ho, but a big bit of me actually thinks they’re putting it on. This is usually for one of three reasons:

a) Secretly they’re lesbians but don’t want to be, and laying on the my-man-done-left-me-woe-is-me shtick with a trowel strikes them as a cunning way to seem extra-hetero, even as they’re really hugging themselves with glee that they don’t have to do the dirty, dreary deed anymore.