AUDIO QUACK (also available on Spotify & Apple Podcast)
For most of my twenties, I lived with a man. We spent a couple of years in Stockwell, but then got irritated with the weather and the tiny box we were living in, so moved to Brisbane, and made our home in a terrace house. In the mornings, we would have coffee on the deck and watch the Bush Turkeys navigate our garden with panic, as if they were late for an appointment.
We painted the rooms bright white and went with a rustic vibe. We had a wooden dining table with a bench, where we hosted one dinner party. In the corner of the living room was a half-full bookshelf with a mismatch of fiction and sales motivation books. It took the two of us to hang the giant world map that I had impulsively bought. We were there for almost an hour hanging it, because he insisted on doing it properly with a ruler, so that it wouldn’t be on a wonk.
And the map hung there for over a year, then I took it back to the UK with me.
It never occurred to me that I would live by myself again, but I was excited to have a space that was completely my own. I found a one-bedroom flat that was too small for anyone else to fit in. (I don’t mean in an Alice in Wonderland type way, with a ceiling height that only caters to 5ft 3 and under—just that I made sure there wasn’t the space for a single Charles Tyrwhitt shirt in my wardrobe.)
When a single woman lives alone, there is an image of a scary-hairy-spinster whose sofa is covered cat hair, and has aggressive window stickers up like; ‘NO JUNK MALE’ or ‘I’M NOT SOMEONES OTHER HALF, I’M A WHOLE!’ But that is not the case, with the help from social media and Etsy, we now can create bachelorette pads.
We all know the cliché bachelor pad; a loft with a silly sound system, a silly big TV, pinball machines, cracked leather sofas, bikes, mahogany furniture…and perhaps even a deer head.
Well, in the same tone, a dream bachelorette pad will be this…
It will have scented candles that burn throughout the day, an abundance of cushions, a gallery wall, jars full of seeds, dried flowers in pots, a rolled up yoga mat in the corner, lots of unnecessary lamps, a cabinet of posh creams that are yet to prove themselves, and various shaped towels, brushes, and rugs . The Netflix account knows exactly what the bachelorette wants, (none of this, ‘because you viewed The Viking, you will love…”). There’d be a colourful bookshelf, blankets everywhere, huge plants that fill corners, too many shoes, and, of course, a coordinated wardrobe.
So when I was thirty I made my bachelorette pad. And I’ve been so happy in my pad, so happy in fact, I fear that it would be hard to go back. Sorry to Poetry Ed for the Friends reference, (he thinks they’re basic), but there’s an episode where Monica breaks down to Rachel before she moves in with Chandler, “now I have to live with boy!” – and now I understand what she means.
One day I rang my friend Sausage* to rant about the man who insisted on leaving his electric scooter in my hallway.
“Argh. I don’t know how I’ll ever live with a man AGAIN,” I groaned. As time has gone on, I have become increasingly intolerant about sharing my space. Patience is like fitness, it needs to be trained to remain, and well, I haven’t trained for awhile.
Sausage was eating a bag of crisps on her sofa in her Manhattan bachelorette pad, (she always eats on the phone). Behind her, a zillion candles were burning. “You can live with a man again, and you will. So will I.” MUNCH MUNCH MUNCH.
“But we can live exactly like we’re living, with our orange scented homes and our cushions, our nuts in jars… It’s not like we have to live with a man.”
“Yeah, we don’t have to, but…” MUNCH MUNCH MUNCH ” I dunno… it could be nice.
“Nice..pfft,” I said, as I eyeballed my world map, which has hung at a slight wonk since I hung it myself.
Now, this was where my blog was going to end, but last night, I was woken up, once again, at 3am by continuous loud banging…. see video.
I have my guesses, but I’m not entirely sure what it is and who is it doing it, because I’m terrified of going ‘out there’ to see it for myself. (I have watched way too many horror films, and my imagination is thinking all sorts).
So, as I was standing on the other side of my door in the early hours imagining what could be on the other side, I thought,
“hmmm, a man would be quite nice right about now.”
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