ARTICLE: You can call me Bridget!

I have made it a tradition of mine to watch Bridget Jones's Diary every year around the start of a new year. I can't help but see the similarities between me and Bridget and how much I empathise with her life every time I watch the movie.

And although you'd more likely find me dancing to Stutter by Marianas Trench rather than crying along to All By Myself by Jamie O'Neil, and I may not wear such gargantuan sized knickers, but like Bridget, I too have worked in publishing and have always thought of a job in broadcasting. I'd make some hilarious notion at the job interview about having shagged my former boss, we'd both have a good laugh and I'd be hired on the spot. Sadly though, movies aren't true to real life and if I was to state such a fact I would be looked upon in the most terrifying manner.

I should make it clear that I didn't shag my former boss - a crusty old lesbian whose teeth were similar to that which crawls out of Mordor. Someone who would make working with Mr Titspervert feel like heaven in comparison! Let's put it this way, I would have thrown her arse into the fires of Mount Doom long before I ever referred to her as my precious. Although I can't deny that I am guilty of some minor office flirting over email on one or two occasions with members of staff.

We both dread being asked the question feared by all singletons, 'how's your love life?' My public speaking skills also rival Bridget's, as does my skill to continue to ramble to random strangers. I don't however wear see-through clothing to the office, and no one has ever referred to me as a verbally incontinent spinster who smokes like a chimney, drinks like a fish and dresses like her mother. Probably a blessing that if I did want to take up drinking or smoking, I'm too poor to afford such luxuries or pay for the expensive lung cancer bills it would lead to in the future. 

So came the end of the year when I too, like Bridget, realised that unless something changed soon I was going to live my life where my major relationship was with a bottle of wine and I'd finally die fat and alone and be found three weeks later half-eaten by Alsatians. My life could so easily slip into that of Bridget's that I made a major decision. I didn't do the cliche thing and buy a diary - but I too vow that I don't want to next year end up shit-faced and listening to sad FM, easy listening for the over 30s (oh god, it's coming!)

I do like the idea of it - Mallory, hard-headed journalist. Even though I would rather interview a Kardashian (and lord knows I dislike the Kardashians*) than a high-power attorney, even one as dashingly-handsome as Colin Firth.

And although my new years resolution isn't to find a nice sensible boyfriend to go out with, I will be also not form any romantic attachments to any of the following: alcoholics, workaholics, commitment phobics, Peeping Toms, megalomaniacs, emotional fuckwits or perverts. Although who knows, maybe there is a "Darcy" who likes me just as I am in my near future. Given, he must own a fetching reindeer jumper :)

x

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* All personal feelings aside, I do actually admire the Kardashians for turning their name into a brand.