Member-only story
Forget Man or Bear, let’s talk Average Joe or Cat
Obviously I’m not aiming for this personally, but there we go
In the before times, and by that I mean before 1900, at about this point in my life, I would probably be pulling a disgusted face and begrudgingly accepting a proposal from a rotund, stupid, red-faced farmer who was a good six inches shorter than me and in possession of very few teeth. I would never have loved him, I would never have chosen him, and I would never have felt anything other than a sad, lonely, endless regret at a life lived without love, without lust, and without the pleasure of a man I wanted between my thighs or sleeping against my chest. And it would suck, but I would really not have had another option. Because the alternative to marrying Farmer Boris would have been the workhouse.
And, as the creepiest of men now weep bitterly into their unwashed pants, times have now thankfully changed. If I do not wish to settle for Farmer Boris, I am under no obligation to do so. I can, as they triumphantly put it at the end of all my commentary on life as a twenty-something single woman, get a cat and live alone. Hurrah!
I won’t lie to you, Gary, that actually doesn’t sound like a bad deal. I can see little old lady Madelaine curling up with a cat by a warm log fire, the autumn leaves dancing outside…
