Bridal.

That single word probably sums up my entire existence at this point in my life. It robs me of my blogging time (I’m sure you’ve noted my absence over the past 2 months). I live it. I breath it. I dream it. I despise it. I enjoy it. I make it. I hate it. I organise it. I agonise over it. All so I can become a Mrs. It’s the reality of organising a wedding in 4 months (good choice that one).

I had a little night out for myself last night. The first real getaway since Little Vick was born 17 months ago. How it has taken me that long I have not a clue? But I trundled off to Ballarat to have an old fashioned girly sleep over. I haven’t had one of those since about 1999 so I was excited.

There was 5 of us ‘sleeping over’. I was all set for a night of near to zilch baby and bridal chat and instead listening in on the tales and heroics of single female living. The highs and lows of dating and one night stands. An existence so far from my reality these days but none the less how I LOVE living through my girls. I love hearing their romantic or more often than not awkward and hilarious stories and going on their emotional roller coaster as they re tell their personalised soap operas.

I told the girls where I was at with all my planning and my mothering stories and I was done. Then I waited for their antics to be told and you know what was the topic of conversation for virtually for the entire evening? WEDDINGS & BABIES!!

3 single woman out of 5 in their 20′s and they wanted to talk about WEDDINGS & BABIES?!

Something has happened. Something has seriously changed from how I remember things when I was part of the free and frivolous singles group. And they’ve most definitely changed since the days of sleepovers (back in 1999) when we used to lie around disecting our male crushes and snogs at the local disco. At that time when we predicted where we would be when we hit the age of 27,28, I don’t think it would have gone like this…. When I’m 27 and I have a night out with the girls we will discuss wedding floristry, having second babies and the finer points of breastfeeding.

Wasn’t that reserved for the ages between 30-38? Wern’t we all going to be fabulously successful career woman living in the city, who dined every Friday night and re told our successes and weekly male encounters? OK. Maybe that’s just a Sex and The City episode. It’s true we would never be wearing Manolo Blahniks. BUT, it was how it was going to go right? No rush for weddings and definitely no babies to dictate to us until we were on the other side of 30.

Seems not. There’s definitely some suspicious behaviour going on around me. I’m starting to wonder if woman can’t just help themselves and that they in fact have very little control over the husbands and baby chat & desires. Can they really be blamed?

The happenings of the sleepover has made me see that there is something that is programed so deeply in woman, that despite all other better knowledge or pre existing ideals, once one arrives at 28 (more often than not) they start hard core yearning to ‘settle down’. In fact I’d go as far to say that it brings about a new obsessive chapter. I watch many woman try and try and when they don’t succeed at snagging a husband to breed with pronto, they seem to lose spirit and are quick to write themselves off as a failure or/and become super obsessive about it (and there’s often something unattractive about that). Like a caveman on the hunt for meat. I can’t tell you have frequently I hear woman say… “before I’m 30….” and more often than not they’re 28 and still single!

Are we as human beings, as woman, this suseptable to social conditioning?

It’s a little shocking quite frankly. I thought we were above this social conditioning stuff as modern woman. That we could withstand it or not be infected by it, or have stronger wills or something. I admit I think I might have been poisoned in some form recently. I’ve started talking about purchasing a family home and planting a vegetable patch. Huh? When was I ever going to do that? Wasn’t I forever going to rent and purchase my vegetables from the markets and perhaps have a pot of herbs as my consolation veggie patch, even with kids in the equation? It’s news to me but obviously I’ve been ’conditioned’ to believe success is in the form of home owning. It’s an example of how conditioning creeps into our minds and can takes over our entire life objectives despite previous stubborn values. As for my friends I thought I had a good 5 years or so of being able to live through their adventurous dating and sex lives before they all started to try and emulate me.

A friend of a friend (yes, it’s one of these stories) apparently was adament she was never going to have children. No desire whatsoever. You’ve never met a woman who didn’t want children more in your life. She was so convinced she asked to have her tubes tied at age 22. A ridiculous idea clearly and this was agreed on by her doctors. THANKFULLY as this unbudging attitude suddenly melted away at … guess what age? 28. It got her. Whatever this thing that infects woman is. Come the day she turned 28 she suddenly started begging her husband (handy she had one) to plant his seed and so convincing was she that that is exactly what he did (cos a woman really needs to work hard at convincing a man to do the deed) and she got herself a baby. Another woman converted.

See, it’s happening people. My friend of friend says it’s so.

This next paragraph is little off the topic but I feel it rates a mention here. Last week I got an invitation to a Tupperware party. I know, I know, Tupperware is excellent but I’m also slightly horrified. To me Tupperware parties reek of middle aged housewives. Am I about to embark on middle age at 27? Ha. Ok. That’s being dramatic (but seriously?). Babies, weddings, Tupperware… it’s all too much. It’s bad enough I’ve had to grow up, but does everyone else around me have to as well?

Of course I know not every 28 year old woman is single and childless (take exhibit A for example….) But honestly, I don’t know how I got a man and baby? I didn’t ask for it particularly and it’s true I never did or will experience that ’yearning’ and churning in my ovaries. Thanks to my girlfriends there’s enough of that going on around me to definitely bump the world into ‘overpopulated’ if they all breed.

For now there are a handful of friends that I can rely on to not have children until indeed they’re ‘over the hill’, no I mean, past 30, if at all. My actor friends. Thank God for my actor friends. People who would rather stay in full denial about their age, for various reasons, and who forever want to live freely and somewhat selfishly. That was once my identity. They’re fun and they’re never going to invite me to a Tupperware party. Hallelujah!

What social conditioning are you a victim of?

What age did the baby monster get you ?

V xx

(Image from http://rachelcamhc.blogspot.com.au/2010/07/here-comes-teen-bride.html)