Bridget Jones's diary

We wouldn't rush up to Smug Marrieds and roar 'How's your marriage going. Still having sex?'

Thursday 3rd August

14st (most likely) alcohol units 90 cigarettes 500 (feels like) Calories 4 bloody million.

11.45pm Huh. Just got back from dinner party with ego size of lentil. It was me, four married couples and Jeremy's brother (forget it, Red braces and face. Calls girls "fillies"). They obviously didn't know any unmarried girls to make up the numbers in the entire world except me. "So," bellowed Jeremy, pouring me a drink, " How's your love life?"

Gurgh! Why can't Smug Marrieds understand this is no longer a polite question to ask? We wouldn't rush up to them and roar, "How's your marriage going? Still having sex?" Everyone knows that dating in your thirties is not the happy-go-lucky free-for-all it was when you were 22 and that the honest answer is more likely to be "non-existent" or "actually last night my married lover appeared wearing suspenders and a darling little Angora crop top, told me he was gay/a sex addict/a narcotic addict/ commitment phobic and beat me up with a dildo," than "Super, thanks."

One of the best things about finally having a boyfriend was having a showy-offy reply ready. But unfortunately things have been going rather badly with me and Daniel this week and I'm not sure whether we're still going out or not. Not being a natural liar, I ended up mumbling shamefacedly to Jeremy, "fine" at which point he boomed "So, you still haven't got a chap! Bridget! What are we going to do with you!"

"Yes why aren't you married yet Bridget?" sneered Woney (baby talk for Fiona), the wife of Jeremy's best friend Cosmo, with a thin veneer of concern while stroking her pregnant stomach.

Why do they do this? Maybe the Smug Marrieds only mix with other Smug Marrieds and don't know how to relate to individuals any more. Maybe they really want to patronise us and make us feel like freaks. Or maybe they're in such a sexual rut that they think, "There's a whole other world out there" and hope for vicarious thrills by getting us to tell them the roller- coaster details of our sex lives.

"Seriously," said Woney, "why aren't you married?"

"Because I don't want to end up like you, you fat, boring, Sloaney milch cow", was what I should have said, or "Because if I had to cook Cosmo's dinner then get into the same bed as him just once, let alone every night, I'd tear off my own head and eat it", or "Because actually, Woney, underneath my clothes, my entire body is covered in scales". But I didn't, because ironically enough I didn't want to hurt her feelings, and merely simpered apologetically, at which point Jeremy piped up "well, you know, once you get past a certain age ..."

"Exactly. All the decent chaps have been snapped up," said Cosmo, slapping his fat stomach and smirking so that his jowls wobbled.

At dinner, Magda had placed me, in an incestuous sex-sandwich sort of way between Jeremy and his crasher of a brother. "You really ought to hurry up and get sprogged up you know, old girl," said Jeremy, pouring a quarter of a pint of '78 Puillac straight down his throat. "Time's running out."

By this time I'd had a good half pint of '78 Puillac myself. "Is it one in three marriages which end in divorce or one in two Jeremy?" I slurred with a pointless attempt at sarcasm.

"Seriously old girl," he said, ignoring me, "office is full of them, single girls over 30 - fine physical specimens. Can't get a chap."

"That's not a problem I have, actually," I breathed, waving my fag in the air.

"Ooh. Tell us more," said Woney.

"So who is it, then?" said Cosmo.

"Getting a bit of a shag, old girl?" said Jeremy. All eyes turned to me, beadily. Mouths open, slavering.

"It's none of your business," I said hoity-toitily.

"So she hasn't got a man!" crowed Cosmo.

"Oh my God it's 11 o'clock," said Woney. "The babysitter," and they all leapt to their feet and started getting ready to go home. "Will you be OK, Bridget?" said Magda pityingly. "Actually, I'm going to, like this, club right?" I said, lurching out in the street. "Thanks, for a really great evening." Then I got into a taxi and burst into tears.

00.10 Just called Sharon. "You should have said 'I'm not married because I'm a Singleton, you smug, prematurely ageing, narrow-minded morons," she ranted. "And because there's more than one bloody way to live; one in four households are single, most of the royal family are single, the nation's young men have been proved by surveys to be completely unmarriageable and as a result there's a whole generation of single girls like me with their own incomes and homes who have lots of fun and don't need to wash anyone else's socks. We'd be as happy as sandboys if people like you didn't conspire to make us feel stupid just because you're jealous."

"Bastards!" I shouted happily. "Bloody bastards!"

00.30. Blimey. Daniel just rang. "Bridge," he slurred, "I love you. Say you won't leave me."

"No," I said sulkily.

"Will you marry me?" he said.

"Ooooh yes please," I said, rather too quickly. At which point he burst into tears and said, "My wife, my wife" and put the phone down. What does this mean? Was he feeling so sentimental about the idea of me as his wife that he couldn't speak any more? Or has he just remembered he's already married? Am I engaged? To Daniel? Oh my God. What have I done?