Good guys win in the end
DID my eyes deceive me or was that Wayne Carey’s girlfriend sipping cocktails with him in Koh Samui?
Isn’t she the same girl who called 911 after he allegedly smashed a glass in her face in Miami and fled into the African jungle after a row?
It’s also alleged she was attacked by her boyfriend in a New York hotel. It’s not like she didn’t know what she was getting into. This is a bloke who cheated on his wife with his teammate’s wife.
Whatever madness is keeping her there, she’s not going to marry him, is she?
There are two types of men in this world: boyfriends and husbands. And they’re very rarely interchangeable.
Boyfriends get a pretty good run at first taking their pick of beautiful, accomplished girls, no matter how wayward they are.
Case in point: the women in Underbelly, the real life story of the Melbourne gangland wars.
What’s that pretty young mum doing with Jason Moran? And Tracey Seymour, the daughter of a Baptist minister who ends up being murdered in witness protection, admitted she was drawn to bad men.
Girls being attracted to bad guys is a theory perpetuated by the latter to justify their ways and endorsed by good men to explain their poor showings.
But if they hang in there, their time will come because when it comes to the crunch, it’s a husband most women want.
You know the ones to avoid: players, commitment phobes, and elusive danger men. They’ll be the ones left on the shelf when women start rejecting them in favour of someone they can introduce to their mum.
It’s as if a survival hormone kicks in at childbearing age that veers you away from the emotional torment of a serial boyfriend towards a safer option, towards a man with good fathering skills and a solid income. It doesn’t matter so much when they’re a boyfriend if they’re unreliable or have commitment issues.
There’s a tendency for a woman of a certain age to refine her taste. It’s called settling. Or being practical.
Many of my married friends admit they wouldn’t have looked twice at their husbands 10 years earlier. As Miranda in Sex And The City said: “We all think we’re Carolyn Bessette and one day John-John’s out of the picture and we’re happy to have some guy who can throw around a frisbee”.
There’s a point when you cease holding out for a man who’ll take your breath away, and get real.
He’s nowhere to be seen so far and you’re 36, you remind yourself. So does your mother, your married friends and fertility experts. So you shut down romantic ideals and find someone else. Mr He’ll Do.
But it’s not easy to feign love. A 40-year-old friend has just given it her best shot but couldn’t sustain the charade. “What’s wrong with me?” she groaned. “He’s sweet, funny, not bad looking and he wants kids. Told me so on the first date. He’s fully looking for a wife.”
“And the problem is?” I ask.
“It’s just not there.”
She bailed out, unable to commit to a man solely because he fits the bill. Even Jane Austen, doyenne of romantic love, declared she couldn’t marry “without affection”.
But that’s a luxury not all can afford. If marriage and babies are the desired outcome, sweeping off feet must be relegated to secondary criteria beneath reliability and availability: husband material.
Which isn’t such a bad thing. Every good husband was a boyfriend once. Grant us the wisdom to know the difference.