I ALWAYS cry at weddings.
It's difficult watching people you love throw their lives away.
I'd always thought marriage was something you did in your 20s to ensure you had something to regret in your 40s and remained smugly convinced that my conscience, a decade hence, will be light and clear. This despite a dwindling lack of fiesty, single role models.
I didn't cry when I heard about the marriage earlier this month of Cameron Diaz but I did let out a disappointed little sigh. She even had a ring bearer called Sparrow.
It's been a week of difficult images. First I saw the pictures of the Marmite Easter egg.
When I saw a photograph of the Double Down Dog from KFC this week - a hotdog encased in fried chicken in the shape of a bun, smothered with cheese and honey mustard dressing - I thought, 'Well, at leas that's the worst thing I'll clap eyes on this week.'
But then, horror, there was Diaz, photographed at a sports game with her new husband, Benjii Madden, snogging the delighted faces off each other on the Kiss Cam. Dammit, Diaz. What a disappointment you turned out to be.
Diaz, outspoken, talented, mischevious and successful, spoke out about media double standards, she was a marvellous PANK (professional aunt, no kids), she seemed to revel in being single. She was my hero.
George Clooney, 53, was "tamed," according to media reports, when he married last year in Venice. Diaz, being a woman of 42, "gave hope to single women everywhere".
Press coverage of her evening ceremony in her Californian mansion focused on the size of the sigh of relief she must have given after finally procuring a ring for her finger after all these decades of persistant loneliness.
I know you can't judge a celebrity by her cover but I thought Diaz was different. She wasn't like that Jennifer Anniston, who succumbed to Brad Pitt's charms, or the lovely Taylor Swift, who is marvellous but dating a new boy every week. Diaz was just herself.
She seemed bold and sensible and spoke openly and eloquently about how fabulous the single life is. Turns out - oh, the cliche - she just hadn't met the right man.
I heard someone once describe weddings as narcissistic cleavage conventions and that sounds about right. Diaz, diminished in my downheartened eyes, could at least have the good grace to look abashed at her unprincipled decision.
Still, I may no longer have a role model, but at least I can take comfort in the statistical probability she'll be divorced soon.
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