You may think this is an over-reaction, but I assure you, it’s not.

Bridget Jones is a whiny cow and if I ever actually met her, I would kick her in the shins. Hard.

See, I’ve been thinking about that quirkyalone thing from yesterday. What’s that about? I mean what’s the deal with needing to be branded “single-and-happy”? Isn’t that just as irritating as being branded “single-and-looking,” like the infernal Bridget Jones and her infamous singletons?

I am a work in progress, and I refuse to be defined by my emotional attachments.

I tried reading Bridget Jones when it first came out. I really did. But I found myself reading it with a permanent grimace, and clenching my teeth at almost every sentence.

I hated her whining tone. I hated the way everything she said or did revolved around a) men b) food c) cigarettes d) alcohol e) her weight or f) men.

I hated her navel-gazing idiocy and unsophisticated language.

[aside: hang on, doesn’t this sound a little like my weblog? Oh. I feel soiled all of a sudden.]

But most of all I hated the way the book seemed to give women across London (mostly working in the media) permission to suddenly shrug off their faux-pashminas in a confessional way at chi-chi London restaurants, light a(nother) cigarette (”but I’m giving up, I swear”), order the chicken mozzarella salad (”I know I should have the fish but it’s so boring“) and start confessing their latest love disasters to idenitikit friends and referring to themselves and the people around them in terms of the book: Smug-marrieds. Smug-going-out-with-peoples. Singletons.

V.G? V.D more like - very dull. Very droll. Very dreadful.

And now we have to sit through the inevitable press run-up to the release of the new movie. I was going to do this How much like Bridget Jones are you? quiz and then comment on how much like Bridget I was or not according to the results, but you know what? Screw that. I’m categorically, definitely, absolutely, positively not like Bridget at all, and I can tell you that quite easily, without the help of some ridiculous question about what I look for in an ideal husband, for goodness sake.

Put simply: Bridget Jones, ideal husband, my arse.