Work

Six weeks into her ‘relationship’ with a man, Ms BoHo (friend and Patron Saint of Bohemians) declared

‘I don’t think my lover loves me any more’.

‘Why not? ‘ I asked, as I was supposed to.’

‘Well, I know I saw him only last night, but I’m abroad this weekend and then he’s abroad the week after and It’ll be quite a while before we see each other. He’s a boy and this probably won’t even occur to him, I know, i just wish he thought about these things more'.

‘Yes, he’s a 33 year old boy and that thought probably didn’t occur to him.’

‘I just wish he was more eager to see me. I know he likes me, but I wonder if it’s just at the right level’.

‘It’s been six weeks ducky, in normal circumstances, you’d have met twice and slept together once. Give him a break and stop being a bunny boiler’.

‘But I just want to eat him up’.

‘Oh’.

She laughed.

But seriously, how long must one wait before they can reasonably expect declarations of love from their lover? My personal view is at least one year. After all, it takes that much time to flirt, dance, shag, meet the family and go shopping for domestic products.

So…

On one side of my office we have Ms BoHo and on the other Miss e-Numbers.

One is greedy for attention and the other is asexual, used to propose to her Boyf twice a month and would never eat yogurt which wasn’t pro-biotic.

‘I think I’m in love with my BoyF again’ said Miss e-Numbers over lunch the other week. She’d been having problems.

When I say problems, I mean that when her BoyF went on holiday she came out drinking with us and realised that actually she didn’t really miss him as much as she should.

When compared to the plight of the African Elephant and world poverty, however, the girl’s realisation that perhaps she too could be independent seemed to somewhat pale in significance.