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Single celebs
According to a recent newspaper profile, Hugh Grant is “a superficially self-confident but fundamentally insecure individual who surrounds himself with a coterie of dazzled women to keep reminding himself that he is irresistible.” What, and the rest of his time he wastes?
We are all superficially self-confident but fundamentally insecure individuals. Unfortunately, most of us have trouble locating sufficient dazzled groupies to remind us we are irresistible. I wonder if they can be hired?
People do seem to worry about poor old famous millionaire Hugh Grant. Unmarried at 43, they assume he must be incapable of true love. George Clooney, his American counterpart, is a target for similar sympathy — poor bachelor, trapped in a hollow world of film sets, leggy models and lonely, 18-bedroom Mediterranean yachts.
Were it not for the fact that both these men are friends of the British journalist Mariella Frostrup, which must imply a certain sharpness of brain, I would think they’re far too simple for existential love-angst. I might assume that Hugh Grant hasn’t settled down because he’s an overgrown private-school boy who thinks women are scary, Babylonian creatures who don’t understand cricket. And George Clooney’s emotional needs seem to be adequately met by his pet pig, Max.
Nevertheless, let’s say it’s true that Hugh Grant has not settled down because he “has trouble settling down.” (According to the press, he may or may not be having an affair with Jemima Khan, but look closely and this doesn’t actually mean anything. My Uncle Phil may or may not be having an affair with Jemima Khan. Indeed, my Uncle Phil hasn’t specifically denied it).
Hugh slots in alongside the 14 million other British people who live alone. Lucky for him that he isn’t a young woman or he would be referred to as a ‘LOST’ woman. It stands for ‘Living in London on their Own, Single and Twenty-something.’
If you can be lost to the world because you failed to get married before 30, then Hugh Grant is certainly in trouble at 43. But I don’t buy either of the prevailing explanations for his condition, viz, that he has “commitment issues” or “hasn’t got over Liz Hurley.” I think the problem may be that he had it too good with Ms Hurley, but not when they were dating.
Grant and Hurley kept living together for a while after they broke up. An ex-squeeze called Kasia told the papers: “He didn’t stay over with me, presumably because Liz Hurley was at home waiting for him.”
And that, surely, is the perfect template for modern life. Sporadic flings with attractive people; best mate waiting for you back home. No chance of loneliness, no chance of heartbreak. I now imagine Hugh and Liz retiring companionably and chastely to bed in matching striped pyjamas.
Matching plates of scrambled egg in the morning, taking turns with the toothbrush. How on earth could the difficult, compromising, tiring, emotionally dangerous task of living with a spouse hold any delight for Hugh after that? It just couldn’t compare.
I often think the solution to the marriage problem is simply for all of us to agree not to do it. My only tiny worry about staying single forever is that my friends might all run off and get hitched, and then I’ll feel left out. If I knew that none of us was ever going to marry anybody, I’d have no worries about loneliness at all. The whole world should live like the last scene of About a Boy, where Hugh Grant and the other randomly connected characters create a weird unrelated post-nuclear family. I bet Hugh loved that scene.
All you need is someone close by to love; it doesn’t have to be someone you’re 50 per cent likely to divorce. When I am king, we will all live in non-marital community housing. And Hugh Grant will be my queen. —Dawn/The Guardian News Service.
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