Page 218 - Bridget Jones's Diary - by Helen FIELDING

all those twenty-two-year-olds who wouldn't look at you when you were twenty-

five will be gagging for it.'

I sat, head down, quivering furiously at their inferences of female sell-by dates
and life as game of musical chairs where girls without a chair/man when the
music stops/they pass thirty are 'out.' Huh. As if.

'Oh yes, I quite agree it's much the best to go for younger partners,' I burst out,

airily. 'Men in their thirties are such bores with their hang-ups and obsessive
delusions that all women are trying to trap them into marriage. These days I'm
only really interested in men in their early twenties. They're so much better able
to . . . well, you know . . . '

'Really?' said Magda, rather too eagerly. 'How . . . ?'

'Yes, you're interested,' interjected Jeremy, glaring at Magda. 'But the point is

they're not interested in you.'

'Um. Excuse me. My current boyfriend is twenty-three,' I said, sweetly.

There was a stunned silence. 'Well, in that case,' said Alex, smirking, 'you can
bring him to us next Saturday when you come to dinner, can't you?'

Bugger. Where am I going to find a twenty-three-year-old who will come to
dinner with Smug Marrieds on a Saturday night instead of taking contaminated
Ecstasy tablets?

Friday 15 September