Being the girlfriend of the world’s most devastatingly handsome gay celebrity nutritionist has its disadvantages.
I know, how could that statement possibly be true? What could be more divine for a girl than lounging by a Spanish poolside with an eye-wateringly handsome, gallant, kind, generous, caring, courteous, accomplished, witty and charming forty-something gay man and his similarly attributed friends?
For the first few days it was very heaven. He and his first handsome, gallant, kind, caring male gay house guest treated me like a princess. I didn’t lift a finger. They laid a fresh, immaculately laundered beige Ralph Lauren towel on my sun lounger every morning and then lay down either side of me on their sun loungers, draped with matching beige Ralph Lauren towels.
They fetched me glasses of fizzy water with twists of lime in them. They prepared me lunches of lightly grilled meat and salad and in the evening escorted me, in precision-ironed chinos and polo shirts smelling lightly of Jo Malone grapefruit shower gel, to dinner at elegant restaurants in the harbour, where, truly, we could have passed for a photoshoot.
During the day we lay in respectful silence if one of us was reading, or else we initiated witty repartees featuring funny and charming anecdotes.
Grazia Online was checked hourly for details of Jennifer Aniston’s engagement — ‘any news on Jen?’ my two gay husbands asked every time I opened my iPad.
If there was tension it was merely over who got to tidy what. We argued mildly, and with extreme courtesy, over whose turn it was to empty the dishwasher. Our host chided us elegantly if we forgot to turn on the pool lights at the precise moment of sundown. We had a rota system for the pool covering ceremony, which took place before bedtime. (The system involved only the two men, as this was man’s work — one of them to flick the switch and the other to stand vigilantly by the pool in case the cover should get stuck, which it never did. Each time they did it, they swapped roles to make it fair.)
There was a small crisis when a bulb blew in the downstairs loo and our host informed us that we must go to the supermarket so that he could purchase a replacement. When we pointed out that there was another light in said loo he corrected us: ‘That would be like a pilot flying with one engine down. What happens when the other bulb goes?’
At the supermarket we stocked up with mini Magnums (so much more elegant than regular-sized Magnums) and enough fizzy mineral water so that we could fill gigantic crystal jugs with it, and possibly the pool itself at some point.
As I say, it was heaven. But as more male gay house guests arrived, a tipping point was reached whereby my straight female energy started to get its hackles up.
I noticed suddenly that all we ever talked about was romantic love, sex and marriage.
Each new guest started banging on incessantly about his new boyfriend and how he hoped this one was The One.
Long descriptions of The One were given and protracted discussions entered into about The One’s emotional and psychological motivations, the chances of The One really being The One and the odds on a successful courtship blossoming into full-blown domesticity, marriage, and possibly a few kiddies down the line.
After a while I realised why I was getting annoyed. Oh god, I thought, I must warn them. My dear, dear gay friends, who I wished only health and happiness, and who I thought were achieving this by means of nightclubs, wanton sex and irresponsibility, were succumbing to the very pitfalls, delusions and dead ends that we straight ladies have been negotiating unsuccessfully for the past however many thousand years.
As a handsome shaven-headed young chap explained how his latest beau was befuddling him with his obfuscations, I could hold my tongue no longer.
‘Please, I beg of you, don’t do this,’ I blurted out from my sun lounger.
The shaven-headed chap looked up from his luxury silver-effect lilo as he floated on the azure pool (kept at a constant 32 degrees): ‘Do what?’
‘Don’t go down this awful blind alley.’
Someone made a witty joke about an alley.
‘I mean it, don’t think you will find true love and live happily ever after. We straight people have been trying to do it since time began and it’s a lie. Please believe me. I don’t want you to suffer as I have. And if I can save you from going through the same torment then maybe my pain has meaning.’
My host raised his perfect, tanned torso from his sun lounger. ‘I’ll get her a glass of fizzy water.’
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