Recently I very much felt like the “Starter Wife”. This remains unproven however, since my ex is still single. But still. The possibility of grooming a man for someone else’s dining pleasure was almost too much to bear.

And then, the shoe was suddenly on the other foot. _I_ turned out to be the woman dining on a dish that some other poor unsuspecting chef-ette had slaved over for, well, years.

Please excuse my likening a man to a meal, but I just can’t help myself.

I am beginning to realise that at my age (Oh God, here we go!) the potential suitors out there have all, er, had starters. The age demographic has stepped up on the food chain. If a man hasn’t had a serious relationship by the age of 35, I tend to excuse myself from the table.

I’m coming to realise that after 30, most of us have baggage. Old, new, organised into little scented sections, or scattered in a creased mass and touching everything else.

So, you fall in love with a gorgeous young thing, full of the joys of spring and delightfully eager to learn the obstacle course that is A Serious Relationship. Cue the sound of lots of bumping heads and cussing over bruises. They simply know not what they do, God bless them.

So, you fall in love with a wise, experienced, well-obstacle-coursed older gorgeous thing. You learn you’re not the only one who knows a thing or two about luurve. In fact, he knows rather a lot. He may know exactly how long a c-section scar is and about that weird fontanel-thingie that babies are born with. He may even know all about home loans, timeshare, the various stages of a women’s hormonal cycle and what to expect, the four C’s imperative in diamond shopping (love that he knows that, ladies, trust me), how to prepare the perfect porcini risotto, and precisely which washing machine is best suited for your lifestyle. Armed with such a useful array of ammunition needed in a relationship, you may want to scream “shut up and marry me!” on your second date, but refrain.

With the good, comes the bad. His ex of a decade may have had absolutely no problems with him taking his clients to Mavericks for lunch, using her R980 La Mer moisturiser and disappearing for a week when her mum came to town. During a ruckus he retorts “My ex never used to complain about me not cleaning the ring around the bath!!!” and you feel less like the aforementioned ‘chef’ creating a cinematic masterpiece, and more like the ‘cleaner’, wiping up the old grime around the deep fat fryer.

Take the heat or get out of the kitchen?

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