Costanza Miriano - Marry Him and Be Submissive

Costanza, tell me again why I should go ahead and get married in two weeks?

I reach for the cell phone earpiece. I put the soft drink can away in the holderthank God for American cars. I need to spit out the mandarin orange seeds. (Dear husband, I promise that one day soon, Ill bring a plastic bag and tidy up all my Pocket Coffee wrappers!) Im going to have to clean out this pigsty that passes for a carthe car of a dissolute woman who snacks at traffic lights along the banks of the River Tiber. Right now, I need to turn it into a counselling roominstantlya kind of poor womans Oprah Winfrey studio.

The great thing about friendship isnt so much having someone close to you who tells you things straight to your face... things like how that rotten onion shade of highlights youve just put in your hair doesnt show off your new bob to the best effect. Or someone who will try really hard to find a good reason you should buy yourself a ninth black stone necklace because, if you only had that necklace, it would solve all your wardrobe problems. Or someone who will tell you what a fantastic plan you had, how you carried it out to perfection, and how it wasnt really your fault that the 14 little friends your children invited over to your house managed to escape your attention for a second and kick a ball that wrecked the only two rose bushes that had ever flowered...

No. From my point of view, having good friends is essential for another reason: It allows me to give out advicean activity that I find hugely gratifying.

The fact is that friendsfemale friends, to be more precisetend to come into contact with me for a short time and therefore can put up with a quite intense burst of advice from me.

Children, on the other hand, to whom I cling like a limpet, seem to be able to turn the sound right down to off when I start my little sermons. And they look at me, focusing their gaze on one of my earrings while they think about the latest X-Men adventure, which they will be able to continue reading when I shut up about the benefits of a methodical and accurate study plan.

As for my husband, he is an intelligent man and has learned to reply instantly, Right or Really? or Indeed or even Absolutely, I agree (and almost always with just the right tone of voice). This is a skill that allows him to pretend to be in conversation with me while costing him the minimum of effort. If I have any doubts that he is not listening to me, I test him by saying something like Darling, Im pregnant again, at which point he lets out a noise like someone being strangled, and this proves that somehow at least the superficial extremes of what I am saying are getting through to him.

My female friends, however, seem to listen to my opinions and, in fact, occasionally take them seriously. Perhaps they do so more out of affection than through any great belief that my psychological insights (which are those of a rampaging center back) have any real chance of being accurate. Thoughlets be honestI must be right occasionally, as a matter of statistical probability, if nothing else.

Normally, my response to any problem is one of the following: Hes right; Why not have a baby?; Just do what he says; Have you thought of having another baby?; You should move to his home city; Try to forgive him; Try to understand him; or again, Have a baby!

For this reason, those friends of mine who dont want to hear such adviceand I know that I can be as delicate as a bull in a china shop if I really trydisappear off my radar. I am quite on the ball about things, and normally after having sent them 13 e-mails without reply or after having received 4 extremely short responses to my texts, I get the message.