25March2025
Dear Diary,
Emma was an oldfashioned girl with a fierce desire to wed. Nowadays most young women seem content with a single bite of sausage rather than a whole pork roast in the house. Sausages of every sort and size line the shelves, and cohabitation is no longer a scandal. Moral codes, pride, honour those oldfashioned virtues feel almost obsolete.
Even the legendary lazy gentleman, Mr. Potter, is no longer a cautionary tale; after all, his estate kept sending him a steady income. If you handed a smartphone to Ian Ilyich, hed instantly be crowned a successful vlogger. As for marriage, the advice now is do as you like: meet in hotels, rent rooms by the hour why bother with the register office at all? Who knows what a partner might turn out to be after the vows? In the past, mismatched socks and a botched cabbage soup were the biggest tragedies.
These days the real horrors are childish dependency, mumsyndrome and chronic nothingdoing among men, and, of course, the same nothingdoing among the ladies, who spend their time admiring their own reflection. Both sexes now have a laundry list of demands beyond bread and spectacle youre expected to shop, too.
Emma was a pleasant exception: pretty, with no flashy bodymodding, a university degree, and a respectable salary. Yet men walked past her in tidy rows, pairing off with others, falling into the same old traps. It wasnt that she lacked suitors she was attractive enough but none ever reached the register office. She was approaching thirty, an age once called the prime of motherhood in the old days, now stretched to sixty.
She refused to have a child on her own. Emma also trusted horoscopes more precisely, astrological forecasts, the clever invention of profithungry columnists. In those lean years, every prediction was bright: On Tuesday morning, a fateful encounter with a wealthy patron awaits you. So, she kept a toothbrush handy, just in case.
Being a Sagittarius, she looked for partners whose signs matched fire Aries and Leo the most evenkeeled of the fiery trio. Her first love blossomed in the first year of university, a time now dismissed as nursery age for eighteenyearolds. Sexual education has long since evolved, so the old warnings about playing with your own pollen feel quaint.
Soon came the practical grind: paying the council tax, bus fares, and buying groceries. For the first time Emma had to shop for food herself rather than rummaging through a shared fridge. Her parents had funded her previously, but now two people in her flat a gift from her grandmother when she turned sixteen strained the budget.
Dave, her boyfriend, was genuinely surprised. Arent you the one wholl buy the groceries? he asked. Emma retorted, Why me? He replied, The fridge is yours, Im just a guest. Emma, ever quick-witted, offered, Then Ill hand you the keys to the kitchen rule the pantry as you wish! The next day Dave vanished, stopped even saying hello, despite them being in the same lecture group. A Sagittariuss coincidence, perhaps.
Emma mourned the loss; Dave had been her first love. Youth and time moved on, and a second steady partner appeared in her third year not from university, but from elsewhere. Simon, over thirty, declared, Well marry, love. He was divorced, but love knows no barriers. Yet Simon lacked a stable job. This was before the modern gigeconomy took hold, when the countrys hardships were still manageable. He complained about impossible bosses, absurd demands, and an unbearable work schedule, all while living on his parents sofa.
Emma suggested, Maybe you could work as a courier?
Im an analyst, Simon puffed.
Can an analyst be a courier? Emma asked sensibly. Drive and analyse on the road why not? I spent my last pennies on food.
Ask your mother for help, he snapped. Tell her its a temporary setback!
Shes heard that for two months now, Emma replied.
Time is a long thing, Simon quoted Mayakovsky, flashing a smug grin. Arent you impressed by my erudition, darling?
Emma snapped back, Then stop begging for meals! Times have changed move on! She was not only witty but sharptongued.
Yuri Petrovich, a Capricorn famed for diligence, entered the scene next. He and Emma met on an astrology forum, their bond forged over shared star charts. He persistently dubbed their signs zodiacs.
Why? Emma asked. Why the forced misspelling?
Come off it, he laughed. Its funny!
Emma recalled her grandmothers advice: Dont let a mans cleverness fool you. His language littered with madeup words Snedurka, Stervadesa, Dubina Regovitskaya seemed to her a desperate attempt at wit, especially as he turned forty. By twentysix, Emma found his antics exhausting.
Both held good jobs, were single, and Yuri had an adult son. At first he was shy, then fully comfortable in his own skin. A scandal erupted at a family gathering when, in front of Emmas grandfather a retired MI5 officer Yuri referred to the famous Soviet revolutionary as Dzerzhinskiy Zherdinskiy, prompting the old man to bark, Bloody hell! Whats this nonsense?
The wedding plans fell apart. Yuri, a Taurus at heart, proved overly sensitive. Then Emma met Peter, a divorced, childfree gentleman, tidy, financially stable, with a sharp sense of humour and a modest onebed flat. He was a Virgo, another earth sign known for thriftiness, making him an ideal partner for a future household.
They applied to live together; Peter moved in and rented out his old flat. He asked Emma to register him at her address.
Why? she wondered. Youre already registered elsewhere!
Peter replied, We love each other now, were a family everything should be shared.
Emma jokingly said, Write my flat into your name, please! Oh, sorry, wrong start do you believe in God?
Peter, blushing, answered, Of course we love each other.
Emma, after a pause, said, Then Ill register you, and youll register me.
Where? Peter asked.
In my flat well share everything!
But you dont live there, he protested.
Emma, with a hint of resignation, suggested, Lets alternate months yours one month, mine the next. She sensed the emptiness of the proposal, a hollow fish in a dry pond.
Peter fell silent, unsure what to say. Emma, weary, moved from the kitchen to the sitting room while they dined, leaving Peter to untangle his thoughts. After fifteen minutes, he asked, Emma, shall we go to the cinema?
Lets, she replied, relieved that hed at least paid the restaurant deposit.
She added, Will you still register me? I didnt quite catch that. Peter stared, shuffled, and left without an answer. Their conversation never reached the register office.
Most of Emmas friends had married one for six months, another for a year, the third in a jokelike slow drift. Emma herself had lived over a month with several civil partners, feeling love was more about deeds than sentiment. In her country, they say no one is truly alone. Even though the men werent Aries, they all seemed similar in their shortcomings.
When Emma turned thirtyone, she stopped chasing a wedding. A promotion at work allowed her to swap her grandmothers studio for a twobed flat, buy a decent car, and take a short holiday. She concluded that life had turned out well. Modern medicine now extends childbearing age to sixty, and sausages of every variety still line the supermarkets.
Lesson learned: chasing the perfect contract or the perfect sign never brings lasting happiness; its the everyday choices, honesty, and a dash of humour that truly matter.
