There are some questions you simply shouldn’t ask a woman – “Are you pregnant?” comes to mind – the person with the potential bump that you’re talking to might be bloated after a big meal, wearing a fashionable empire line top, rubbing their stomach because they have indigestion and not drinking because they are the designated driver. It is NEVER safe to assume.
There are some questions in particular that you should definitely not ask a woman if you’ve worked out (without asking) that she is between 30 and 50.
I am used to being asked if I have children. This almost always happens within one minute of meeting someone new, and of course it would be ludicrous to take offence at such an innocuous and friendly enquiry. Throughout my twenties, when I answered “no,” I was usually asked if I was planning on having any. I thought this was rude and intrusive, but now I’m in my forties, people have in the main stopped asking me this. What astonishes me now, though, is the number of times I am asked “why not?”.
Let’s just take a moment here. I’ve just x you, and you have seriously just asked me why I don’t have children? Is this because you are a) incredibly rude and nosey, b) prurient and want to know details of my sex-life, c) desperate to tell perimenopausal me that my life is meaningless without understanding parenthood from the inside and that I should do something about getting my eggs fertilised pdq because you can tell from the way
I look that it’s nearly too late, d) convinced on meeting me for the first time that I am an obvious mad cat-lady/ career-driven, heartless and unmaternal, and you want to be vindicated in your preconception, e) hopeful that you can find out the big tragic secret at the centre of my marriage so you can enjoy some schadenfreude with your coffee?
Whatever your reason for asking, I hope you are prepared for some of my possible responses. I mean, “that’s absolutely none of your business!” is usually effective, but tends to throw a bit of a spanner in the conversational works. “That’s a very personal question, what makes you ask?
”at least encourages a dialogue and deflects the attention back away from me and my private life, but sometimes I want to be just as outrageous in my response as you were for asking the question. It’s on the tip of my tongue to say “I did have two but they were abducted by aliens” or even better “because my husband isn’t sure where to put his willy!”. If you’re just being rude and nosey or prurient, that should shut you up.
