•is not a balanced nourishing meal
• is full of saturated fat and food additives that are BAD BAD BAD for you in the long run
• is low-effort
• is popular is enjoyable. at the time.
Now, what other "fast foods" do we, the 30-somethings, indulge in? Fast-food movies, to name one. I'm not an action movie fan, but can't wait for Charlie's Angels 2 to hit our screens. There is something escapist about three sexy chicks kicking butt and flying through the air on big mean motorbikes.. I think what works particularly well is that the three chicks lead ordinary lives - they could be you or me, going about their daily jobs and cooking meals for their significant others - until they get The Phone Call, which changes them into super-efficient Bruce Lees.
Speaking of movies, the latest Bond was disappointing. A 30-something girl doesn't want to see James tortured and down on his luck. He's supposed to wear a white smoking jacket and come out of a fight not having spilled his vodka martini held nonchalantly in his right hand. And it's the drink that must be shaken, not James. He's the unshakeable answer to our bad-hair days.
My other favourite fast food is chick-lit. Don't tell anybody! I deride the books in public, I deride them in private. and I still read them. They are bad for my brain, they are bad for my waistline (one absolutely has to eat milk and cookies when reading Sophie Kinsella), they are bad for the feminist movement and world peace. they are un-put-down-able. Honestly, you would have thought that a full time mother, part time worker and part time writer would have better things to do in her limited spare time!
Which brings me to the most serious 30-something fast food of all: the fast food relationships. I look around me and see girls who are too busy for commitment. They go out with men, as you would expect, but whether the latest boyfriend lasts a week or ten years, he's just a guy to take to the movies on a night when there's no netball practice or book club meeting.
And the thing is, it's not only those intimate relationships that suffer from the fast-food syndrome. It's our friendships too. I blame it all on email, see. Cyber Age means we can keep in contact with friends from school, friends from our year abroad in the States, friends from our previous job and the one before that and the one before.
We chat to strangers we meet in cyber rooms, we get email from strangers who saw our web site and thought it was cool, we send 30 emails a day to our mother. Which is wonderful, of course, but it means that we're spreading ourselves awfully thin. Instead of having a handful of special long-term friends to have and to hold every weekend, we seem to have our address books filled with first names and brief descriptions (Andrea-swimming, Dave-science fiction).
Currently I'm "best friends" with a girl whose surname I don't know (though I can recount her labour word for word and I remember at what age her baby girl started teething), while my "best friend" of a year ago is all but forgotten (we exchange an email about once a quarter). I've recently deleted about 30% of my email address book on the basis that "I have no clue who this person is, or indeed what gender".
All of which is rather sad. I think I'm going to have a pizza to feel better.
| Tell a Friend About this Article |
