For the second time in a couple of months, I have been asked by a cousin for my mother’s address. Not for my mine. But for my mother’s. And, with a family bar mitzvah coming hot on the heels of the recent wedding, I know only too well why.
“Do you want my address, too?” I add mischievously – via facebook, on Thursday evening – after forwarding my mother’s details. “Or do I have to get married to get my own invitation?”
“Didn’t think it would matter to you,” comes the reply, “but I could always send you one too.”
Too?! I decline (though not before providing the names of other, married relatives, and asking whether their invitations will also be sent to their parents).
“And they say women are complicated” comes the reasonable response, though, on this occasion, the guilt/point-making are more Polish (as, perhaps, is the rationing of invitations) than effeminate (and I swear the thought “No separate invite, no separate gift!” never entered my mind).
“Don’t worry,” I end off, hammering home the guilt and point even further, “I will ask my mummy where it is taking place . . . though maybe she’ll get a babysitter and not let me come at all.”
I have already ranted at length – see Discrimination of a Singular Kind – about how we unmarrieds are often singled out for special treatment. Am I being a pussy (again)? Or am I entitled, at 44, to expect my own invitation to family do’s?
Please cast your vote . . .
melchett mike 
you can’t use the “p” word michael! it’ll likely lose you your entire female readership in one foul (and abusive) swoop. the following (re the “c” word) might help you understand the severity of your crime:
of course the very same females who profess to be mortally offended by such words will freely use “dick”, “prick” and “cock”. but that apparently, as with so many things, is their prerogative.
I think it’s called ‘schnorrah invitus’, an inherent condition of unknown aetiology.