I’m not prejudiced against marriage. I’m not even prejudiced against married people, some of my best friends are married. Marriage, however, is definitely not for me. I’ve tried it twice, and I don’t care if the third time is the charm, because I am Not. Going. There. Again. It took me to a bad, bad place and I have no desire to return.

I think what I hated most about marriage was what marriage did to me. This could be one long-ass post, which none of my three readers will have the patience to read to the end, or it could be several. I am opting for several, hence the Roman numeral after ‘Bechamel.’

Which, by the way, I hate. As a child I was mildly allergic to milk, which was all good with me because I couldn’t stand the stuff. Still can’t. The mere thought of ingesting a glass of milk makes me queasy. Bechamel, of course, as you are probably thinking, is mostly milk. The parts of it that are not butter and white flour, anyway, both of which were, at the time of my first marriage, anathema to the just-barely-under-control anorexic in me, and I got really effing good at making Bechamel. Like I say, I particularly did not care for what marriage did to me.

My first husband was Argentinian. I met him in an airport. In Madrid’s Barajas Airport, to be exact, when I was thirty. So I’d already held out for a good long while on the marriage thing. I was living in Granada , working on my dissertation and having a very-very Bad Love time with Bad Love Incarnate (remember him?). One particular week in July, I was showing him I had a life by leaving his ass parked in the Andalusian countryside (doubt he cared, if he even noticed) and going on my way, to Rome, to spend a week with a German friend who was finishing up her dissertation research.

Just as an aside, there are probably too many dissertations in the world. And I was absolutely not looking for a husband.

As we were waiting to board the flight, an Italian grandpa type picked me out of the crowd. Not hard to do: I am 5’10” without shoes and I was, as always in those days, wearing heels. Though my skirt, like my flaming red locks, was long and flowing, from the waist up I was provocatively dressed, and given his short stature, his eyes rested, once he had approached me, almost exactly at breast level. He was staring down my push-up bra without even trying. And #metoo was still a long way off.

So Italian Grandpa began to sing, a MamaMia sort of thing, something about la primavera and la cosa piu bella. Italian Grandpa sang loudly, we started to draw amused glances, and Yours Truly wanted to vanish into the floor.

Husband #1 to the rescue. Out of the waiting, staring crowd he came, my own personal savior, knight on a white horse, to beat back singing Grandpa. And proceed to take his place.

Before I knew what had hit me, he’d sweet talked the stewardess into playing seat roulette so that his would be next to mine (obviously this was long before 9-11). He spent the plane ride showing me photographs of his paintings—yes, he was a painter, the first of two; I am a slow learner. He was on his way to Rome to set up a one-man (emphasis on Man) show at the Argentinian cultural center. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say his eyes bugged out when I told him I was an art historian, and upon hearing the name of the august Ivy-league institution that would eventually grant me my degree, they threatened to pop.

Aha. You’re seeing the writing on the wall, already, now, before we even get to the Bechamel (who knew Argentinian cooking used Bechamel…). I’m seeing it too, now. In hindsight. Which, as they say, is 20-20.

Let me emphasize: this guy was So. Not. My. Type. Once we got to Rome (a gorgeous, gorgeous city in which I defy any one of the three of you not to fall for a persistent suitor who is even moderately attractive, and he was more than moderately, although I should repeat, absolutely Not. My. Type.) the hunt was on. And he wore me down.

Looking back, I am amazed. There were no cell phones. There were no smart phones. There was no texting. There was a high-ceilinged rented room in a gently and beautifully dilapidated house just off the Piazza Navona (how I found the room remains a mystery to me, there was no Air B&B, there was no Internet, were we possibly better off without it?). The room was rented to me by a gently and beautifully dilapidated Italian woman with a baby grand piano in her living room. She was divorced, maybe more than once. She wore her vaguely tragic past like a second-hand designer coat, hanging carelessly off one shoulder. She was cultured in that general European way that so few Americans seem able to manage, and she had a telephone in her kitchen, that worked. Sometimes.

Of course, of course, of course he charmed the landlady.

If you think about it, the fact that Husband #1, the friend (also Argentinian) with whom he was staying, near the Colosseum, my friend, and I, had come to constitute, by the third day of my stay, an inseparable foursome (for hanging out, you gutter-minded person, for hanging out), is a true tribute to Husband #1’s resourcefulness. A handsome guy (even a So. Not. Your. Type. one) pursuing you across one of the world’s most gorgeous cities, into parties in villas (how did we get into parties in villas?), and eventually, of course, into bed (but the sex was not great, and it never became great, which is another of the little mysteries tied up into this bigger-ball-of-yarn mystery: how the effing hell did he get me to marry him?). Your guy back home in Granada (or, rather, not in Granada: therein lies the problem) treats you like shit.

So, of course, you fall for it. You ditch your own nebulous plans for research—which were never all that concrete anyway; you were mostly coming so you could rub your absence in Bad Love Incarnate’s face—in order to trudge across the city, in your heels, in search of every art gallery in bella Roma, handing out invitations to Husband #1’s opening. He likes you to do the talking because your Italian is better than his, despite his Italian-born parents (the fact that you have an ease with languages that he does not will eventually become a very large thorn in the side of your relationship but you do not know that yet).

Look at you, independent woman of the world! You’ve just become this guy’s handmaiden. His sidekick. His help-meet. Oh so very Old-Testament-y, despite your platforms and your miniskirt. And he pulled that off without you even noticing.

You may be on your way to a PhD, honey, but who’s the smart one here? He’s working his way right up to that Bechamel.

Which we will soon get to, I promise, dear and faithful readers of this Bad Love Blog. We will, we will. Incidentally, I am seriously happy with this week’s picture (yes, those are my shoes, and no they are not knock-off), and I might well re-purpose it for further posts on this topic. Consistency of brand all that. Saving of time. And I like it. So you may well see them again next week…