Read Remind Me Again Why I Need a Man for Free Online

TV for company. And I’m especially sick of getting phone bills for five hundred euro a month because I’m so lonely I have to spend three hours a night talking to my friends or else I’ll go off my head. I could be mistaken, but I can’t help feeling this isn’t how my life was supposed to turn out.’
    Ira is eyeballing me now, and it’s disconcerting. ‘Well, Amelia, I got news for you. Clearly, you are doing something wrong.’
    I’m dimly aware of swotty girl staring at me.
    â€˜I have absolutely no idea why any of your exes didn’t want to pursue a relationship with you, but I can tell you one thing.’
    â€˜Yes?’ I ask, figuring: What the hell? I can’t be humiliated any more.
    â€˜You are going to track them down and you’re gonna find out. Exactly like an exit interview. Sure, it’s gonna be tough, you’re gonna hear a lot of home truths about yourself, but how else can you learn from your mistakes of the past and move on? And it doesn’t matter who broke up with who, what you want to learn is why these men were wrong for you to begin with. Remember the magic word:
feedback
. And that applies for all of you ladies,’ she says, directing herattention back to the class. I’m relieved that the focus is off me, but the next thing she says sends a shiver down my spine. ‘In fact that brings me neatly to your assignment for next week. I want you all to make a list of your ten most significant ex-boyfriends, starting with the first and ending with the most recent.’
    For the first time this evening, swotty girl looks a bit flummoxed. ‘But suppose you don’t have ten exes?’ she whispers to me.
    Ira, it seems, is one of those people who can hear the grass grow in her sleep. ‘If you can’t think of ten ex-boyfriends, then ten guys who asked you out will do. Come on, ladies, you’re all over thirty-five, you must have been on at least ten dates in your lives.’
    There are loud mutterings in the class.
    â€˜That’s the easy part of the assignment, let me tell you,’ Ira goes on, undeterred. ‘Before next week’s class, you’re gonna have made steps to contact your first serious boyfriend. And so on, one ex a week for the whole ten-week duration of this course.’
    â€˜Suppose they’ve left the country?’ comes a panicky-sounding voice from the back row. ‘Or suppose their wife answers the phone?’
    â€˜And even if I do get to speak to him,’ says someone else in the middle of the class, ‘what do I say?’
    â€˜I will tell you exactly what you say,’ says Ira. ‘I’ll hand you the goddamn script. The question is: Are you ready to hear the truth?’
    * * *
    Driving home later that night, I have a flashback. An omen for what lies ahead …
THE TIME: Mid-July 1984.
    THE PLACE: Blinkers nightclub in the Leopardstown race course.
    THE OCCASION: Nothing in particular, it’s just free for girls on a Wednesday night.
    Bruce Springsteen is belting out ‘Born in the USA’ and the crowd are all singing along and stomping their feet as I make my way through the packed bar and spot where the Lovely Girls are all perched around a table.
    â€˜LATE!’ they chant in unison.
    â€˜Sorry, sorry,’ I reply breathlessly. ‘Don’t laugh, but I really wanted to watch the end of the Olympics.’
    â€˜Oh, how did Sebastian Coe do? He is so yummy …’ says Caroline, ever the hopeless romantic.
    â€˜I’m sorry, but I’m politically opposed to watching,’ says Jamie, who’s wearing black eyeliner and looks like the really scary one from the Cure. ‘Without the Soviets, it’s like … oh I don’t know …’
    â€˜Charles without Diana,’ says Caroline, looking a bit like an early Diana herself, all blonde and bobbed in a sailor dress with pearls.
    â€˜You look good,’