Noelle McCarthy: Catch him, hook him, reel him in

George Clooney. Picture / AP Images

So George is getting married. What shall I wear? Sackcloth and ashes? Or something with nice loose weave like burlap? The latter is most suitable for the rending of garments that must be in order when the most famous bachelor in history finally throws in the towel and kisses his new missus. Or not.

I'm with my fellow columnist Deborah Hill Cone on this one. Clooney never did it for me. Too smiley, a little too unctuous. Like Deborah, I prefer 'em rough around the edges, as opposed to purring.

But I enjoyed George's steadfast refusal to submit to the bondage of matrimony. It spoke of a certain mental toughness. Not for him the easy comfort of a wife and helpmeet, even while so many of his colleagues were favouring that indulgence.

The McConnagheys and the Damons and the Afflecks of this world might have been breaking their legs racing to the altar, but George just went on dating former wrestlers and cocktail waitresses, defiantly unconquered.

How shocking it is then that he's finally putting a ring on it. He's engaged to a lovely woman whose name escapes me. How did she do it? That's what we all want to know, according to certain websites, the ones that like to present women as better fishers of men than apostles, even.

We catch them, we hook them, we reel them in gasping and celebrate the conquest with bauble (two carats and a platinum setting, if we're lucky), and then we rush them off to the altar.

A man chases a woman until she catches him, according to the old Best Man speech chestnut. How is this s**t still being used to sell newspapers, is the question? It's being used because we buy into it, is the answer. Take the case of Clooney and Amal Alamuddin (for that is her name, I googled). An actor had lots of girlfriends but didn't want to marry any of them. Then he met this woman, and he proposed to her.

That is a lovely story, but how is it news, I wonder? It happens every single way every single day to millions of people. It's a headline though, because George surrendering his bachelorhood is something that interests millions of women, even those of us who were never into him. It's a headline because there still remains the conviction that it's every mans destiny to become a husband, and every woman's to find one.

It's a fact that's still universally acknowledged, centuries after Pride and Prejudice was written, despite the fact that the woman who wrote it, as well as being a genius, was also a spinster.

And while we're on spinsters, let's talk about Bridget. Jones, that is. Famously, George Clooney went out with Renee Zellweger, the woman who played her. But does anyone else think there's a certain deliciousness in the fact that he's going to marry a human rights lawyer from England? He's gone and proposed to Mark Darcy. Could anything be more fitting for the world's most famous singleton?

It certainly solves the problem of what to wear to the nuptials. In honour of George and Bridget, and Renee and Jane even, and singletons everywhere past and present, I'll put a pair of giant knickers on while I watch it on the telly.

- VIVA