Men I'm Not Married To

MEN I’M NOT MARRIED TO
BY DOROTHY PARKER
GARDEN CITY NEW YORK DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 1922
COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY IN THE UNITED STATES AND GREAT BRITAIN PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES AT THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
No matter where my route may lie, No matter whither I repair, In brief—no matter how or why Or when I go, the boys are there. On lane and byways, street and square, On alley, path and avenue, They seem to spring up everywhere— The men I am not married to.
I watch them as they pass me by; At each in wonderment I stare, And, “but for heaven’s grace,” I cry, “There goes the guy whose name I’d wear!” They represent no species rare, They walk and talk as others do; They’re fair to see—but only fair— The men I am not married to.
I’m sure that to a mother’s eye Is each potentially a bear. But though at home they rank ace-high, No change of heart could I declare. Yet worry silvers not their hair; They deck them not with sprigs of rue. It’s curious how they do not care— The men I am not married to.
In fact, if they’d a chance to share Their lot with me, a lifetime through, They’d doubtless tender me the air— The men I am not married to.
“Oh, boy!” people say of Freddie. “You just ought to meet him some time! He’s a riot, that’s what he is—more fun than a goat.”
Other, and more imaginative souls play whimsically with the idea, and say that he is more fun than a barrel of monkeys. Still others go at the thing from a different angle, and refer to him as being as funny as a crutch. But I always feel, myself, that they stole the line from Freddie. Satire—that is his dish.
And there you have, really, one of Freddie’s greatest crosses. People steal his stuff right and left. He will say something one day, and the next it will be as good as all over the city. Time after time I have gone to him and told him that I have heard lots of vaudeville acts using his comedy, but he just puts on the most killing expression, and says, “Oh, say not suchly!” in that way of his. And, of course, it gets me laughing so that I can’t say another word about it.