Peep Show? Ugh, No.

The screen flashed a message in the bottom right hand corner. It was her own fault. What sort of self-respecting woman left the Facebook chat on, she groaned to herself. Without looking at the name she re-filled her glass, certain it was going to be the very person she was ignoring. She took a sip, followed it up with a deep breath, squared her shoulders and clicked on the bottom right hand corner.

'Oh Christ.' The dogs looked up at the unfamiliar noise. Bonnie was as useless with small-talk with them as she was with people. The sound had them both pricking their ears up.

Hey, sweetie. How's things?

Bonnie shook her head.

Mother, it's weird when you message me on here.

It was going to be a three-glass night, Bonnie could just feel it.

It's weird that I have to message you on here. Don't you answer your phone anymore? It's also weird that you haven't found a man. Are you a lesbian? I only ask because your father is worried about you.

Twirling her long, brunette ponytail in her fingers, Bonnie considered which level of hell you went to for lying to your parents about your sexuality and how many levels down she would be prepared to go if it made them stop asking for grandchildren. With so little say in the outcome it was too risky though and she went with a more pragmatic response.

A woman can be single by choice without being a lesbian, mother. We've talked about this. FFS, Ellen is married. And if I were a lesbian, would this really be the best medium of communication in which to relay that message?

Nodding to herself she was proud of her self-control.

What does FFS mean? I worry about you.

Her face dropped into her hands and more groans and profanities filled the air.

I'll call you tomorrow, mum.

Turning the chat off she drained her glass and considered getting a hobby. As quickly as the idea came it was gone (most likely due to being drowned out by alcohol) so she went back to staring at the Facebook newsfeed and debating whether or not to post something contentious just for the sake of being contentious.

The last week she'd posted a political article that she hadn't even bothered to read but which had stirred a lot of debate amongst the introverts of Tumblr, which had automatically made it good Facebook fodder. Pouting her lips like a centrefold she tried to remember just what it had been but it escaped her. She'd lost seven friends over that status update though. It was hard to care when she had yet work out who a single one of those seven were. At any time Bonnie could tell you exactly how many people were in her friends list. Make no mistake though, it was more her interest in seeing what she could and couldn't get away with than any need to feel wanted that kept her checking the numbers.

Also because she was bored and wanted attention. The laptop made another annoying noise.

'Ugh.' Someone else messaging her.

DTF?

Chivalry was indeed dead. She was sure of it.

No. Go away you disgusting creep.

If he'd been in front of her she definitely would've contemplated stabbing him.

You didn't say that when I was screwing your brains out.

Bonnie's eyebrows hit the ceiling.

It was 1998, you were my first boyfriend, the sex was crap, and you spent eleven months stalking me after we broke-up. You do not now get to message me ON FACEBOOK nearly fifteen years later to ask me to have sex with you like we just saw each other. You were vile then, you're clearly still vile now. Die.

She opened his profile and with a feeling of power, calmly hit block, indicating that he was someone she didn't know. Triumphant, she smiled and poured another glass.

Yes, it was indeed a riveting life that Bonnie Martin was leading and it was nice to know her prediction had been right. It was indeed a three glass night.

Bonnie's Going To Hell

Valentine’s Day loomed ahead of Bonnie like a flashing neon sign reminding her that at this rate there was a very good chance she was going to die old and alone. Rolling her eyes, such things never bothered her. If people felt a need to celebrate their love with flower deliveries in front of watchful eyes, and if they needed a date on the calendar just to go to a nice restaurant together, well, they probably weren’t going to make it anyway.

She smiled knowingly to herself and, as always, sipped from her glass.

Bonnie had once had a boyfriend who insisted on buying her flowers every week. Initially he’d told her it was because he wanted her to know how special she was. Then, as the weeks turned into months, he admitted it probably had a little more to do with him liking the way they made her bedroom smell so pretty, and then, on the eve of her eighteenth birthday, he’d come clean and admitted that it had a lot more to do with his own personal love of flowers. In particular he was a fan of orchids and she’d recently learned that he had a whole section of the garden outside the apartment he shared with his boyfriend, Lawrence, just dedicated to exotic varieties.

Sometimes Bonnie missed him a little and wished they could’ve stayed in touch, but then her life was not Will & Grace, and even yearly Christmas cards were just a little too much commitment for her. There was only one person she was prepared to even attempt any level of commitment with and it looked like another day had passed without her having to make any moves to realising who that man may be, and for that she was thankful.

So thankful she took another sip from her glass.

It was a groundhog day of an evening that left her with two options: stare at the television or stare at Facebook. Years earlier she’d learned that growing up as part of the MTV generation meant she had no idea how to sit still and read a book; a shame given how much she enjoyed writing them.

The divorced plus age two friend of her brother’s was still waiting to hear from her but her mind was no clearer. She prayed that something would save her from having to give him an answer. As wrong as it would be for the mother to secretly snatch the child in the night, it would really suit Bonnie if that happened. Not indefinitely of course, she wasn’t completely heartless, but long enough for them to cement a relationship strong enough that she didn’t run away at the first hurdle. Like when the child started crying the first time. Bonnie trembled at the thought.

Like divine intervention the phone sang to life beside her and shattered her daydream.

Katy Perry ringtone, of course.

‘He’s done it again,’ the voice sounded frantic. Bonnie nodded. She handled these situations regularly, plus, she just kind of liked to nod knowingly at regular intervals. That and stare with a murderous queen-like rage like Charlize Theron suggested. Through experimentation Bonnie had established that equally desirable results could be obtained from each.

‘What did your husband do that could possibly warrant screeching down the phone at me like a banshee?’ Bonnie swung her ponytail side-to-side, bored.

‘He wasn’t listening when I was talking to him. Honestly, I was at work all day, I came home and he wouldn’t even listen to me.’

It was a conversation that Bonnie had had a million times. Julie was the closest thing that Bonnie had to a best friend and this very scene played out with alarming regularity. At first the phone calls had made her anxious, threatening to steal her calm with the desperation in Julie’s voice, but she’d since learned that as much as she loved the woman, the truth was that Julie was a drama queen who seemed intent on running her marriage to Jack into the ground for no good reason other than that she could.

‘What were you talking about?’

‘The kids.’

‘The school kids?’ Bonnie screwed her nose up, trying not to side with Jack but finding herself living with his pain. Julie was an artist who was currently trying her hand at running art classes with school groups.

‘I was telling them about our painting today.’

‘Okay. And what did Jack do today?’

‘How would I know?’ Julie cried frantically into the phone. She was not handling the line of questioning with the level of calm that Bonnie would’ve preferred.

‘Well, I guess if I was Jack and you hadn’t asked me how I was and then you started prattling on about finger painting six year olds, I’d probably stop listening too.’

‘That’s my job!’ Julie protested.

‘Sorry, sweetie. That doesn’t make it anymore interesting to anyone except an over-bearing, finger-painting enthusiast, stay-at-home mother with a child in your class.’

Bonnie supposed she was going to hell when she died.

‘You’re so infuriating sometimes!’

The phone went dead in her hands and Bonnie couldn’t help but nod in agreement. Infuriating she may be, but it was also borderline impressive how she had managed to avoid yet another opportunity to give her potential date an answer by filling her evening with staring at her laptop screen and consuming copious amounts of red wine.

The truth was, Bonnie Martin would’ve been infuriated with herself too, if she could have been bothered.

This Ain't No Bridget.

Bonnie was no Bridget Jones though.

This wasn't a woman who was desperately searching for a man in the hope of tying herself down and giving birth to mini-Bonnies. The opposite of that was much closer to who she actually was. Her lack of motivation for her life stemmed from a failed career as a writer and from her dedicating too much of her precious time to Tumblr. Well, that and her drinking. It still wasn't clear to her how she felt about marriage - other than of course that she liked the idea of being adored forever, but also understood entirely that statistically that was unlikely given that her life was not the Hollywood movie that she had once hoped it would be - and while she loved her niece and nephew, whenever they were left in her care for more than a two hour stretch she went home exhausted and in need of more alcohol than a typical day's end would normally require.

It was a predicament of sorts. When you're in your thirties, or so Bonnie had found, men who weren't sold on the idea of children were significantly harder to get your hands on than men in their twenties, yet your twenties was exactly when you wanted a man willing to commit and take the next step. Even Bonnie herself had wanted that five years ago and had left a long-term partner who had refused to deliver on that desire. He had since also refused to deliver with the next woman and was in danger once again of being left for someone who was more willing to donate some sperm in the pursuit of propagation.

The thought made Bonnie shudder.

It was the very reason the divorced man was still waiting on a reply to the lunch date invitation he'd extended to her three days earlier. Divorced she could handle, divorced plus one age two was slightly more confronting.

That conundrum was the very thing that was occupying her thoughts the next day as she stared blankly at a computer screen and tried to ooze just enough negative attitude that people left her alone, but not so much that they might report her for breaching the company's code of conduct on interactions between employees or whatever it was called. It's not like she'd actually bothered to read the document.

Unfortunately some were not so adept at reading Bonnie's cool veneer.

'Hey, Bonnie. How was your weekend?'

Of all the things that annoyed Bonnie - humidity, children who hung around for more than two hours, dessert that wasn't chocolate-based, and people who didn't know how to pronounce 'pinot noir' - forced familiarity was definitely in the top ten things that made her want to grab random objects and either smash them against a wall or snap them over her knee.

Her eyes narrowed on the poor defenceless creature standing before her and forcing poor Bonnie to view them as a target.

'Fine.' Her words were curt. She let a beat pass after she'd spoken before she forced a candy-floss dripping smile. Shoot people a cutesy-pie look and they knew. They knew they were better off walking away than continuing to stay in her sights.

He took the hint. 'Oh, that's good.' Slowly he backed away and she kept her eyes on him the whole time to ensure he didn't get cocky and try with a follow-up question. 'Have a nice day'.

Not a question. She let it slide.

Look, it wasn't that she didn't like people, she wanted to scream at the room, it was just that small-talk was the most pointless of all talk. Had something happened that she wanted to discuss with this man she barely knew, she would've brought it up. She was staring at a screen, something she was paid to do, and he came along asking her questions that she didn't care about and which she wasn't paid to answer. She didn't need to be reminded that she had spent the entire weekend alone because all of her friends had gone and got married and had children. It was tough enough to have to deal with without having to relive it every time a near-stranger decided they wanted to make small-talk.

It truly was a wonder she made it through her days without resorting to violence more often, she thought to herself.

But back to the divorced plus age two guy. If she was clever she'd be able to deliberate on it long enough that at least three hours passed without her even answering a phone or replying to a single email. She knew because that was how long she'd drawn it out for on Friday when she'd first received the invitation.

Yep, she thought to herself, it is going to take something very rewarding to steal me away from this gig in a hurry. So she let the humidity continue to annoy her, she held off on giving him an answer, and instead she spent the morning staring at her old, failed manuscript and wondering whether she should throw it away like the trash it clearly was, or try to polish a diamond out of it's worthless pages. And in between those thoughts she took pleasure in ignoring all calls from her boss and routinely sending glares out in the direction of anyone who dared veer too close to her cubicle.

That was exactly how Bonnie Martin liked to spend the hours her lifestyle required her to kill at work.