Thread by @RibsNorman

Marriage Masterclass Part 1: Follow The Science!
Welcome to the Twitter version of my Marriage Masterclass. Over the course of the next few days and a fair amount of tweets I will unlock the secret ingredients to marital bliss, thus giving you the gift of a joyous union.

Sorry, that sounds a bit wanky, doesn't it? Let me rephrase. I've made all the marriage mistakes, so you don't have to. I'm going to share my mistakes with you — I call them Husband Numbers One and Two — and offer some handy tips to help you choose and keep the perfect spouse.

So, what makes me an expert? A very notched bedpost, two divorces and three marriages. No need to do the maths, that's the correct ratio. I may be many things, but bigamist I am not.

To be fair, as some points in my life I have been able to tick multiple boxes when filling in forms. Married? Yes; Divorced? Yes; Co-habiting? Yes — "HOUSE!" (thank you, Husband Number Two) — but I've only ever been married to one man at a time.

Now, I think it makes sense to go back to the beginning. My mum had four words of wisdom for me when I started secondary school: "Stay away from boys." Within a week I had my first boyfriend. I took him to my favourite tree out of which he promptly fell.

He didn't hold it against me — we were too young for that sort of thing — in fact, he was the DJ at my most recent wedding. He was not the groom though — competent tree climbing is a must in my book.

Suffice to say I completely ignored my mum's warning and rather than staying away from boys, I trailed around after one poor sod or another for the rest of my school career. One thing I am good at is crushes. Not crunches — I can barely sit up in bed — but crushes.

I first understood what a crush was when I told my friend Tracey — tight blonde perm, stonewash jeans, white-stilettos — that looking at my poster of Morten Harket from A-ha made me feel funny. "That's cos you fancy him, innit," she said. More words of wisdom there for you.

I soon explored this funny feeling with my first serious boyfriend, to the sounds of @MenAtWorkBand, as I recall. "Men Briefly At Work Before A Long Break" might have been a better choice. I have fond memories of — perhaps I shouldn't use his real name — let's call him Mr Cherry.

Anyway, fond memories. We went out for two years and when I dumped him my mum developed a vocal tic: "Poor Mr Cherry. Poor Mr Cherry" but obviously with his real name. I don't suppose she would have said it with his nickname.

Shortly after I ousted Mr Cherry, my best friend dumped her boyfriend. What can I say — I've always been a trendsetter. For some reason, he decided this was all my fault and said that she had been led astray by, and I quote, "Ribs 'bury-her-in-a-Y-shaped-coffin' Norman".

Bit harsh. For one thing, I had only one notch on my bedpost at this point in my career.

Bit of a tip for any youngsters among you: don't carve notches in your bedpost if you still live at home. Dads don't like it.

But the other thing I didn't like about the Y-shaped coffin thing is that it is clearly factually incorrect. Surely a Y-shared coffin would be legs-together, arms akimbo, which is altogether more joyful than he probably intended. What I think he meant was a lambda-shaped-coffin.

Upon receiving this slur on my good name — OK, it was kind of fair to be honest — I decided to own it and became very much empowered by the term. He called me Ribs 'bury-her-in-a-Y-shaped-coffin' Norman?

Then I shall become Ribs 'bury-her-in-a-Y-but-more-accurately-lambda-shaped-coffin' Norman and I promptly left home for university and embarked upon a bedpost notching adventure of my very own!

Now this is important, so listen up. When selecting a potential candidate for a husband or wife, the key is sample size. Do not trap the first person who shows an interest. Play the field. I did a science degree, so I was well versed in the scientific method.

Experiments with larger sample sizes are always better and you must demonstrate that you can achieve the same results multiple times. To be honest, I am still working on the multiples, but I remain hopeful. I am now pinning those hopes on HRT.

During my time at Uni I became something of a collector or innocence, like a horny Grim Reaper, if you will. We like to romanticise the act of popping the cherry — we imagine two sweet virgins surrendering to one another on a tartan picnic blanket in a field of poppies.

But the reality for a fair few Bristol students was me, working through the union bar like a one-woman combine harvester.

But sample size, people, sample size! Follow the science.

I forget most of the experimental subjects' names, but it seems that I have made an impression on a few of them. Perhaps it's the deflowering that did it. Weirdly, a couple of them are still stalking me in a fairly benign manner — via LinkedIn of all places!

You know LinkedIn? Facebook for people with jobs where all the photos are Safe For Work.

Now, I'm a comedian, so my LinkedIn profile is woefully out of date. Quite frankly, if they like what they see — younger me working earnestly in a big corporate — they will be very disappointed in the real me — writing one joke a day in my PJs and eating beans out of the can.

LinkedIn does of course have a premium version. If you stump up the cash you can see who has been viewing your profile. They let you see the first couple, to lure you in, but then rest are greyed out like a depressing over-40s dating app. Those first two? Always the same blokes.

One I went out with 30 years ago. I once locked him in a toilet so I could do Dirty Dancing with someone else. The other I deflowered on the first night at uni. Very fit, like sleeping with an ironing board. He introduced me as his girlfriend the next day, so that was that.

I am considering paying for LinkedIn premium. Anonymised data is all well and good, but perhaps a list of everyone I've ever slept with might be useful in the future.

#amwriting #comedy #wedding #marriage #masterclass

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