The clichés of a 30-something single woman

And how it's impossible to refute them.

A British Saturday night classic. Credit

I almost had to rugby tackle my mother over the Christmas break to stop her from giving my number to two guys at a bar.

“They were nice,” she sighed on the way back to our hotel, “it’s always lovely talking to young men.”

“They were certainly being very polite,” I said.

“Mum would marry you off to the first bloke she sees on the street,” Dad contributed, “it could be to any old murderer.”

He’s right, she’s probably bought the hat already. Like a few others in my circle, she seems far more concerned with setting me up than I actually am myself.

Because I’m fine. Really. And I’m fine spending holidays with my parents because they’re hilarious. What I’m not fine about is how difficult it is to separate the external pressures of having a partner in your third decade, particularly as a straight woman, from how we really feel about being single.

Credit

“We’re the majority,” a friend said to me recently over drinks, “I went to a dinner last month and 90% of the people around that table were single women, except for the host.”

In a dating app desert, it can certainly seem that way but in reality, men are more likely to be single than women. A crucial difference however, and largely thanks to our social circles, is that women are on average happier in singlehood than men. A recent study of 6’000 singles late last year had us reporting higher levels of satisfaction with relationship status, life satisfaction and sexual satisfaction.

And guess what? We look great whilst doing it. Yet despite this plenty, this sense of fulfilment, we’re often perceived and written with an absence. With an ennui, softened by some kind of demanding job and/or domestic animal. Lord forbid I get a cat.

Or we’re hardly written into popular culture at all. Bridget Jones and Sex & The City still resonate with cult status despite first gracing our screens a quarter of a century ago. Since then, we’ve had Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag, the BBC’s Miranda and the dating woes in Lena Dunham’s Girls. For me, they are iconic. But they’re also all white, all varying degrees of messy, and the Brits clumsy and embarrassment prone.

Carrie & Bridget get so much attention on Substack. If you’ve never seen Miranda, have a look at this clip here (credit).

All of this to say, it’s hard to even take ownership of the joys of being single as a woman in her 30s who is not a mother, nor divorced, because it just seems that I’m out to prove a point.

Well, I am. On how difficult it is to counter this narrative and the external pressures against the freedom of my lifestyle. How selfish it is of me, to be happy and unattached. How dare I be vocal about it.

Here’s a rundown of some of the worst clichés we face, and if my mum is ever successful in her quest to find me a man, know that my dad would still prefer a murderer over some of my ex-boyfriends.

1. That we’re desperate

Please read the above. Maybe, occasionally, on a rainy Sunday, I think about how nice it would be for someone to run me a bath and make me a cuppa. But 98% of the time I am busy working, reading, eating, cooking, with mates, on a trip or planning one. Despite others thinking that every man in the ‘right’ age bracket is a potential opportunity, we don’t. And if you impose this mindset on your single friend at every social event, they’re guaranteed to have a terrible time.

2. That we want everyone else to be unhappy

Another friend told me that when her brother announced that he and his fiancé were pregnant, her grandma put her hand on her leg and went “are you ok?”, in a tone appropriate for a funeral.

Be reassured that we share your unbound joy about your engagement, your marriage, and your offspring. Really and genuinely. The only thing we might resent is having to fork out double to show it.

3. That we’re a threat

I often wonder whether other women would treat me differently around their partner if I had one in tow. Despite how fun it sounds, single women do not prowl the streets looking to snatch the first man in view and fireman’s carry him off, never to be seen again. The last thing I’m interested in is how many holes there are in your boyfriend’s pants, especially when I’ve known him long before you.

4. That we’re having lots of sex, all the time and

5. That we’ll entertain you with messy dating stories that confirm the tolerability of your partner’s faults

All you want to hear is how bad it is out there. That we meet strangers on the internet and get lured back to some navy-sheet house-share nightmare where they proceed to take drugs off our body parts and pull moves rehearsed at Cirque-du-Soleil.

Like many others moving away from the apps, I usually finish a date telling the same boring anecdotes and wishing I’d spent an evening alone with a bowl of pasta.

“I’m having a break right now,” I say sweetly, which guarantees that I’m not. You’re not entitled to know my fun times, nor is your partner, nor your friends of friends at dinner parties.

6. That we complain about men a lot

Ok, I hold my hands up to this one. But so you know, every time I’m with other women rolling my eyes and pronouncing “I’m so over men”, I am incredibly self-aware of how clichéd this is. And that instead, I should be mindful that it’s hard to maintain basic standards of human decency when dating in a digital age.

We have other things to complain about, but they make it too easy.

7. That there is something wrong with us

“How come you don’t have a boyfriend?” is such an awful question, and I beg you never to ask it. You may think that it’s a backhanded compliment, that the person in front of you is so brilliant, they can’t possibly be alone. Yet it will always feel like a jab in the ribs. That we’re at fault for doing things differently.

Sometimes it’s a choice. Sometimes, there are a myriad of circumstances that have led to this present moment. Most of the time, the way we are told life should unfold is beyond our control.

And thank God. Because that’s when it gets really interesting. Kindly direct your pity elsewhere, we are far too busy enjoying ourselves.

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