I have typed out the above sentence as part of various Whatsapp-based whinges that my friends have been lucky enough to receive recently. “Honestly guys, am I destined to be alone forever surrounded by dogs, pizza boxes and watching Countryfile re-runs?” – if I’m feeling a little more imaginative – is the type of treat of a message that you might receive from me if you’re a friend that I’ve assessed might indulge my dramatic neediness.
And of course that’s exactly how they respond (yes you can sense an eye roll over Whatsapp) – telling me I’m being ridiculous, that the right person is just around the corner, and that after all, I’m 33 not 73, and I live in a busy city centre rather than on an uninhabited island in the Pacific Ocean. This should be easy, right?
BUT. Indulge me a little, maybe?
If 10 years ago I would have described what I wanted my life to look like now, I would have said that I’d like one or two children, a few years of marriage under my belt and a house in the countryside with a dog, some chickens and a vegetable patch. And of course we can’t always get what we want. There’s a lot of people who would be happy just to have a roof over their head – and I get it; I’m so lucky to have my little flat, great pals and an awesome family. But I would also quite like to have someone to share it with sometimes.
Truth bomb coming – I read a lot of articles on fertility, and though a lot of people reassure me that it’s too early to start really worrying about being able to have children, I do know that from your mid-30s the risks increase and your fertility starts to decrease. As a single 33-year-old I have to push these thoughts out of my head as soon as they occur. It makes the pressure to meet someone and settle down feel incredibly overwhelming (not to mention the fact that I’m not sure it’s the first thing a guy wants to hear when you go on a date. Excuse me whilst I just check my ovulation chart…) I even recently started reading about alternative options for creating small humans when you are single as hell (which is pretty much either adoption or the options that make you sound like a farmyard animal or a Christmas turkey).
There are so many areas of my life where the concept of life being short helps motivate me into action. I feel like I’ve achieved what I wanted to with my career (so far), I’ve been able to travel to some amazing places, create some cool things and spur myself on to do things – like sign up for a Half Marathon in September, what AM I thinking. But the idea of life being short (hashtag YOLO dream believe achieve) only makes me feel more helpless about my relationship status. I’ve done an awful lot of swiping and a little bit of dating and the more I do, the more concerned I feel that I really might be one of those people who is eternally single. I’m already the person who people try and offer up their single brothers and mates to, and though well-intentioned, it does make you feel just a tiny bit pathetic; like it’s a game of musical chairs and there’s only a few left.
Of course I’ll keep swiping, keep trying to meet people and believing that things will work out. I do consider myself lucky to have met some lovely guys through dating apps and after a pretty horrendous experience last year it has reassured me that there are nice, genuine and honest people out there (which I was starting to believe that there wasn’t). And that is a good feeling and I wish all of them the best.
PS – If you do have any hot single brothers or mates, you know where I am. And if you’ve found my blog because I swiped for you on Bumble and you Googled me, I promise I’m not really checking my ovulation chart in the toilets. Maybe.
