In the last two weeks Channel 4 in their infinitely creative and thought provoking wisdom have graced us with back to back drama and documentary’s on being single. Before writing this article I Googled the word dates; wonderfully delicious, good for the heart and helps to increase your sex drive… great! I then I realised I was reading about dried fruits. A Freudian slip that defined the single life and what a definition! So are we excessively sweet or as dried up as a packet of prunes that no one finds appealing to the taste buds or any of the other senses?
It’s true that there are a multitude of single people desperate to find love and their soul mate for life; it seems to be all they can think of to the point where it becomes an obsession. They really believe in the union of two people for as long as they have breath in their lungs and is the sole purpose of their existence. I can’t and won’t knock that belief you’ve got to believe in something right, but there seems to be a panicked urgency to find him or her; all in good time and for the new breed of singletons this romantic outlook is seen with very different eyes.
Just a few years ago if you were single for a long period of time there had to be something wrong with you; you were whispered about in corners and the view was that someone else’s’ money was the answer. Certain members of my family have conspired to set me up with an eligible bachelor or divorcee who was financially well off, “You’ll want for nothing” was their slogan. Well if I went along with what I can only describe as a farce I would have wanted for everything.
I spoke to one man who found that there are women who just want to marry and become baby making machines before they aspire to be anything else first quite perplexing. His thinking is clever and insightful in my opinion, how many women do this only to suddenly and without warning after kids a husband and a mortgage feel that there is something missing? They now want to travel, get an education, have a career and find their ‘self’. The conventional relationship they so desperately wanted now seems to be in perilously deep water and they are sinking to the empty bottom at an uncontrollable rate.
Parents treasure their children and you will find it near impossible to meet any that regret having them, they create a different type of future that brings so many amazing moments. What they do regret is the timing of marriage or a long term commitment to one person too soon. I have no regrets and I have and continue to have experiences, educated myself, traveled and know myself a lot better than I did before as a result. The last thing I want is to resent someone for holding me back when in reality the choice was solely mine. Games are played in relationships which is sad but all too frequent, the blame game being the one I want to avoid. I will live until the right moment presents itself to me and if it doesn’t it won’t be the end of my world.