The Preference of Singlehood

Every long-term single woman has been through it: the pitiful “Ahh’s” from smugly tangled couples and downplayed exclusion from their evenly numbered social events. Friends, whose lives revolve around their significant others, dig for psychological reasons for your choice of aloneness or they shower droplet sympathy that you “haven’t found the right one”. The social expectation of being paired up and in a monogamous relationship by the age of 30 becomes a curse to those singletons whose love lives don’t meet the obligated time bomb of a structure of normality imposed on us from an early age.

As someone who has never had a long term relationship for a variety of reasons, I have become accustomed to the sympathy and ostracising from coupled friends. The sympathy comes from a good place, yet it can be annoying that it is a factor that encourages sympathy. The exclusion of a single person at a couples events happens for a few reasons and differs between types of friends; I have known the Paranoid Friend, who doesn’t want single women around hers or her other friend’s partner’s, and the Even-Stevens Friend, who doesn’t want to upset the balance of couples and socially connected people at a social event. Nevertheless, despite the reason for exclusion, the single status poses a threat and difficulty.

The psychological digging is another display of social brainwashing- if someone is still single or has not had a long-term relationship resulting in cohabitation, engagement/ marriage by the time they’re 30, they are deemed ‘abnormal’. There must be something wrong with them for them to be that way; they are incapable of a healthy human relationship and therefore, have psychological issues.

But perhaps the reasons in long-term singlehood are simpler than that. Perhaps they just lie in the overindulgence of freedom. So here, as an answer many smug couples who don’t understand their long term single friends; I give you my top 5 reasons why singlehood is a preference, not an illness.

1-Bedroom Fun Time
When I slip in to bed, I get to slither naked over the WHOLE of the bed; I can spend a few moments doing body shapes, feeling the cool, crisp bottom cotton sheet brush over by body and then selfishly spread out, knowing that I don’t have to share an inch. The bed and every part it is mine- completely, utterly and totally mine. After a few nights of sleeping in the same bed as someone, I feel as if I’m being caged at night time and denied my mattress yoga.

2-Going Back To My Roots
With age, I have the excuse of laziness and ignorance to social conventions requiring me to wax, shave or pluck and luckily, I’m quite fair-haired anyway. Nevertheless, I can nurture a caterpillar above my eyes that branches legs towards my forehead and cheekbones, and I have randomly sprouting hairs on my neck, chin and chest. The randomly sprouting ones usually get plucked because they’re annoying, thick little buggers that breathe a life of their own. But they do take some time to come through and I tend to walk around, looking like a distant, ginger relation of King Kong, until I do a sweep. If I was in a full-time, impress his majesty relationship- I’d miss my regular regression to the wild side.

3-Pussy Power
As an animal lover, I’ve had a fair few in nearly four decades. It started off with family pets of dogs and cats and progressed towards rodents and a reptile. Now, I have five cats- one through wanting a pet, one as a gift from a friend and three, rescued and unable to re-home. I am a Cat Lady (with ‘Crazy’ as an option) and I like my position. Where these animals once terrified and repelled me, I’ve grown to find them interesting, faithful, affectionate and lovable. With them, I see that domestic animals can retain their wild characteristics; they hunt, howl, prowl and show me a side to the wonders of this world that has been corrupted and repressed in humans. I still like dogs and other animals, but cats are relatively easy to keep compared to most animals and keep me enthralled with their wild antics.
If I was in a relationship, ‘issues’ are inevitable with my cats and as I have made a commitment to them first, I couldn’t commit to someone who didn’t understand that. While I’m not a fluffy, walking advertisement for a cat’s home and my house doesn’t stink of cat’s piss; I still get a lukewarm handshake from potential suitors- especially dog lovers- upon knowledge of my pussy power.

4-Getting the Decorators In
As my bedroom rarely gets eyed by anyone but me, the decoration can be a productive of my creativity. In fact, the whole house can be and I don’t have to compromise. I don’t have to remember that red is the opposite teams signature or that yellow reminds him of an old brothel he used to visit. I can hang fairy lights in every room; cover the bed and sofas in cushions, stick pictures of Christopher Eccleston and Zachary Quinto on my fridge- all without criticism or mirth. And I can alter and change it as much as I like, without the imposition of someone crying out that it’s their space too.
I have never lived with someone, but my space and how I decorate it would be a big compromise in a relationship. I’m old fashioned and my home is very shabby-chic and effeminate. Despite my son’s room being masculinity, to include that in the rest of the house would be difficult. In my last relationship with long-term potential, this was severely compromised when my ex-partner stayed over at weekends. He was slowly enforcing his desire for more commitment and would introduce furniture or try and do DIY, which I found akin to pulling teeth.

5-Unexplained Hibernation/Absences
Whether it’s PMS, stomach bloating and mood swings; dramas that won’t/can’t benefit from being talked about and explained or just simply, because I want to- I can hibernate in to a room or a few and not come out until the world looks rosy again. I don’t have to explain to anyone why I’m going in there and might not come out for a few days, I can simply enter. No feelings of rejection have to be accounted for or engagements met- I can simply make my excuses to the rest of world and go (within reason). I can sit up all night, writing blog posts for the internet, with no explanation for why I didn’t go up to bed. I can pick up my keys and take a walk, with no notification and excuses as to why the urge strikes me.
I enjoy the freedom of not having to offer an explanation for my movements or desire to alone at times. My immediate family have their own lives and people to occupy their time, so I never find myself having to explain to them. A life without explanation and the freedom to act like a temperamental, moody, insomniac, anti-social dinosaur is a luxury I have become accustomed to and would feel loathsome to sacrifice it.

~Single Forever?~
I’ve never been one for social conventions and norms, and while I got the child without a long-term relationship (which seems to be a developing norm); I don’t want to be single forever. But recently, for now and for periods in my past, it has been a choice and a preference. Aspects of singlehood hold their attractiveness, beyond the sexual factors and freedom from monogamy. In every semi-serious relationship, I’ve been monogamous and have a moral rule that if the relationship is sexual, it’s monogamous on my part.

And I do compromise, despite the selfish, self-centred attitude my post might portray. I’m not overly territorial in my home and have taken on pets and children of past relationships, and made spaces and stop gaps for the men themselves. But this can only ever last for so long, before the craving of being unneeded becomes obvious in my interaction with them. One day, I will be willing to sacrifice the small pleasures of being single for the joy of a deep connection, but not yet. I’ll get bored of my own company one day and those small pleasures will become friction burns, and I will want to plunge head first in to being part of a smug couple. But I’m taking my time getting there and social conventions can screw their idealised fiction. I’m glad to be taking my time and enjoying the pleasures of being single.

Plus, current divorce rates in the UK are 1 in 5. One in five smug couples will find themselves in my position, so I sit in my singlehood with the knowledge that at least, I have chosen this and it hasn’t been thrust upon me by the desires of another; that I enjoy this and I am not aching my heart out for what has been and decayed. The sympathy of the smug coupled friend is misplaced.