Celebrating Single
Oh no, it’s here again. The one day of the year designed to mock those who haven’t found love. Give it your best shot to avoid it but it’s kind of hard with love hearts dripping over shop counters making an appearance pretty much as soon as the Christmas decorations came down. But don’t worry, let the others have their day because singles are all the rage. Who wants a rose in a cylinder at 4x its market value anyway?
We’re in the midst of a revival of celebrating singleness. With the number of lone person households about to surpass family ones and marriage on the decline, it was bound to happen. It’s ever so slight but the pendulum is starting to swing from pressure to meet someone, anyone, to a focus on making the most of life no matter who else is in it. Or not.
It’s a necessary backlash to what psychologists call ‘dating fatigue’ where the burgeoning dating industry of websites, speed dating, how-to-meet-husband books, TV matchmaking shows, and dinners for six made you feel like there was something drastically awry if, even with all that assistance, you still couldn’t find love. There’s simply no excuse except your own inadequacy with hyperdating at your fingertips.
A small well of resistance is building as people log off from online love sites and let nature take its course. Not in a spirit of revenge but in being utterly exhausted from dedicating every waking moment to looking for the person who they were led to believe would one day just turn up without any hard core labour. As one friend said, ‘The amount of time I was putting into sifting through passport sized photos of blokes, deciphering profiles to work out whether they really did read a novel a week, going on real dates which were often excruciating, then deconstructing the dates with friends before starting the cycle again, I could’ve done some real good in the world.’
It’s not a 180 degree turnaround embracing singledom in favour of coupledom but rather a move towards relishing single life while you’re in it and only opting out when true love strikes. There’s even a word for the above: ‘Quirkyalones’ from the book heralded with starting the movement. QAs are not loners but self confessed romantics who’d rather fly solo than hook up with lovers for the sake of it and who possess ‘a sensibility that transcends relationship status.’ There’s an online quiz to see if you fit the bill, and they’ve commandeered Valentine’s Day as their international day.
Hot on Quirkyalone’s heels, Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber’s knockout 30 year old daughter, Imogen, has published a book also honouring singlehood. There’s no hint of lament in ‘The Single Girl’s Guide’, and only a slight hint of justification, but it’s further proof of the growing trend towards being alone and loving it. Bridget Jones didn’t cut it because she cried too much in her PJs. Try as they might even the Sex and The City girls were blatantly incomplete without a man, any man.
Finally the era of the pitied single seems to be phasing out. It no longer equates to celibacy or living with cats, but if it does that’s fine too, with meaningful friendships and dates aplenty. How it differs from previous pro-solo eras like the 60s is the admission that love is nice if we can get it. Like when Beatrix Potter’s staunch anti-marriage friend says she would ‘trample her mother’ if someone came along who loved her. Beatrix: ‘But what about all the blessings of being alone?’ Amelia: ‘Hogwash! What else is a woman on her own supposed to say? You have a chance to be loved. Take it.’
So, this Thursday, don’t get caught up in the trappings of a multi billion dollar industry of gift cards, candy coloured lingerie, and cupid keyrings, but remind yourself that love is only grand when it’s not enforced.