The last word on love
WHAT’S a girl got left to say when she sets off to write a column about the plight of the single girl but no longer is one?
It’s a chapter I’d always assumed might one day come to an end and so it has.
Not that being single is a bad thing. Sure, there are lonely times and the fear it might stay that way forever.
There’s negotiating the perils of dating or, worse, not dating at all, while trying to distinguish between premature and genuine declarations of love amid the rising panic that you’ve missed your moment to be a mum.
There’s the debilitating pain of break-ups, which you swear you can’t take much more of, while dodging Valentine’s Day, the entire festive season and the Pity Police who question how you ended up in this sorry state.
Well-meaning marrieds who insist that one day you’ll have what they have, when maybe, just maybe it’s not what you want.
There’s also the thrilling prospect of having it all in front of you and the chance to get it right.
Like momentum theory in physics, all bodies in motion eventually find their natural resting place. But how long do you wait for the dust to settle?
Who drew the line in the sand declaring you must meet someone by 35 or it’s game over? Life isn’t linear.
There’s no deadline. Our mothers were married at 21 expecting it’d last forever. We wait until 31 (on average) squeezing in a whole extra life phase, going to dance parties in trilby hats and bikini tops.
Kidults they call us, or adultescents, who know the words to Snoop Dogg, and our friends are the family we haven’t yet had.
Remember when we were told to hold out for true love? Now they tell you to take any man you can get.
Beggars can’t be choosers, the loved-up remind you, warning your selectiveness will leave you destitute.
You don’t feel like a beggar but you do start to wonder if it’s time to compromise. Either that or find a sperm donor or fly to Melbourne to freeze your eggs.
Statistics aside, I refuse to believe there’s a man drought.
Most emails I receive are from men lamenting the lack of good women but the women haven’t noticed because they’re too busy bemoaning the alleged man shortage, whipping themselves into a frenzy about their dire prospects and all the men who’ve let them down.
Being single isn’t a holding pattern, but an ideal opportunity to make the most of life without distractions.
I speak from experience. But now that I’m in a relationship I’ve lost my authority and my right to comment. I’ve been called a traitor as if I’ve abandoned ship.
But finding love isn’t better, just different. I have someone to dance with and ask me how I slept but it doesn’t beat the carefree hedonism and expectation of being alone.
Late love is like a second chance, a fresh slate to do things better this time. Any heartache and angst of the past seems worth it because of lessons learnt. As Jane Austen said, her characters “will have, after a little bit of trouble, all that they desire”.
So, as I sign off, I feel like that guy in New York who made world news searching for a girl he spotted on the subway then, when he found her, left us all hanging by declining to comment further.
This was now their story.
I, too, am ending my story here. But I will tell you this: My first love broke my heart by dying and I’ve been struggling ever since to have the courage to love again.
Well, I think I’ve found it. What more can I say?