Singleton envy

One of my close friends recently did the unthinkable. Despite having been single for most of her adult life, she broke the code. It isn’t uncommon. It happens all of the time, but nonetheless, I was surprised when someone-who-knew-better did it.

Other people do it all of the time. My pilates instructor goes on about how lucky I am to have so much time to myself. She constantly tells me how much she envies my long baths and my reading. She warns me that having a child will mean I can’t do any of those things. Particularly if I become a single mother. She tells me that she wishes that she could sit and watch television or spend time reading. But she is too busy. Because she is a mother (and a partner). I just smile, but what I want to do is confront her with the fact that she is essentially saying she regrets having her son. I know she doesn’t as she is devoted to him. So I know if I did say something, she would respond that, of course she doesn’t resent him and tell me that he is the most important thing in her life. I know that she is just lashing out. Envious that I am my own boss and that my time is my own. I don’t get annoyed at her as she knows no better. She is someone who has always been in relationships. To her, being single for a year after her divorce (though she did have her son) was a long time. She doesn’t know any better.

I know that some of it comes down to ‘the grass is greener’ saga. As singletons, we dream of being in a relationship: being part of a couple; having someone who cares about you; who wants to hear about your day; and who is there for you, through good and bad, sickness and health etc etc.

Most of us spend our lives searching for someone to share it with. Despite what we say. When we are young we go to parties and pubs. We hope to get asked for a dance, our phone number, or to even share a taxi home. As we get older, we bemoan the lack of single men (or women) in our workplace, our office buildings, our suburb or even the city. We give up on bars and clubs, filled with women ten years our junior and for the men (our age) they attract. We try internet dating, speed dating, we even go on blind dates. We run out of friends to go out with. Everyone else becomes half of a couple. Not needing, or wanting to go out.

So, we lower our standards, tell ourselves that looks aren’t everything. We look less for Prince Charming and more for Prince Charles. In summary, we would go to almost any extreme to find ‘someone’. Not necessary ‘the one’, but ‘someone’ with whom to spend our lives. So we are no longer single; so we no longer have to keep looking.

So what exactly did this friend say, you may ask. How did she break the code? Simply put, she did one of those things that those-who-should-know-better, don’t do.

She wasn’t someone who settled down at 20 and no idea what it was like for the rest of us. She didn’t spend her 20s and 30s with a partner, smugly peering at the world outside.

Not at all. This friend was single until her mid 30s. Five years ago she suddenly fell for someone, got pregnant and married, then pregnant again; and again. She hasn’t wasted any time in bedding down her family. Before that, she went speed dating, went to pubs and despaired of ever meeting the ‘one’. She worried about getting older and not having had kids. Like many of my friends, she became (subtly and in a way that most won’t admit) more desperate to meet someone.

And I am happy for her. While (inevitably) I don’t see her much anymore, she has remained one of my best friends. We have a long history. Which was why I was surprised when she broke the code. After all, she knew better.

We were talking about my Friday night. I had gotten home from work, opened a bottle of wine and taken it to the bath, along with chocolate and a book and remained ensconced there for the night. My friend said, ‘You lucky thing. I envy you. I wish I could do that, but with hubby and the kids I would never be able to do it.’

I was shocked. She should know better. I expect those sort of comments only from those who haven’t experienced long-term singledom. I shuddered to think that a long-term singleton could become a ‘smug-married’ (to quote Bridget Jones!).

In an unusual move for me (though I find I am speaking my mind more and more nowadays) I said to her that she should know better. I said that if I had a choice, I would prefer to be cooking dinner for a lazy husband and screaming kids than spending Friday night alone. Instead, I was left to read my 5th book for the week, binge on chocolate and get pissed in the bath, because my friends are all in relationships and busy and there is absolutely nothing on television. I reminded her that she (having spent many nights and weekends alone) should remember what that was like.

I may never be in a relationship or have a family. But, if by some miracle I have those things, I can only pray I am not one of those people who turns to single friends and tells them how fortunate they are that they aren’t responsible to, or for, anyone else. Or how I envy them and their self-indulgent lives. I hope I can remember how alone it can be when you have had a bad day and have no one to talk to; to cry to, or with; no one to tell you that it is okay and that you are okay. I hope I remember that single people ultimately only have themselves: their own coping mechanisms; and their own tenacity. I hope I envy them that, not the long baths.