Every time a woman I know is about to end a relationship, I hear the same old guff. ‘I think it’s time to be on my own,’ they say. ‘I really want to have to answer to no one,’ they say. ‘I just want to be able to spend time understanding the 26 postures of Bikram yoga,’ they say. But of course, they don’t mean this at all.
What they mean is, ‘I can’t wait to go out on loads of fantastic nights out with all my other single friends and I can’t wait to date hundreds of gorgeous, brilliant men and have life-changing, mind-blowing, acrobatic sex that will make me roar like a lion and will push seismic waves through the Earth’s crust.’
They wait for me to give the reassurance they need to make the call, organise the break-up coffee and dive into their enchanted new life as a single twenty-something. To hear that, yes, it’s all cocktails on a weeknight and orgies on a Sunday; that twinkly-eyed men really do ask for your number on the bus or write bluesy songs about you in the days post coitum.
In the past, I have fed this mythological beast and agreed that single life is a romantic, one-woman adventure of orifice worship. But I feel a public duty to tell the slightly greyer truth now – like a weather forecaster, but for sex. Yes, that’s right. I’m the Michael Fish to single women everywhere.
Because, you see, I TOO thought I was getting into this lifestyle and I wish someone had warned me so I wouldn’t have been so disappointed. There will not be dirty weekends in Paris and you will not meet a man who looks like David Gandy, but has the brain of David Starkey. I now understand that being single really is great – but not for the reasons you think it’s going to be great.
READ MORE: 5 Things You'll Definitely Miss About Being Single
So here are the things I say to my friends when they are about to be single (the things I wish someone had told me, too):
Dating is mostly shit
Nobody knows how to date. We have neither the dating history nor the vocabulary of the Americans to pull this off with any panache or even basic ease. One or both parties are nearly always so nervous it descends into ending with a sloppy snog in a dark corner of a pub with your ‘date night’ fake eyelashes crawling half way down his face like tarantulas. This, by the way, constitutes ‘a good date’. The bad ones can include him offering you a snort of ketamine over brunch or running off without paying his half of the bill, never to be seen again.
Contrary to popular belief the worst ones are the ones that go, well, OK. They’re the ones that have you crying into your pillow and wondering if you’ll ever find love. It’s the passionless conversation, the perfunctory turn taking in questions. You’ll find yourself half way through your starter asking something you’ve never asked before like, ‘And is it an easy journey to the office normally? Do you have to do many changes on the tube? Ever experience any planned closures, or…’
Flirting is mostly shit
Generally such a load of silly bollocks, such a waste of everyone’s time. Either it’s watering down your thoughts to seem attainable and non-threatening (‘Weekend – wahey! Picnic you say? Nice one. Love me a bit of parkage on a Sunday!’) or stripping your thoughts of all intellect to cut to the chase (‘Am about to get into the shower, speak later ;)’). Or the most cursory and unimaginative of all the flirts: the fake dream (‘Hey! You’ll never guess who was the sexy barman in my dream last night…’).
Everyone will tell you urban myths
People still feel so uncomfortable about women being single that they have created a rich and intricate set of legends for the purpose of making everyone feel better. You’ll hear a lot of, ‘Don’t worry. I worked with this woman Angela – single for eight years, one day has no hot water, plumber comes round, they’re married in six months.’ Don’t believe any of these stories, they’re wildly exaggerated and will have no effect on the events in your life whatsoever.
Oh, for God’s sake – OF COURSE you won’t meet someone in a bloody gallery or a museum
There is no secret as to where single men are all hiding, so stop trying to unearth hide-outs. They’re not at a book club, they’re not on a cordon bleu cooking course. But most of all – MOST of all – you’re not going to meet anyone at an exhibition other than a German student or a fifty-something woman in a Liberty print shirt. Because you’re not in a Woody Allen film.
You shouldn’t circle a man at a party
At a social event, you’ll sniff the only single man out like a blood hound and spend the evening flirting or traipsing around after him, pretending you need a lighter. Do not do this as nothing satisfying will come out of it. He probably won’t even snog you, he was just flirting with you to kill some time. Spend the evening with your mates.
You will join Tinder
And Guardian Soulmates and match.com. You say you won’t, but you will. You’ll love it for three days, then you will hate it. You’ll do it for a maximum of a month, then delete your account. You will return to it every few months.
READ MORE: Meet The Girl Who Is Outing the Pricks Of Tinder. And Send Her Your Screenshots
You will revisit an ex-boyfriend
You’ll agree to have a friendly beer with an ex and after ten minutes you’ll establish that you’re both single. You’ll start drinking heavily and really throw yourself into the spirit of this nostalgia-tinged affair. By drink five, you’ll start talking in a Joan Collins-y, wise and weary way. Saying things like, ‘You never did have the guts to make it work,’ or, ‘Oh, but we sure did have some good times, kid.’ It will result in a sad, sorry shag.
You have to organise your own birthday
Your friends assume there’s a plan, your parents are busy spending your inheritance in the Costa Del Sol, you don’t have a boyfriend to book a table for dinner. Organise it yourself. Welcome to adulthood. (Don’t go paintballing.)
You will go quite mental every December
December is the annual month-long gift for single people. Endless parties, free booze, over-spending, flirting, making a bit of a tit of yourself and not having to apologise to anyone ‘because it’s Christmas’ – it’s a time that is perfectly suited to the state of singledom. This will end with a long journey back to your parents’ house on the 24th and spending four days either asleep or shoveling Lindor chocolates in your gob.
The only men that show genuine interest in you will be married
Some men only get confident when they get married. Marriage provides them with enough safety and support to act like a single man. Do not for ONE SECOND entertain this idea. It is so rarely worth it – don’t even humour him. You don’t have to be rude, there’s a pleasant, brisk, no-nonsense tone reserved especially for this. If in doubt: act like a jolly mum.
All your friends will have bloody boyfriends
It’s really annoying, but you just have to accept that most people in their twenties are in relationships. You can’t ban their partners from the pub, you’re going to have to grow up and spend time with them. Your friends will also stop doing fun stuff like getting stoned or stealing traffic cones because ‘they don’t feel the need to anymore’.
By far the worst bit is that your friends will start moving in with their boyfriends sooner than you think and you might find yourself with no flatmates. Don’t be a dick about this, they’re allowed to fall in love. Go on Gumtree and find a weird family in Ruislip to live with like everyone else. At least you’re not dead.
You will have a meltdown once every three months on a Sunday night at around 8pm
Your housemates are at their boyfriends’ houses. Nothing is on telly. You forgot to cancel Amazon Prime and you’ve been charged. This is the worst moment in the week to be single and your needy hungover texts on Sunday evening will be more embarrassing than the drunk ones you sent Saturday.
Go to bed. You’ll be fine on Monday morning.
READ MORE: What To Do When Your Friend Gets Engaged. Hint: Act Happy, Yeah
You definitely should NOT do this for the dates or the shagging
If you haven’t gathered from the take home of this piece: they’re mostly shit. Once a year, maybe, you’ll have a date or a shag that isn’t shit, but the rest of the time it will be, now how do I say this? Shit.
Do this for all the free time you’ll get. Do it for the nights with your friends and some expensive new hobbies and the fact you’ll be able to go on all the holidays YOU want to go on and see all the movies YOU want to see at the cinema. It can be really great, if you just get over not having sex. Who cares? It’s just one part of your life and it will come. Of course it will come at some point. So do some other stuff, girl. Stop obsessing. You’ve got far bigger fish to fry.
Like this? You might also be interested in…
Follow Dolly on Twitter @dollyalderton
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.