I hear it from my coupled up friends all the time. Those annoying mates who met their fiancé on the first day of university and have managed to spend their twenties dodging the single life crazy that’s bitch-slapped me across the tits for years.
‘I wish I was single sometimes. It seems like so much fun,’ they say. Fun? Like grating your skin and bathing in a pool of hot acid is fun?
Why do people in relationships have this rose-tinted perception that single life is anything less than horrendous? Here are just a few of the total miscomprehensions my coupled-up friends make about single life on the regular.
They think your sex life must be an adventure of experimentation and steamy one-night stands
How’s my sex life, they ask excitedly. Wild? Raunchy? Filthy? Those terms might be a bit grandiose given the last time I touched a penis was by accident when reaching for the pole on the Northern Line.
Truth is, I’ve never really been into one-night stands, either. I’m an awkward person at the best of times, so getting naked in front of a glorified stranger doesn’t exactly make my lady parts go beep. Plus, I find one-night stands tend to get in the way of my 2am Chicken Cottage.
I honestly think my fondness for drunkenly eating greasy chicken in bed has been the best form of contraception over the years. Who needs a condom when you’ve got the cottage?
But on the rare occasions I do have a one-night stand, I feel the need to jazz it up for my coupled up friends. ‘Oh yeah, it was all sweat and steam – as if a Channel Five soft porn film had come to life between my Dunelm sheets’.
When truthfully, it was 10 minutes of awkward missionary and a lazy blowjob.
They think dating life is like a romance novel
The reality is less Mills and Boon and more Wetherspoons. My last date took me to his local pub (an hour away from me, might I add), left me for 20 minutes to chat to an old school friend and thought buying me two vodkas and splitting his steak McCoys was enough wooing to make me go home with him.
That’s another joyous phenomenon in the single world. Men often assuming sex is on the table, no matter how shit the date. I call it sneaky penis.
And if you manage to dodge the man whores, you can still get stuck with the bat shit crazies. My single mate went for a drink with a guy who made several journeys to the toilet, returning each time more wide-eyed and frantic. Throwing caution (and sanity) to the wind, she went home with him for a nightcap, where he laid out lines of cocaine on the coffee table like pre-party nibbles.
She made her excuses and left, thankfully with her vital organs in tact.
They play on your dating apps like it’s Solitaire for the Singletons
Coupled up friends are always obsessed with Tinder and Happn.
They love to play on the apps, swiping right and left and cackling at the choice of topless mirror selfies and Magaluf ‘Lads on Tour’ profile pictures. They start examining men’s profiles in detail, asking, ‘But why couldn’t you have a romantic future with a red-trousered man from Clapham who lists Eat Pussy It’s Organic as one of his life mantras?’
‘Maybe this is why you’re single’, they say. Because I don’t want to give a man who insists in his bio ‘fat girls need not apply’ a chance.
And while it’s all fun and games for them, they forget that this cesspit of despair that’s your standard dating app may be the only option I have. My only chance for love and procreation may be to settle with the moronic, the misogynistic or the mundane.
They assume you have more time for yourself
And in this case, they’re right. Couples have to make time for each other, consider their partners if they make weekend plans or want to grow out their leg hair for winter warmth. But if I want to spend all weekend watching Netflix and nibbling my way through a wheel of cheese, then so be it.
While single life might not always be wild one-night stands and stimulating first dates, you do get to focus on you and what makes you happy. And if that’s 10 hours of Orange is the New Black and a belly full of Camembert, then fuck the haters.
Like this? Then you might also be interested in:
I’m 25 And I’ve Never Had A Boyfriend – Why Does That Freak Everyone Out?
You’re Not Supposed To Be The Only Single One When All Your Friends Are In Their Twenties
Follow Katherine on Twitter @KatRomeroMay
Picture: Francesca Allen
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.