One of the greatest privileges of my privileged childhood was that I was taught I could be whatever I wanted to be. Nobel prizes, Oscars and Olympic golds were all mine for the taking, assuming I worked hard enough to get them.
An over-imaginative child, my fantasies were unencumbered by practicalities (why couldn’t I be Prime Minister and the World’s Biggest Pop Star?). But in whatever guise I imagined my future, brilliant adult self, there was always one constant: of course I would have a husband and children. That was just a given, an inevitable rite of passage.
Now I am 37, six years older than my mum was when she had me, and there is no husband (nor ex-husband, for that matter) and no kids. I am single. In fact, still recovering from the whiplash impact of the last man who shattered my heart, I am more single than I’ve ever been. There are, for probably the first time ever, no backburner ‘projects’ on the go. OK, almost none.
The pandemic forced all of us, attached or unattached, to scrutinise our current relationship status. For some it was liberating, for others agonising. I had honestly never thought that much about being single, because relationships, flings, crushes just came and went and came again. Then lockdown and living on my own, which I had formerly considered to be the most delicious luxury, suddenly felt empty. Worse than that, I felt empty.
But is it really that surprising? Despite the numbers – rising – society is not set up for us. I’m not talking about the practical considerations like not having someone to share the mortgage with, or not getting a plus one to a wedding, so much as the narratives that are perpetuated.
Because even now, in 2022, pop culture continues to plonk single women into polarising binaries. To your left we have the hot mess, a binge-drinking, bed-hopping, lovably haphazard chaos-magnet cast in the Fleabag or Trainwreck mould (both of whom I love, by the way). To your right, the sorry spinster – a Miss Havisham type, a loner with only her cats for company. Both have an air of sadness to them. Alas, my days of losing knickers are a long way away now and I am tragically allergic to cats.
The reality is more nuanced and less clickbait-y. Just as I, and I bet you, know people who are happily and unhappily married, I know people who are happily and unhappily single. Casual daters, serial shaggers, divorcees, widows, players, single parents, the ‘it’s complicated’ operators, those newly out of long-term relationships and those I have never known in one. Just try and put them all in the same box. There isn’t anything inherently ‘wrong’ with any of the single women I know, most of them are frankly dazzling. They just happen not to be in a relationship right now.
I tussled with the idea of starting this column. Partly because, despite knowing better, I do feel a pernicious sense of shame about being unattached in my thirties, as if it is somehow a personal failure; partly because, while I want this to be a frank exploration of single life, as I have got older I have become more protective of my privacy. But primarily because I don’t wish for single to be my personal brand. That’s not to say it’s a bad brand, just that I no more want to be defined by the absence of a man than I do by the presence of one.
That’s why this won’t just be about being single, nor only for single people; because one’s relationship status is never the sum total of their person. Or at least, it shouldn’t be. Rather, at its heart, it’s about realising that life probably doesn’t look how you thought it would and the messy, glorious pursuit and possibility of love. Because while I might be currently single, I am also a hopeless romantic. More than that, however, I am a hopeful one.
Photographer: Ed Miles. Hair & Make-up by Neusa Neves using SUUQU, Dermalogica and Innersense for haircare. Photographed at Native at Browns, 39 Brook Street, W1K 4JE. Laura wears Bottega Veneta Jacket, £1,900, Brownsfashion.com