A couple of weeks ago, I spent a Friday night with the same crowd of people I’ve been boozing with since I moved to London. The faces were the same, the venue was the same, the lukewarm bottles of Blossom Hill on the table were (alas) the same.
But within minutes of taking my coat off, I realised that since we’d last been together, something had changed.
Instead of shrieking about who’d been sleeping with who and that time X threw up in a tumble dryer, everyone was discussing dinner parties (proper ones, the kind where the cutlery matches), Eurostar breaks and the advantages of merging your Outlook calendar with your significant other’s. Two couples were even weighing up the pros and cons of moving out of London so they could have a bit more space.
That last part nearly had me choking on my Kettle Chips. I mean, it wasn’t a surprise – not really. Both twosomes are rock-solid and have been together for ages. So it wasn’t that I felt they were too young to be talking about such serious stuff. It’s that I felt I was.
I’m 27 (just about), and until recently I’d blithely assumed that none of the real biggies – joint property ownership, antenatal classes and all that jazz – would stray onto my radar for the best part of a decade. Sitting there surrounded by people my age who would, in all likelihood, shortly be swapping the off licence for offspring, I felt like Charlton Heston in Planet of the Apes. Suddenly, I was stranded in a world that looked the same as it always had, but was profoundly different.
It bothered me all the way home on the night bus and, to be honest, it’s bothered me ever since. Right now, you see, I’m the only single one in my group of friends. And I’m finding it trickier to deal with than I thought I would.
To clarify, this really isn’t one of those woe-is-my-ovaries-type laments. Singledom suits me. As Lizzie Bennett might have said, nothing but the deepest love could ever induce me into sharing a bathroom. I’ve been unattached for a grand total of 24 out of my 27 years, which means I’ve spent just under 90% of my life going to sleep by myself, waking up by myself and poaching eggs on Saturday mornings by myself.
This was all fun and games while there were loads of us in the same boat. I can honestly say that, until very recently, I never felt like I was missing out on much – how could I, when I had a rackety gang that I could gather together at short notice for holidays, 2am phone chats and shouting at the television on a Saturday night? But one by one, my fellow travellers (as it were) have set off on a different sort of adventure.
Please don’t for a second think I’m whinging. My friends are fantastic, and not one of them has ever been guilty of streaking off like Road Runner as soon as they start seeing someone. But inevitably, when your relationship gets serious, your life takes on a different shape. When you were single, seeing your friends in the evenings and at weekends was a bit like having pasta with tinned tuna for dinner – the default option. Now, it’s the Tesco Finest chocolate éclair you treat yourself to once a week after you’ve been to the gym.
This is the way of things, of course. But it isn’t much fun if you’re on Team Éclair. Not so long ago, the sight of a totally free weekend in my diary would have had me breathing a sigh of relief. I’d have been excited by the prospect of painting every nail I possessed, watching Some Like It Hot for the umpteenth time and eating McCain’s oven chips in bed. Now, to be frank, it makes me feel a bit – well, panicky. What if all my weekends end up being like this? I wonder, frantically scrolling through my WhatsApp contacts to see if anyone else is at a loose end. As I type, the May Bank Holidays – once sunny, Solero-flavoured beacons of hope in the grey working year – are giving me the jitters. I worry that all my paired-up pals will have already made plans with their other halves, or other couples.
When I was in my early teens, my Saturday mornings were spent in the newsagent memorising the contents of Shout magazine so I could join in with the squealing about Adam Rickitt’s abs the following Monday. I wasn’t mad keen on Mr R (those curtains – heave), but everyone else seemed to be, and I didn’t want to get left out. Now, I find myself covertly reading up about things like joint bank accounts so I can nod sagely when they come up in conversation – not something I ever thought I’d have to do in my twenties.
Have I talked to my friends? Not really, no. I’ve always stubbornly insisted that you don’t need a partner to have a happy life, so admitting that at the moment I’m anxious and confused and – yes – a little lonely would feel almost shameful, somehow. And I worry that people will think I’m just griping about not having a plus-one of my own, which isn’t it at all. Being a bachelorette can be brilliant – I just wish there were a few more of us.
Picture: Rory DCS
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.