'No time to marry, no time to settle down, I'm a young woman, and I ain't done runnin' round.'
- 'Young Woman's Blues', Bessie Smith
Singledom has worked very well for me on the whole. Dare I say it (oh, go on then, get this...) these past 3 years (yes, 3!?!) of boyfriendless existence have been the happiest and most fulfilling years of my life. I could not have asked or wished in my wildest dreams for better friends, a more doting family. These people have had the full focus of my love, affection and attention, and these relationships have thereby strengthened, prospered and deepened beyond breakability due to my lack of distraction in any singular male form. I've had more fun than should be legal, I've had the licence of selfishness, I've had time on my hands, and with this time I've begun to realise what it is that I want and do not want from any lucky future partner of mine.
Three years ago you know, I wouldn't have been able to write the word 'lucky' there. I wouldn't have even considered it in jest. But other people have spoken this word for me now through my pen, people who for 3 years have loved and cherished me, just for being me, without the complications of romance and sex and game playing, they love me because I deserve to be loved, because they want to without having to. And really, besides the obvious character flaws I would not want and would avoid in a man, this is the only thing I would genuinely ask for.
On Valentine's Day last year I received no flowers, no card, no jewellery, no professions of love; but that was OK, because I didn't have any of these things to offer anyone myself. What I did receive was a text message from a man I'd been on one date with recently, reading, 'Happy Valentine's Day gorgeous Gracie, thinking of you x.' This was unexpected, but welcomed, and I texted the sender back politely proffering similar good wishes on this (dubious) Saint's Day. That evening I went out on Brick Lane dressed as Lady Gaga with my friend Vikki (Gwen Stefani), my stalwart singleton friend from school and all round good time gal. Needless to say, we had an absolute ball. The next day I sent an inconspicuous text to ask my Valentine's Day messager if he had had a nice evening. I never heard from him again. Not once, and I certainly didn't attempt to contact him any more.
At the time my friends and I were baffled by this behaviour. Why contact someone on Valentine's Day if you had no intention of ever even speaking to them again? We were also baffled as to why someone else I completely clicked with would take me out on a fantastic date, only to realise later he didn't want to see me again because he was still hurting from his break up with his ex-girlfriend. We were baffled again when someone else whom I dated frequently for a month, someone who seemed head over heels for me and promised me the world, introduced me to his best friends, sang my praises from the rooftops, would then go AWOL, completely ignoring any phone calls. We are baffled time and time again when my friends themselves experience promises and declarations and whispered sweet nothings, only to always be let down. If I had the time or the energy I could tell you upwards of 50 doomed relationship stories. Last summer when a friend's little sister was unceremoniously and horribly ditched by an ungrateful boyfriend, we summoned her to London and three of us older, wiser and more jaded young women spent all afternoon and 3 bottles of wine relaying story after story of concrete proof that men are useless. I know so many of them, folklore tales passed from female to single London female, testimonies of what they've been put through and reasons to remain unsexed, or turn lesbian.
I hate to say it, because I know it makes me sound like a bitter, twisted old spinster, but men are failing us. I firmly believe this. I constantly meet women who deserve better than the scoundrel they're stuck with or the waster they're left to date. Smart, funny, interesting, charismatic, good looking women, and all that's on offer is a sea of sex-hungry, commitment-phobic, scruffy men with too high opinions of themselves and no consideration of any mere female's feelings. Ask around fellas, you won't just hear it from me.* For example, I've come home early from the Valentine's Party festivities tonight. Having already had to place my arm firmly in front of my body to prevent 3 would be "suitors" from forcibly attaching themselves to my face, I got sick of the meat market and needed to escape, come home, and write mean things about men, because clearly I'm in one of those 'hand me the castration knife' kind of moods.
Gloria Steinem once famously said, 'Some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry', and I think this is what I've unconsciously been doing these past 3 years. To recompense for the deficit in suitable bachelors with good intentions, I have been becoming more than I ever could be as part of a couple. Being single for this amount of time, you have to make yourself be more, woman and man, both sides of the same coin, a whole person plus extra, not a half looking for another half. You have no one else's name on Christmas card sign-offs to reiterate your sentiments, no one to back you up or fight your corner, you have to stand resolutely alone, 'Merry Christmas, Love Just Grace - and Just Grace is enough.'
Today we went to a beach party booze cruise affair in honour of Valentine. On arriving we were told to pick up either a red or green armband - red if you're attached, green if you're single, so that, hideously, members of the opposite sex know whether you're viable meat, fair game. This kind of felt like rubbing salt in the wound. 'Yes, thank you very much you smart arse party organiser, yes I have been single for 3 years because I'm completely unattractive to men the world over, go ahead and slap a fucking green one on me and let's tell everyone about it shall we?!' Don't worry, I didn't say it, I may have thought it though. I'm not as angry as I sound, quite the opposite in fact. More... disenchanted. I'm a young woman, with no time to settle down, and absolutely no intention of doing so at the moment whilst my life is fleeting from one place and one priceless experience to the next. But I won't always be young, and I won't always be moving, and surely St. Valentine, there will be a day when this big mess starts to feel easy? When someone loves me effortlessly as my friends and I do for each other, because they want to but don't have to. It doesn't feel like a lot to ask.
*To the men reading... Damage Control. I would like to stress that I am aware of the sweeping generalisations in this blog and I would like to account for this due to my own personal shoddy treatment by men over the past 3 years, and indeed, this evening. I feel some Crazy Female Ranting licence should be provided me in this instance. I have many dear, wonderful male friends who would make any woman a very lucky girlfriend and I am not, in contrary to the tone of this blog, an ardent feminist or militant man-hater. I know many men who are model boyfriends and husbands and who are implicitly respectful and considerate of women. It's just, you see, none of these ones ever chat me up.
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