On being the poster girl for how lonely single life is

and also how great it is.

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I am the author of two books, Help Me! Why Self-help Did not Change my Life and most recently Love Me! One Woman’s Search for a Different Happy Ever After. Love Me! was called a ‘gold-star beach read’ by the Guardian, a more interesting Bridget Jones by The Times and was picked as one of the best books on sex and relationships by Cosmopolitan. Fifteen year old me could not believe that one.

In the last two weeks I’ve been asked to write two articles about being single. Both were in response to new pieces of research. The first bit of research was about how single people are more likely to drink too much and be depressed than married people.

According to the analysis of more than 100,000 people across seven countries including 7,000 in the UK, people not in relationships were around 80% more likely to have depressive symptoms than those married - and they are also significantly more likely to be smokers and drinkers.

I read it and felt irritated but had to admit that I am someone who drinks too much and am frequently depressed. I wrote a piece saying just that.

The next piece of research was about how single women are happier than single men.

The researchers at the University of Toronto looked at data from almost 6,000 single people around the world.

Participants were quizzed on how happy or unhappy they were being single, life satisfaction, sexual satisfaction, and their desire for a partner.

Across all metrics, single women rated their happiness higher than single men. They were happier being on their own, less likely to want a significant other, more sexually satisfied and more content overall.

According to Elaine Hoan, the lead researcher, “Single women, especially older single women, have historically had a bad reputation and have been stereotyped in negative ways, such as being lonely cat ladies or spinsters, who desire a husband, but cannot obtain one.

“What we find in our study is actually that single women are happier than single men and that they report wanting a romantic relationship less.”

Hoan speculated that women are happier single because we have our “social needs fulfilled by other relationships like family and friends.”

This is the case with me. I am blessed with a close web of friends and much to my surprise have found a way to have a beautiful sex life outside of a partnership.

So I wrote that piece too.

Two weeks, two articles. In one I could be seen as a cautionary tale about why it can be unhealthy to be single. In the other I was the smiling poster girl for how great it was.

Both pieces were true.

The first had the headline: I’m 47, single and lonely - but stop telling me marriage the answer.

The second: Happy and Single after 40? Yes I’ve got sex, love and freedom at 47

Again, both were true.

Sometimes I look at my life and cannot believe how loved and lucky I am, other times I wake up feeling lonely and lost.

Sometimes I am sure that I am living is the life that suits me best. Other times I wonder if I’m in denial and if things would have been easier if I was with someone.

It made me think of the single positivity movement.

In the face of such societal pressure to couple up, single people can become defiant. We dig in our heels and talk about how good it is to be free and how we don’t want to be with anyone.

We post Instagram stories about sleeping in and cocktails, and whatever else we think represents a free single life.

While it’s great to celebrate a way of life that has for so long been maligned, we need to be careful that we don’t back ourselves into a corner.

Few things are wholly good - or bad, for that matter.

When I told mum I was writing a piece about being happy and single, she raised an eyebrow and said nothing.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she said.

I am well versed in my mother’s silent communication, as she is with mine. Her raised eyebrow was questioning that I was happy, that anyone is ‘happy’.

At least not all the time. I don’t think she believes in happiness as a concept. She’s a stoic. Life is something you get on without making it harder by expecting to be happy.

‘Well, we’re happier than single men,’ I said.

‘That I believe,’ she replied.

Then I told her about the other piece on the fact that single people are more depressed.

She raised another eyebrow. ‘There’s nothing as bad as a bad marriage,’ she said.

So there. You could see it that according to Mary Power we are all fecked either way - or that actually it’s all OK. Nothing is perfect.

Nothing is as black and white as we make it - or as newspaper headlines suggest. Everything is shades of grey.

You can be happily married and feel exhausted and lonely at times. You can be single and wish to have a partner while also having a really good life. You can be resolutely single and have no desire for a partner and meet someone one day and change your mind about absolutely everything.

That’s what makes life so interesting.

Being single is both brilliant and awful. Just like every other path in life.

xx

For anyone who’d like a reminder of mum’s one liners from Help Me!

When I told her about any plan to spend a year following self-help books to see if they make you happy, she scoffed.

‘You’re not going to go all American are you?’’ I asked her what she meant.

She replied: ‘Happy! People don’t like that Marianne, it’s not real.’

So there.

Love and thanks for reading.

Mx