So what do you do if you are 38, time rich, money poor, have an MA from a prestigious university, financial anxieties due to the loan repayments that facilitated said MA, are well-read, well-travelled, creatively-driven, but have spent the last four years applying for well over 800 jobs exhausting all resources and initiative, furthermore you are so single that the concept of dating is abstract, and recently you have re-homed a 13-year-old, arthritic rescue dog that is clinically obese, not to mention you have two generous flights of stairs to carry him up every time the both of you return home – you write a blog of course!
The following is nothing less than 100% true. Names have been changed to protect those who quite frankly may need protection! Let’s call me ‘Miss Holdall Badshaw’.
I once went on a date which transpired quite steamily. Implicitly it was established that the evening would conclude at my flat. Wanting to maximise the momentum I wanted to take a taxi, he wanted to take the bus. A night bus at that! And you know how frequent they are and how ‘capacious’ they can be when eventually they do arrive. Should you even manage to slink your way in, there is very little space to continue one’s ‘closeness’. Well, being crammed beyond capacity results in being ‘very close’ but with the added component of people’s elbows and inebriated breaths also in the mix. At the time I was temping as a means just to meet my rent, per hour he was probably earning four times my own pro rata. But when it came to paying the cab driver he made no suggestion that he would contribute. And he didn’t! Sharing expenses is most acceptable on dates, but frugality is quite the passion killer!
Dating is an investment during its gestation period, as my finances do not permit cinema trips, elaborate meals and evenings indulging in copious drinking, my dating life has been non-existent. These days putting credit on my Oyster card is an extravagance! So if I did meet someone I can only hope he enjoys walking!
However, being single has so many benefits, honest guv, for all you cynics out there! That it is not to say it is necessarily preferable to enjoying an amorous relationship, but if you are single then there are so many advantageous factors that have been overlooked in this post- ‘Bridget Jones’ era. I shall now take you into my confidences and share that I have spent more of my adult life on my own rather than one half of a couple, so even during the height of the Bridget Jones hyperbole when the sentiments were ones that, yes, admittedly I most definitely identified with, nevertheless I never thought singledom was pathetic as purporters proposed. As much as I enjoy a relationship status, I equally profit from my single status.
Personally I completely relish in my own little idiosyncratic habits which being in a relationship would, to some degree, negate. Upon arrival home the first thing I do is jump into my pyjamas, well, I don’t literally jump into them (does anyone!) I’m no cartoon character. Sadly. But figuratively I do. Deviating slightly, I think if I were an animation-lovely I’d choose Smurfette, she’s so soignée, have you seen her shoes? J’adore! And it may surprise you if I were to say I’m not even really a shoe person – but this topic I shall save for another day. Smurfette is definitely a style crush of mine, who else can wear a polka dot so tastefully. I doubt Smurfette’s nightwear is anything like mine, she would probably sleep in a little Agent Provocateur ensemble. I would love to spend my days and nights(!) in coquettish Agent Provocateur numbers, but my bank balance barely affords me the grey sweatpants and cotton, stripey traditional bottoms that are my ‘leisure’ staples. These are, more often than not, partnered with a multitude of layers, albeit cashmere layers,… brrrrrrr because heating is an indulgence I bestow on my guests. It has to be; I would have zero visitors otherwise. And yes, they have all seen me in pyjama mode, it is almost mandatory for me to welcome my friends into my home wearing said item, and since lovers are not so forgiving as friends when it comes to layers, another plus to being single!
Often I make swift trips to my local supermarket wearing nothing more than a coat and a pair of Converse worn alongside aforementioned ‘repose’ clothes. Admittedly, I can pop in to Tesco and be back at home all in the space of less than five minutes, queue permitting, and naturally, it is always at these moments when I bump into people I know, never when I am looking all hot-tot-trot! Quelle domage! At a quarter to seven the other day I made an impromptu dash to the store. Did you hear me it was 6.45 am!!!! Never in a vermillion years did I think that someone I know would also have the same idea, unlike me this person was indeed decently clothed and predictably I looked like Edward Scissorhands. No exaggeration. My hair was seriously dishevelled; no insouciant chignon, I am talking hair transplant from a plastic troll type of bouffant, my face was embellished with residue from my morning’s ablutions, and face cream was circling my hair line. I greeted this former friend with a smile that I hoped communicated that all was super and dandy in the knowledge that said individual would navigate his day’s conversations towards his sighting of me and my schizophrenic appearance. My sweatpants had shrunk in the wash so they only just covered my knee and below them were a pair of fluoro pink and yellow stripey knee-high socks that I had seized in the pitch dark. Remember brrrrrr! Come to think of it no wonder I am single!!!!! And although I can predict the inevitability that it is at these moments I will run into someone I haven’t seen for over a decade, I continue to take my chances. I mean who gets fully dressed for the sole purpose of just popping to one’s local shop? And, yes of course, it is also only at these sartorially tussled moments when I also bump into my neighbours on the staircase. Now that I have a doggy if we are going on one of our speedy ten minute promenades, once again beneath my coat are my pyjamas. Having a doggy is so sociable, it really does open up your world, more so when your dog stops traffic, human traffic anyway. It’s just so heartening to chinwag with fellow dog owners from all walks of life, it would be even more heartening if they were males who didn’t own a freedom pass, but considering my ‘modest’ apparel when doggy walking the difference it would make is nominal.
But to return to the subject of the virtues of single life, my expenditure includes sacrificing premium grocery and toiletry products for magazines, and not have someone passing comment at my ‘priorities’ is how it should be. Obviously my flat is arranged and adorned completely to my taste and how I make use of it is completely at my disposal. For many the bedroom has a dual purpose, for me it’s my sleeping/resting and everyday living space; both my television and computer are located here, I work here, I eat here, I chinwag to my friends on the phone here, I even entertain my friends here when they pop round, and yes indeedy we feast here too. This routine is of course logistically only really possible when you are responsible and accountable for me-myself-and-I, another person would consider this eccentric behaviour, even intolerable, for me it is completely normal. And of course when it comes to food habits there is no one giving me disparaging glances when I eat a slice of chocolate cake or two for breakfast and I can have my supper at four o’clock in the afternoon should my appetite desire. In my pyjamas, natch! That’s what I call the cats pyjamas.
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