Still Single?
So today I had a meetup with one of my old language teachers. It was an excuse for me to give her some chocolate from my last trip and to catch up on her gossip. Things are going well for her. She’s teaching more as an independent and her relationship of 6 months is going from strength to strength. They’ve booked a trip to go and meet her parents. I tried to put off the inevitable but then it swung round to be again. We had discussed work (a very short conversation ) and she asked eagerly who I was seeing. I replied no one and she looked at me incredulously.
“You’re STILL single!” she exclaimed. People in the Royal Festival Hall looked around to see who the single woman was. Well, no, they didn’t but that’s what it felt like.
This was all a shock. We had spent a large part of our lessons discussing the poor state of online dating and all of my potential had been dissected in a language I’m really not that fluent in. She asked about my Valentine’s date. What had happened to him? I told her he had promptly disappeared then reappeared when horny only to inform me that he wanted sex and not a relationship. After a few probing questions she agreed that he wasn’t the one either. Phew!
Now if she was English this is the bit where she would have gotten embarrassed and talked about the weather but she’s not. So she started asking me why I was single. Wait, hadn’t we covered this? No one had asked me out since February! I told her about the Tool part 2 and she just shook her head sadly. Then she told me about her daughter who was multiple dating in multiple countries. I got the message. Some women had more than one man and I couldn’t even find one. This conversation wasn’t doing much for my self-esteem. I reached into my purse for some chocolate only to realise I had given my chocolate stash to her as a gift. Drat!
It was lovely seeing her but as I walked to a networking event in St. Pauls I realised that there comes a point where people stop sympathising and start to think the problem may be with you. Like when you’re in a bad relationship you have a limited victim time before people start to think somehow you are causing the issues in part. Look at Rihanna and that bloke. Apparently I’m running out of sympathy time! Maybe this is why some people stay in bad relationships. They can’t bear being questioned about being single and their responses being met with pity. There isn’t a reason I’m single except that I’m just single. Why is this so hard for some to understand?
That’s it. I may have to resort to making up a boyfriend. I’m imaginative so I’ll come up with a whole back story and everything. He’ll be handsome, loving and have been living just around the corner all of this time. Wait, that doesn’t work. He’s fresh off the boat, no….he may be a tad too traditional for moi. Oh go away and let me sort this out. This Fake FuBo may take a while to create. I’ll call him Fred.
© Chelsea Black
I love this post. Since you’ve already written it, you’ve spared me the need to, so thanks. You don’t need an excuse for why you’re single. Singles are about to take over.