All the Single Ladies

Jenny McEntegart muses on life as a single woman.

My bedroom is Singlesville, population one. Local cuisine: wine and chocolate. Forecast: dull. 

As I type this at 2am, I am tucked up in bed wearing fluffy jammies. My locker hosts a glass of Pinot and a half-eaten Twix. There is a hot water bottle laid atop my bloated tummy and, although it burns a little, it is a small price to pay for the comfort provided. I question whether what I’m writing is pointless. But it is a distraction, at least, from the torturous cramps I am passively forced to endure. 

Sitting in my less than flattering PJs, wearing no make-up, with my hair as chaotic as my emotions, I realise that at this moment, I am the visual personification of the negatively portrayed, stereotypical single woman. Not lost on me is the irony of the fact that only days previously I had complained of my single status to anyone who would listen.

At least it’s not as bad as February. The second week in February has always been the bomb that keeps exploding for me. My birthday falls on the 12th. Time is always of the essence. I must quickly reconcile myself with the new wrinkles that appear before bracing for the impact of Valentine’s day – supposedly dreaded by singletons everywhere. 

Waking up to a social media newsfeed saturated with gushing romantic posts by the loved up – ‘The boy did good’, ‘I said, YES!’. 

An article headlined, ‘I have realised during lockdown that I don’t like my wife’, provided a laugh. The piece was incidentally followed by a stunning photo of Jennifer Aniston.

Suddenly I saw things differently.

Jennifer Aniston is a strong, single female who lives happily with her dogs. If you read a piece beginning ‘single, aged 52, living with dogs’ most of us would instantly envision a miserable woman who cries herself to sleep, after polishing off a full packet of biscuits in bed, all while planning to lose weight. However, gild the sentence with the name Jennifer Aniston and it sparkles. We see a content, confident, assertive and independent lady. 

Endearing, beautiful, elegant and known for being a walking tear duct, Jen has been welcomed into the hearts of women everywhere since her split with Brad Pitt in 2005. Did she not ‘break the internet’ when explosively joining Instagram in style? Posting a group selfie with the cast of Friends, enjoying dinner together in 2020, she sparked a frenzy of fans to rush to ‘follow’ her, causing quite the calamity for servers that could not cope with the traffic. If Jen is single in her fifties, then maybe we’re not freaks.

We scorn ourselves that we are too old to wear ‘that dress’ while admiring Jen, whose trademark is ‘the little black dress’. We chastise ourselves for laziness if we miss a bums and tums session but applaud her for being photographed giving the finger to a photographer papping her about to tuck into a slice of chocolate cake.  

Jen Aniston recently spoke with Gloria Steinem highlighting “as women, our value and our worth is often associated with our marital status and whether or not we’ve pro-created”. A partner is only one aspect of our lives, amongst our careers, our friends, our hobbies. 

As little onions why is it we allow that one layer to determine how we feel about ourselves? What’s so wrong about looking for love?

For those of us in the quest for love we should not spend every day of the journey self-loathing. Why are we Tinderellas (Tinder dating app users) constantly embarrassed by ourselves? Nothing makes us blush more than a notification from a dating app being seen on our phones. Why is it we berate ourselves for being single while celebrating others? Jen Aniston is a household name, but she is still a mere mortal. Who knows, maybe she too is familiar with the repetitive strain injury caused by swiping yes or no on dating apps. One imagines that when you reside in LA, and if you set the distance on the app to a 10k radius, most potential suitors will share your celebrity status. 

Worryingly, the effects of the ‘single’ label has become a perturbing medical concern. A recent study found that women who had never married were at greater risk of mental disorders (including those relating to anxiety) and at greater risk of substance abuse problems. As I glance at my glass of wine I’m unsettled. Then I remember that married women die sooner than single women.

Throughout lockdown, by contrast with martyred parents us singletons are practically degenerates. We read countless sympathetic articles about unfortunate parents burdened with home-schooling. Dawn O’Porter’s book, Life in Pieces tells of how having a glass in hand by 4pm is essential for surviving the ordeal. Screaming kids, a messy house, burning food because of the chaos; no doubt the juggling act is a difficult one. But where is the same recognition for the plight of singletons? The fact that the spontaneity that continues to remain the most cherished characteristic of been single has been taken away has invoked little compassion. In fact, quite the opposite. With such articles entitled ‘We are desperate for human contact: people breaking lockdown for sex’ depicting single people as frustrated, coitus-obsessed maniacs, rather than the entirely human, connection-seeking individuals that we really are.

What these articles have failed to recognise is that we are all social animals with an innate 

desire for connection. Whether that be in the romantic sense or platonic. Pre-pandemic or

B.C. (before Covid) single people could travel spontaneously, meet friends for drinks on

impulse, decide to venture on a date at the drop of a hat. For some, lockdown has led to

the realisation that those fun meetups which stood on the peripheries of our priorities

were our emotional supports. Without them single life has become increasingly more

daunting.

B.C a chat over coffee or an impromptu lunch date with a friend would provide an outlet to moan about work, laugh about an embarrassing incident that occurred, and discuss our stressors, effectively playing the role of a partner when a person in a relationship returns from work. The effect of having a friendly face ask the simple question ‘how was your day?’ has become glaringly apparent. 

With lockdown restrictions having confiscated all the benefits of being single, the devil has indeed made work for idle hands. Accepting that having a friend’s voice punctuate your thoughts is your safeguard against sadness is challenging. The reality that a few kind words and a quick hug from a friend is all that was preventing you from been consumed by negative thinking is not something everyone was ready to admit. Or even aware of.  People who had been happily living their lives faithful to freedom, basking in an unrestricted existence, have fallen victim to the pull of a vacuum of loneliness that lockdown created. 

Lockdown has been a time spent reflecting and assessing. Are we spending our time wisely? Are we in the right career? Can we afford to not be dating? Some women find themselves haunted by the intrusive ticking of their biological clock, motivating them to flock to dating apps for sanctuary. Zoom now hosts romantic rendezvous. Some argue this innovation is a superior method of dating, providing more time to get to know each other. Others contend it is a cyber counterfeit of a romantic engagement, only serving to lure you into a false sense of security: that your search for a soulmate has not been stunted. Merit can be found in both reasonings. Some have reconciled themselves that a date now comes in the form of a socially distanced walk. Gone are the days of going for dinner in a pretty dress, wearing our favourite lippy for the perfect pout. Us ladies are now forced to don our trainers and get masked up. Eye makeup is everything, as we peer out over our mask at our new potential beau. Batting your eyelids has never been so important. First dates have always run the risk of been awkward but although romance is associated with an air of mystery and excitement, wearing a mask and ensuring no physical contact is more a policy for a successful robbery than a date.  

A lady once told me in jest “those that have husbands don’t, want them and those that don’t, are looking for them” so perhaps the grass is always greener. Lockdown may very well be saving, or at least extending, some relationships by removing the opportunity for infidelity. Unfortunately, it will be inevitable for some that, when lockdown lifts, so too will those barriers.  Wandering eyed partners will stray, in contrast to singletons who may emerge more confident than ever before in their ability to be happy without another. 

Lockdown could revolutionise Singlesville. No longer a feared wasteland but a destination with a far more hospitable environment. The last year has been a reminder that we are each responsible for our own happiness. Perhaps all that time previously spent begging Cupid to take aim in our direction will now be time singletons will invest elsewhere……once we have roaming the streets as crazed nymphomaniacs out of our system of course.