Love and The Single Girl

Kerry, beautiful, fun and intelligent, has just split up from her long-term boyfriend. She is in her forties and finds herself in that strange situation where she is in the minority amongst her friends; she is Single.

At first, she thought being single again would be great fun. She's already got children so has no 'ticking biological clock' issues and is loving the fact that she has got her house back to herself, doesn't have to put up with 24 hour sport on the TV, cleaning takes only a few minutes and the bathroom is always clean. Bliss.

Of course, what she didn't bank on is that being single is seen in some quarters like having a disease; a really nasty disease that makes people treat you with suspicion and disdain. It's not so much that they think they might get this dreadful disease, it just turns you into an undesirable.

The dinner party invitations dry up, unless, of course, they know a 'great guy' you'd really get along with. And every time you do start up a conversation with some baldy, tubby guy desperate to tell you about his golf handicap, his wife comes running over, bowling over other guests as she comes to the rescue of her precious beloved.

So what's the problem? Well, now that you are no longer in happy coupledom, you are a threat to all of those happily married men that you were allowed to chat away to last week without comment. Now you are obviously a predator with one goal in mind; to steal that man.

What is it about being single that makes people think that your only aim in life is not to be single? And why would an intelligent woman make a play for every man that comes her way? Has the single woman got no powers of discernment? Will any man do? No matter how ugly, no matter how unsuitable, no matter how married?

It's not just women who see it like this. Men seem to be hyper-sensitive to the 'single woman on the prowl disease.' OK guys, if she's in a low cut top, leaning over you and brushing your arm whilst batting her eyelashes like windscreen wipers on overdrive, you're probably right. But why can't a woman have a conversation with you without you thinking that she's after you? You have not suddenly become sexier than Brad Pitt. No, really, you haven't. And not all single women are desperate to make you think otherwise!