There has been quite a lot of in the past year how women are now choosing to stay single and they rather be alone. Are you actually seeing this in real life?

I’m not seeing this either. Sad to say, a lot (not all) of my friends are in relationships that they shouldn’t/don’t want to be in for fear of being on their own. I know very few women with high worth or standards.

I want to live where all you who have groups of single friends live! I've got a few single friends but all dotted about - I love being single, the only disadvantage is it would occasionally be nice to have a specific person to do 'things' with rather than try and slot in with friends with families/go alone. If all or even most of my friends were single as well, life would be perfect!

@SweetBirdsong hmm not sure about everything you've said, although you're right that people do extrapolate a lot from limited/biased information.
Me, and all the single friends I do have (all aged between 30-40) all own our own homes for one thing and while not having as much spare cash as people in relationships (so dual incomes) without kids, it's those with kids that are struggling the most, mainly because most are in that ruinous early childcare stage, and even with 2 incomes, its rare both are working full time. My friend's weekly nursery bill is more than my monthly mortgage!

Also 'while obviously there will be individual examples of happy singles, happy married, miserably married, miserable singles and everything in-between there have been quite a few different studies that all found overall that single women are the happiest, and married men!

I know quite a few single childless women. Some are very career oriented (architects, doctors etc) all mid 30’s+ we don’t really talk about it but yeah I think most of them want a relationship and would have liked kids but never met anyone to do it with. They all have fulfilling lives and lots of friends yet when it comes up you do sense a feeling of sadness over it.

However women who are actually married with kids have basically said they probably wouldn’t bother with another man. Happily married etc but I think the demands of family just wring it out of women. Perhaps also whether they are conscious of it or not even before the kids come along they are doing more work to keep their households ticking over. I love my family dearly but i’m tired and wouldn’t bother with another man after DH.

Increasingly I think men may just be a bit shit tbh.

If many posters on mumsnet were to be believed, you would think that four out of five women in this country are single - and they are deliriously happy with it of course! Earn 100K a year in their big important professional job, and are living in a beautiful, elegant, three bedroom apartment in the city, and have a massive group of friends who are all highly educated and on fantastic salaries. And they have a different man every week for a shag. But won't settle down with them because no man is good enough for them.

In reality, single life for the majority of women (I'd say 26+) is actually quite difficult... Especially if they live alone. They don't have that many friends as many of their friends are coupled up. They don't earn a massive amount of money and they struggle badly financially. Most will not buy a house. A few will. Most won't, as they will never afford it. I know a number of single women who fight for more hours at work, to make ends meet. They have zero social life as they can't afford it. They are pretty miserable.

Up into I got ill I had the big job, with friends on similar salaries and a different man every night of the week, never mind every week! And like hell would I have wanted to settle down with any of them

And you'd be surprised how many women out there are actually single, there's about 15 of us in my road alone. some of them earn decent amounts of money, some of them don't. Most of them appear to have Fairly healthy social lives. a lot of us have even, gasps, bought our own houses! 😮. They all seen much happier than the women with husbands, wives or partners.

I was thinking today how, in my office, one woman is married with no kids by choice, one is married with no kids as her DH doesn’t want them and I think there’s some control there, another woman is single as she cares for her parents, and another in her 20’s has never had a female/female relationship but wants one. The rest are married with kids.

Yeah I’m seeing it! I have lots of friends who are single. Late 30s and women seem more ready to commit to themselves than to men (I’m one of them). Did over 10 years married and miss it sometimes but I have a lover, and friends, and family, a job I love…nothing’s missing. I’d have had more children but realistically that ship has sailed and I’ve made my peace with it.

There has been quite a lot of in the past year how women are now choosing to stay single and they rather be alone. Are you actually seeing this in real life?

I'm living it!

such as in the 1990s when women were told that they are more likely to die in a terrorist attack after some age (think it was forty) than find a husband.

This is so absurd it’s made me laugh! It sounds like something Joan and Jericha would say.

Totally agree. My friendship circle of 50 something ladies are all attractive, have their own homes, jobs, kids flown the nest. We are very sociable, outgoing and confident. We’re well presented and bring a lot to the table.

We aren’t the MN 6 figure salary supermodels who run marathons for fun but we are all good honest women with a lot to offer.

But the men we encounter are just not on the same level. There are a lot of very mediocre men who think they’re the local Brad Pitt. Even at our age we get dick pics, men wanting to talk about nothing but sex from the start or can’t string more than 3 words together. Honestly the way sone men think it’s acceptable to speak to us is laughable and then they are shocked we don’t want to take up their - usually very graphic - offers.

Maybe b cause we’re older and been there done that, we really would rather stay single and have a great social circle rather than settle for a half arsed man.

You are correct, the balance has shifted and men haven’t caught up yet.

I agree OP. I'm late 40s and nearly everyone I know is married with kids. I do know a few divorced people, but all but one of them are now with a new partner.

I would consider dating a younger man but again no interest from them. The only men I have been attracted to of late have been 10 yrs younger.

Ps @Floatylinenrag have you considered dating a younger man?

So sorry to read this!

I also find it really annoying when people say 'I could never do what you do' when you're only doing it as circumstances force you to!

Most of us have dated but really found that men of our are either looking for younger women, want a replacement housewife or just after sex.

I think this is a huge part of it. The single women I know are fit, look after themselves, have careers, hobbies, friends, lives. They travel, they're great companions and are effective. Their homes are clean and pleasant. They aren't addicted to any substances or porn.

The single men I know are often not in the same league by a very large margin. Which means women are expected to 'settle' in a way men aren't. And they don't want to. If they could meet their equivalent, they'd definitely be in the market. But they can't.

I don't think the issue is women, I think it's men. The only way the whole system works is if women are conned into thinking the only important thing in their lives is a man. We've stopped selling that nonsense to our girls but men haven't caught up yet. Well, some men. My DH talks to his single friends who moan about being single and says, "earn some money, get down the gym, sort your shit out" but they don't. They want an uncomplaining supermodel to drop from the sky on them.

I'm single not through choice, but most people would think I am single by choice. I've not had luck meeting men. I've not met anybody via OLD. Men my own age have the choice to date women 20 years younger.

I don't think my standards are unreasonably high. I don't want to be treated badly but right now I would probably date anyone with a pulse. I haven't met anyone at all in well over 10 years of trying, more like 15, and I imagine I am quite unlikely to do so now. People do tend to say to me they could never do the things alone that I do but I have to do everything alone because there is nobody for me to do things with. Friends think I don't want a man because I go cycling alone. I think I would be viewed as one of these women you refer to who are choosing to be single but in reality I'm not young or attractive enough to find a man under the age of 75.
I don't want to marry, live together, or combine finances. I would very much like some sort of boyfriend and that feels like some sort of impossible dream. I would stand more chance of becoming prime minister.

Yes. It's one of the issues which comes up again and again and again in the popular press, though usually as one of the scare-women-into-doing-something, such as in the 1990s when women were told that they are more likely to die in a terrorist attack after some age (think it was forty) than find a husband. It was something like that.

A very very popular evergreen topic. The other evergreen one is how bad it is for women to get a university degree. That has cropped up from the Victorian era on, when some women actually were able to get those degrees for the first time.

The point is not if the concerns are true or false, but the repeating nature of this, because it is driven by something else than actual data. And I'd be really interested in learning about the numbers of men who don't have children, too, but for some reason this is not an interesting topic to discuss.

I just realised I hadn't answered the actual question I am mid-thirties and was one of the very first in my extended friendship group to have children (at 26). Now at 35 everyone is suddenly having babies.

I'm one ,late 40s grown up kids that I brought up by myself . Good career lots to do , love the freedom would never live with a partner again .

Just don't see the point , why would I there's nothing missing in my life .I am positively single

The fact that almost half of all women are not having children is a societal disaster

In fairness I don't think it is almost half. The majority of women in their 20s are not having children but there's a substantial peak in the 30 age group. The bigger issue(?) In the UK is that women are having less children (later) rather than less women having children. Other countries (eg China) have a significant amount of women who never want children and the ones that do don't want more than one. So they are a bit fucked.

The fact that almost half of all women are not having children is a societal disaster

In fairness I don't think it is almost half. The majority of women in their 20s are not having children but there's a substantial peak in the 30 age group. The bigger issue(?) In the UK is that women are having less children (later) rather than less women having children. Other countries (eg China) have a significant amount of women who never want children and the ones that do don't want more than one. So they are a bit fucked.

The media has long been concerned with this issue: https://forreadingaddicts.co.uk/news/read-victorian-womens-snarky-responses-to-the-question-why-are-you-single/

@ThisWillBeMyDay I think that you are missing the point all of these articles are trying to make.
The fact that almost half of all women are not having children is a societal disaster. We are left with an ever aging population and not enough young people to take up the burden of paying for and/or taking care of this ever increasing proportion of the population who are oaps.
Now there's a couple of ways that this population collapse can be averted such as incentives women to have more/any children with free/cheap childcare, tax breaks, improve maternity pay, extra pension contributions for mothers to name just a few.
Or they could look at the reasons that women are choosing not to have children or leaving it to late and as a society change how we treat women and mothers.
Instead they are doing nothing except pointing fingers at women and implying that we are to lazy, selfish, and/or vain to do our duty for our country by having babies like good little women. Which ironically has the effect of exasperating the situation especially when you add the 2 child benefit cap.
Basically what we have is a international issue of population decline in predominantly the Western world though China is ahead of the curve due to the 1 child policy (which has now been reversed but isn't helping). This happens when women have access to education and contraception, we have opportunities for a life that doesn't involve having multiple pregnancies which put us in an early grave.
Whilst with modern health care and the resulting fall in infant mortality rates this decrease in births doesn't necessarily cause a significant problem, however when it is linked with the male population not accepting the power shift and changing the way they treat women and how much of the childcare responsibilities they take on it results in terminal population decline. In countries where the men take on equal parenting responsibilities they don't have this issue (Norway, Sweden etc) and countries where almost all child rearing is done solely by the mothers the issue is exasperated (Italy, Spain etc).
This is why you're seeing so many articles about this, it's easier to blame and guilt trip/shame women than for men to take responsibility for their actions and change. So we can expect much more of the same.

Op do you live in a city or countryside ?