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If you could tell your single friend why they're single...

182 replies

GetMeTheScissors · 22/04/2020 21:22

What would you say?

Built up the courage to ask and they all said 'you're great! You'll meet someone eventually!'

Which really wasn't constructive.

OP posts:
Purplewithred · 23/04/2020 14:55

God gave you two ears and one mouth....

TrickyD · 25/04/2020 08:09

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz · 25/04/2020 08:14

Because you pick much older men, and they all want a 1950s style relationship which you run yourself ragged trying to maintain. They are, invariably, jealous and controlling and you measure this as love up to a point. Then you get an epiphany and leave.

And the cycle starts again.

LuluJakey1 · 25/04/2020 08:17

Because she has made a good choice in life.

LuluJakey1 · 25/04/2020 08:58

Reading lots of the comments here, it is as if many posters think women have to conform to some Victorian expectation of us to attract men.

  • don't talk too much
  • don't have strong opinions that you express
  • lose weight
  • have low expectations of men
  • settle for someone lass attractive than you who will treat you well

I am none of the above - I am 'chubby' (to use an expression my mother once used about me Grin ) , I have strong opinions and DH is fully aware of them, I talk a lot, I have high expectations of him and he is attractive AND treats me well. It took me until I was 30 to meet him but I was happily single.

Women should be themselves - there is no point in pretending to be someone you aren't ; you won't be able to sustain it and any man who has been attracted to you because of it won't be any more. Being yourself is good enough. Being single isn't a curse or a disease. It is just another way of living your life and has lots of advantages too.

LuluJakey1 · 25/04/2020 09:02

less not lass.

Most single women are very normal people - they don't need to change. There isn't anything 'wrong' with them, apart from society making them feel like lepers or to be pitied in some way.

I have never forgotten my bitchy, self-satisfied, smug married cousin saying to me when I was single 'Freddie and I were just saying we don't know how people who are single have happy lives. It must be so awful'.

It wasn't!

thecatsthecats · 25/04/2020 09:19

Great thread OP!

My friend:

  • seems to purposefully seek out a reason a relationship "won't work" - e.g., he went out with my friend for two dates eight years ago, he lives an hour away, he is very slightly younger than me, we work together. All of which COULD be valid reasons, but she seems to use them as excuses either to not start or to not pursue relationships. After fifteen years of dating, the pattern is quite pronounced. She's never dumped, she just throws up a barrier before anything can really start. Now she seems to actively choose men who there's no chance with just to get to the LOVE THAT CANNOT BE stage even quicker.
  • she's taken her romantic model from the worst and most unrealistic romantic tropes. In spite of her parents existing as a great, down to earth couple, she idealises hyper exaggerated romances.
  • she puts on a front when she's trying to impress people. She comes from an ordinary background but went to Oxbridge for her first and second degrees. She picked up the habit of putting on a smarmy front to fit in with the public school lot, and she hides behind it still. It's so far remote from the funny, clever daft human being she is that she couldn't possibly form a real connection with a real person because they're not meeting the real her.

Those three things combined have played out on every single damn date.

thecatsthecats · 25/04/2020 09:30

@LuluJakey1

Not me. Who my friend is is great. Even her not so great parts have their match out there, just like my own not so great parts are matched by my husband.

She desperately wants to be in a relationship. But she treats the whole exercise as an analytical series of tick boxes, rather than just being herself with a nice guy and letting herself get to the vulnerable stage of really liking them.

Which is very sad, because I think that comes from having her heart broken a few times when she was young because she never was brave enough to act on her crushes early in until it became way too big a deal.

So now she never even lets it get to that stage.

Langsdestiny · 25/04/2020 09:31

Great post Lulu.

Hayfevered · 25/04/2020 09:31

Most single women are very normal people - they don't need to change. There isn't anything 'wrong' with them, apart from society making them feel like lepers or to be pitied in some way.

Hear, hear @LuluJakey1.

The vast majority of people who aren't in relationships are exactly the same as people who are in relationships -- they are no more or less attractive, troubled, pleasant, opinionated, demanding, nice to be around etc.

To turn the question around (as I think someone suggested upthread), it's interesting to think about why friends who are in longterm relationships/married are in those relationships, and not single.

Several of my university friends did teacher training, went straight back to their home towns, got a job in their own old school or somewhere close by, and married their childhood sweetheart/local boyfriend -- it fitted their life plan, and their boyfriends', which was to essentially replicate their parents' lives in the same place. And it seems to have worked.

My closest male friend an introvert with a horror of the unfamiliar definitely wouldn't be married with children (by his own account) if his longterm, long-distance girlfriend hadn't got fed up, proposed, organised the wedding, and pursued IVF when they didn't conceive naturally. (In fact this marriage is likely to end soon, because, unfortunately, he's completely unsuited to the daily demands of family life... I imagine he will remain single by choice then.)

Another very good friend (who is bi) had a serious relationship with a man on a postgraduate year abroad, then had a nervous breakdown after she'd returned to her own country, in part because of her highly-pressured PhD course, dropped out and went to live in his country, where she's now married to him with children -- happily, but not without regrets for the path she left behind. If she'd been happier in her studies and hadn't had a famously awful supervisor, she would (again, by her own account) be likely to have pursued relationships with women in her own country.

Another friend is married to a man she used to laugh about when casually dating him because she thought he was a bit of a nerd -- but then she had a serious car accident, he was enormously caring and nursed her back to health, and they married and have children. If she hadn't had the accident, their relationship is unlikely to have made it past casual dates.

The reasons people are married/coupled up are as various (and, I think) as essentially meaningless, as why people are single.

Crinkle77 · 25/04/2020 09:38

What if your single friend is happy being single?

fairyfingers · 25/04/2020 09:52

This is difficult to articulate but my single relative doesn't give out a spark of sex. Very very close to her parents. She dressed and acts the same as her mum which is fine and her choice but she's a weird mix of both too old and too young for her actual age and I suspect it's very difficult for anyone to see her as a romantic/sexual partner.

ImFreeToDoWhatIWant · 25/04/2020 11:17

A female friend - because the desperation rolls off you in waves. You share far too much too soon. Your life has been a car crash to date. Slow down, be by yourself for a while. And for the love of god, stop introducing new 'partners' to your kids after just a couple of months. Most of which I've said to her in person.

Male friend - you're obese and, more than that, very unkempt and have been for months now. I know you're struggling mentally and it's becoming a vicious circle. We all feel for you and would give anything to be able to meet up again. Please pick up your phone.

anothernotherone · 25/04/2020 11:26

Crinkle77 the OP is the single friend. We all know there are lots of reasons to stay single - on average it's better career wise and better health wise, for most women. However the op makes it very clear that she personally doesn't want to stay single.

How are so many people thinking they are being clever or defending single women when they haven't understood the opening post or read the thread. The same misunderstanding is repeated over and over.

MarieQueenofScots · 25/04/2020 11:27

How are so many people thinking they are being clever or defending single women when they haven't understood the opening post or read the thread

That’s the problem, nobody can tell the OP why she is single. There have been some really helpful suggestions.

However others have clearly used the thread to have a swipe at “friends” they obviously don’t like very much!

SpillTheTeaa · 25/04/2020 11:28

If I was really truthful to her I would tell her she is way too insecure and possessive.

LolaSmiles · 25/04/2020 11:33

However others have clearly used the thread to have a swipe at “friends” they obviously don’t like very much!
It's possible to like someone and be friends with them whilst questioning their approach to dating.

I love my friend to bits, but her obsession with find a military man has absolutely hindered her finding romantic happiness because she seems to have this idea of being a military wife. She's had countless questionable relationships found online and has been quick to start pushing the whole wifey thing.

She's a lovely woman, but her approach to romantic relationships is hindering her. If she was more open minded and spent less time pursuing a fantasy that is nothing like the reality of being a forces family then she'd have no issue finding someone.

anothernotherone · 25/04/2020 11:34

MarieQueenofScots yep, some people are clearly talking about relatives or acquaintances they dislike, not friends, and that's as unhelpful as telling the OP she doesn't know whether her "friend" is happy when the OP is the friend!

I've got two single friends, one of whom never discussed being single and doesn't date nor want to and seems happy, the other of who talks a lot about being single and is always "working on herself" and blaming her job for destroying her relationships when the problem is transparently her preferance for good looking arrogant misogynistic arseholes who make it clear she's a low priority right from the start, and whom she shouldn't touch with a barge pole... Sometimes it is clear!

YinMnBlue · 25/04/2020 11:34

My lovely best friend is single because when she is interested in someone or cares about them she starts to mother them. And that is not sexy. It puts people in the wrong dynamic. She becomes their carer.

OVienna · 25/04/2020 12:00

@LuluJakey1 I agree with you.

But- reading these posts it sounds like what a fair number of people are saying is that some people who say they want a partner just can't let their guard down and be comfortable with who they are and/or seem to be confirming to some ideal of what that partner "should" be like. In my experience of long term single friends there has been some element of this at play. For sure.

In other cases, I think people were less keen on relationships but felt expected to pair up. There can be very strong pressure to do this in both men and women but it has historically been perceived as worse for women to be single and alone. Also financially, for one point. "Who will care for this Spinster in her dotage??"

I would also say that the huge expectations on women to be physically perfect- regardless of what toad may pitch up to play court to her- can be hugely confidence shattering.

ellabella18 · 25/04/2020 12:20

I'm married, most of my friends are married. None of us are perfect, many of us have the floors listed in this thread.
My single friends are just single because they haven't me the right person yet.

maddy68 · 25/04/2020 12:30

Male friend. ...stop wearing trackies and smarten up. You're such a catch , good looking , funny but you dress like a hobo

Female friend. You need to compromise. It's not all about you. He can also have opinions and different ways to you. Does it really matter that he squashes the cushions when he sits down and doesn't straighten then after 🙄

BG2015 · 25/04/2020 12:33

That she is probably looking for a man whose acceptable to her parents, instead of standing her ground and saying no, I'm doing this for ME.

FizzyPink · 25/04/2020 12:39

My single friend is single because she latches onto guys from the very first date and is convinced she’s in love with them very early on which drives them away.
She then builds up a fantasy that they were much more involved than they actually were. For example one guy was obviously not into her and she made him meet for a coffee without telling him why and then demanded to know why he’d broken her heart Hmm

Navelwort · 25/04/2020 13:59

I'm married, most of my friends are married. None of us are perfect, many of us have the floors listed in this thread.

This has made me look very closely at my knackered parquet. Grin

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