Happily single and no threat to your man so why do you fear me?

[notrocketscience]

Reading another poster on the difficulties of a single woman mixing with men through mutual interests; rambling, sport, photography, studying, evening classes...
It got me wondering, and I've suffered from this most of my life as my interests do not include spas and shopping or TV soaps. I like men and have had serious relationships but I also like them as friends. I'm currently a very happy single mother and with no intention of starting another relationship. I'm not a cheater and will not encourage any taken man. Yet other women do see me as a threat and it hurts because I'm really not and it does impact on my very limited social life. Is being a single woman such a bad thing that everyone automatically thinks I must be hanging out for the first man to offer me a quick one? (And don't get me started on the number of mm friends of the Ex who thought exactly that).

I've just signed up to a dating site. NO high hopes but I'm hoping to at least get out of the house a few times.

I think Holly is right. We need to shove our married friends! I don't mean in a fuck them way, just stop looking at them. Ignore them.

We singles don't group form in the same way. So we're on the outside, all individuals looking at the big group. ie, the mainstream. Couples. The norm.

We need to be unapologetic about being older and single and to seek each other out shamelessly. It sounds tit for tat. But I don't mean it like that. I don't mean singles V marrieds, but I feel my mindset is changing.

I am no longer going to text married friends and suggest x,y or z. All my energies are going in to nurturing friendships with single people. I am currently working on a friendship that could be good. Only problem is, she's broke, kind of a few years behind me in the timeline.

fireblade Credit to you and I think you are right, get proactive. This is all excellent stuff;

We have identified a problem

We are coming up with ideas to counteract it.

Next, we'll have a self-help book on the shelves, Mumsnetsingles; How to survive alone

It sounds like a bad romcom with smug married couples who don't associate with singles. In rl plenty of couples mix with single people.

I wish you'd be friends with my DH, OP. All his have very sadly passed away recently, and he only has me, and one other, really. And my dad. I'd love him to make friends with anybody, tbh

As for single women....it's very sad if people see you as a threat. I am 10 years younger than my DH, so when I was settling down with him, all my friends were single, and about a million times more beautiful than I am. They are lovely girls, and DH would have to be dead not to find them attractive, but I would never dream of seeing them as a threat. Gosh, no. Or any of the school mums. I'm very proud of DH, he is a shy man but so kind and polite, and we love each other to bits. I love seeing him chat to the mums and school events, but mind you, my ex was an arrogant twat who would barely honour you with a grunt, so maybe I have learnt to appreciate it!

Hmm you sound like you don't like women rather than the other way around!
And the fact that you think they see you as a threat shows you probably think an awful lot of yourself....a little cocky I think. Don't really see the point of this post

Well I've just spent a really lovely evening with some friends, including my stunningly attractive single girlfriend. Did any of the married women hate her being there? Nope. Were the men unable to control themselves around her? Nope.

That's RL.

Thank you for your observations reubs and worse. If you have the time, read of some of the previous pages on this thread, you'll see there are several posters agreeing that there is a section of society, the older single woman, who does seem to be excluded. It's not our imagination although I fully accept this may not be your personal experience.

Also I have previously apologized for my badly worded OP. It does appear that I am cocky and vain. In RL I promise you I am not!

Some of these thoughtful replies on this thread have convinced me that there really is a discrimination going on, albeit subtle. To deny it exists is part of the problem as how can it be put right if no one is willing to concede it does happen in many of our lives?

The last time I checked, my life is real. And most married couples don't want to socialise with me. So it may be the norm in your real life, grandmaster, for couples so socialise with singles but it's not the norm in my real life.

Mine and an awful lot of people on this thread, who have suffered in silence - largely due to the shame of being single. It is indeed like a bad sitcom but, sadly, real life.

I've been thinking (in real life!) about this thread and we've got to do something about this shit. Does the discrimination list include marital status?

It's definitely not our imaginations,or paranoia, because it took me about 4 or 5 years to figure it out. I'd never been sidelined before.

I agree with notrocketscience, that denying the existence of this issue is part of the problem. People don't want to acknowledge that they're part of something so Victorian and straightlaced.

I haven't read entire thread so may be totally off the mark here but I've never been a fan of couples vs singles. I like people not their relationship status. My dp & I are not touchy feely on nights out, in fact we barely talk to each other instead focussing on everyone else - I can talk to him anytime! i certainly don't mind him talking to single women just as he doesn't mind me talking to single men. Most of my mates are men & im always sad when they get girlfriends inevitably meaning we can no longer hang out as mates only as couples. As I have an aversion to couples nights out (the whole imposed gender roles thing pisses me off) I tend not to hang out with them when they're loved up. Ive been friends with these guys over 20 years and not once in that time has it occurred to me to be anything more than friends. Surely their partners could see if I was any kind of threat I'd have made the move years ago? Also I'm not exactly a looker... No threat here. Meh

Have they got controlling partners springydaffs? I have a couple of friends who have the stalker type boyfriends, and we all despise them. The ones that follow us round then clubs and try and ruin the night.

All the normal husbands and partners spend time with single people. My husband has slept in the bed with all my single friends over the years after we have been out. I have done the same with my male friends. We have all seen each other in various states of undress. Both of us have taken out the children with a single woman/man. It is just whoever is about in the day. We are not animals and can control ourselves around the opposite sex!

I recently slept at some guys house as my friend was going out with his friend. He said to me 'wow can't believe you are married and allowed to sleep here. Your husband must trust you' .

If someone married came out on a evening out and spoke about their children they would get told off.

Additionally no offence firebladelover you must be the only woman in the world who thinks at 40 you are told old for single sex parties. Don't your friends go on holidays or trips away without their husbands like normal couples.

I have read the whole thread, and contributed earlier as well, hopefully more sympathetically. The general tone has got my goat a bit tbh. It's very offensive to married women. The title alone is bl**dy offensive. If a married woman had come on here with an equally unpleasant assertion about single women she'd have been eaten alive.

I socialised a lot as a single, and was not discriminated against. I see no discrimination among my current social group now either. I appreciate that is just my experience, but it does demonstrate that there are perfectly normal couples out there who don't stick in packs. I don't know anyone who is paranoid a single will steal their man. . How ridiculous. It's not the 1950s.

I wonder how much of the perceived discrimination is down to less sinister factors such as friendships moving on when we are in different places in our lives. For example grandmaster forbids discussing dcs on nights out. Although we are both married, we'd not socialise together as I do talk about my dcs. Not excessively, but they are a big part of my life. So, even if we had been the best of friends prior to children we'd have drifted apart now. Similarly I see more of friends who have very young dcs than I do others as we have similar free time. That's just a factor of circumstances.

Discrimination sadly does exist in the workplace. One only needs to read the tribunal cases.

Perhaps a change of attitude on both fronts is needed. Some of the views held on here would be enough to make me avoid the people who hold them. Why would I want to spend time with someone who thinks I'm scared of her stealing my DH? It would make for a very uncomfortable friendship.

Real friends stay friends wherever you are in your life. The rest are just transient.

I apologise if my earlier post looked as if I too was denying the problem. A very cursory glance at MN demonstrates it's alive and well.

I have lots of children worse and we discuss them on day meet ups. I wouldn't say it is banned on nights out but we are usually too busy having fun to discuss children

worse None of this is intended as a personal slight on any particular married woman. The level of confidence and trust between partners is an individual thing.

The OP started with asking the question of why was this definite exclusion happening? (Yes holds hands up it was childishly phrased).

First the obvious happened; the natural public bashing of "who do you think you are?...you're so vain/shallow/flirty/cocky ect as readers took a personal affront on the implication that they are afraid their partner would engage with a single woman.

However some posters have clearly given this a lot of thought. There are many anecdotal tales backing up this story including one from a male poster. Therefore it would appear this is more widespread than it first appeared and not as obvious as blaming it on the local vamp out for a man.

To acknowledge these experiences is the first step in making improvements. If all of us women live to our statistical life expectancy then it is a problem we will all experience later, if not sooner.

Verity, a character in Poldark (yes I know, how girly...) chooses to run away from the security of her home and family to be with a known abusive, bad tempered man because the alternative of the spinster life is so appalling.

Yes, times have changed and women may now travel, work and play as they wish but I think there is still a stigma and therefore an undercurrent of social exclusion for any single woman over the age of, say, 35.

To take this argument further, is this subconsciously known and is this one of the reasons some women will stay in an abusive, unhappy partnership rather than facing the social loneliness of being single at a later age?

There are many exmples on MN of women so terrified - truly, TERRIFIED - of being single they hang on to the most appalling men. Because the alternative, to them, is worse. They are in the minority - but it's a large minority

This isn't just a fear of being alone, or their kids having an absent father (both legitimate works imo) but a terror of being viewed as 'unable to get/keep a man' as an unbearable shame and disgrace. As a pp said, she can't understand why bright, funny, solvent women aren't coupled-up, as if this is the ultimate.

Grandmaster, your normal is far from normal. Great that you and your husband can be so free but it is far from the norm.

*both legitimate worries

Grandmaster, Any socialising I do is with other women. Monday - Friday. Occasionally I meet a single friend at the weekend.

Not sure what your point!?

Just that I regularly go away with just single women. My 2 best friends are single and I would think nothing if going out with them and sleeping at theirs/whoever they are currently sleeping with. It is what friends do. I am married not dead!

Good for you.

Please don't dismiss the experiences of the many people on this thread who've been marginalised somewhat.

ps, I don't think married women should be offended by the thread.

They should smell the coffee and realise that that would be them if they and their h split up. So instead of being offended, please stand behind us. A married friend of mine recently said (jokily) that if her h popped his clogs she'd take up with somebody new! She said it like it would be as easy. I didn't know what to say to her. I didn't want to say 'with three kids? in your 40s?'.

Also, a poster upthread (who sounded lovely) said that she was married and had no kids and she socialised with lots of single friends. I think that's a stage of marriage that comes before kids.

Motherhood "demotes" a woman. In society's view. A husband is protection from that demotion. Fucked up. And it's 2015! But here we are.

Getting married is so rare these days it is practically irrelevant. I say that as someone who has been married nearly half her life in her early 30s.

"the natural public bashing of "who do you think you are?...you're so vain/shallow/flirty/cocky ect as readers took a personal affront on the implication that they are afraid their partner would engage with a single woman." - why would I be afraid of this? My partner is a mental health nurse and so is around single women all the time! Doesn't bother me. I was just saying I had never experienced the problem. The majority of my friends are male and only one of their ex's had a problem with me when I was single but that's because she didn't like any women! I think the others didn't mind their boyfriends being friends with me as I would never overstep the boundaries or ve disrespectful.
I'm not denying there is the possibility of it being a problem for some women. I've just never come across it myself!
Having said that I'm 25 so maybe it's more accepted within my generation

I think it must be different for the older generation reubs. Most single mums I know are out with married or cohabiting couples every week drinking. There is no divide.