The surprisingly single man

[bridie69]

When some men or indeed women say they are single it is sadly obvious why. But there are others who it kind of surprises me, nothing obviously wrong, say they have been looking, but nothing..ever come across this sort?

I am far happier single now than I ever was in a couple.

I would never look askance at anyone long term single or wonder what was "wrong" with them. I would assume they like their independence, like me.

Thank you for the doughnut Bant!! The issue is I scarcely come across a single woman where I live in a class of 34 children only 4 of us are single parents and one of those is a widow so not by choice.

Everybody else in this location is cripplingly wived up and has no idea of the bliss it engenders!!

Feel alone in loving singledom here! Where are all the interesting single women? It is the same in the spiritual group I go to everybody is wived up.

I never had this in London, in London you are falling over interesting women who are single and value their independence. It is just very very rare where I live. Deeply patriarchal and traditional.....

My niece has met a lovely divorced man. Kind, caring and runs a business but according to Flower he should be a loser because he is renting.

Also I rent and am single by choice but must have something badly wrong with me.

Lol Allofaflumble I know I am overly harsh on the men these days lol.

If anyone judges those who are renting and deems them less worthy, then a lot of us are royally fucked. I'm a very good woman with plenty to offer, and bloody great at saving but had the misfortune to be born at a point that owning a home would be nothing but a pipe dream as every time I take a step forward, the housing market and the buy to let empire takes ten thousand steps forward. I imagine there are many other women, and many many men, in my age group, who have had the same misfortune. It's especially hard if you are single, so if it's "you're not good enough for me because you don't own a home", it's a lovely little catch 22

So yea, a lot of people probably are single because they have done nothing wrong but people will happily and smugly judge them for something that is totally out of their control.

"When I don't cope well is when there is an occasional pile up of diy tasks that all need seeing to at once"

I was a single mum and I taught myself to fix things and do DIY or I'd get someone in. I laid laminate flooring (couldn't afford wood!) in 5 rooms, laid a patio and rendered a wall in my then yard. Huge sense of accomplishment.

And I must have missed the renting post. My DP was divorced and rented, it never crossed my mind that it was a bad thing.

I'm single by choice. My ex, however, has been on every online dating site there is, and has been engaged twice since we separated two years ago. Then again, he doesn't work now (quit his job) and rarely if ever sees the dcs, so I guess he has plenty of time for dating. He even sent me an email by accident that he meant to send to someone on a dating site. I'm still trying to get past the picture he put on there - it looked like one of those "terrorist booking photos" that you see on the news. If he's the standard male on online dating, I'll give it a pass, thanks.

Another one single by choice here! Although as I don't go in for 'grooming', people probably judge me and think I couldn't get someone.

Maybe they haven't met someone they like enough to have a relationship with. Maybe they don't want a relationship. That's it really. I don't see what's so surprising about that.

This reminds me of the stigma round divorce and being a single parent, which still rears its head occasionally, I have found.

Society, I thought had moved on, and no longer expects, in this country at least, people who weren't compatible for whatever reason they choose to stick together, in misery or for fear of others thinking they had something wrong with them.

flower, I'm in London and still find many single women saying they would like a partner, but as I say, increasingly wonder if they are just saying it.

I wonder if we should have a thread about single by choice and loving it?

One of the best things about being single for me is that I have had time to broaden my mind and not blindly sink into certain domestic tasks falling to one gender. I haven't been lazy enough to not bother learning how to do man jobs like using a power drill because I don't have a man to do it. I bloody love using a power drill. I'm sure many single men have not been lazy enough to not learn to cook because they don't have a replacement mum wife or girlfriend to cook for them.

Disclaimer - I'm also sure many coupled men know how to cook, and coupled women know how to do DIY! And single men and women who don't bother to learn tasks. But I don't think it's right to see men as sex providers and DIY tools, nor women as sex providers and domestic appliances. People are so much more than that, and it's why we have relationships (romantic or otherwise) at all, otherwise the entire world could just survive on brothels and machinery.

Not men, but I know quite a few women like this. My husband jokes the women in his family in his generation are cursed because they are all single. His sisters in her late 40s she has an on/off partner but she's devastated she never had children.

His cousin who is 35 is gorgeous, clever, has a good job, she's lovely, bubbly, funny and is unmarried. His other cousins 36, ditto for her. His little cousins only 28 and the same but she's never had a long term relationship. I know quite alot of women in the same boat. They would all like to find someone nice to settle down with but fear it won't happen until it's too late to have children.

I kind of think you need to meet someone fairly young these days where we live or all the decent ones are taken. We live in a fairly medium sized town where everyone knows everyone and the guys that are left are not the settling down with type. Oh also his male cousin is 32 and he's still single and never had a relationship but hes a party animal. Out of them all my husband and his brother are the only ones so far to be married or have children.

I rent. Should I give up now?

Yes please somebody open up a single and loving it thread! Am really enjoying reading all the above on this thread.

I find learning to do diy tasks stressful on health grounds - I am borderline Asperger's and cannot endlessly multitask it would engender a huge hyperanxiety phase and other symptoms I won't bore you about.

"as I don't go in for 'grooming', people probably judge me and think I couldn't get someone."

I can, when I want to, scrub up well. This is because I make sure I do stuff like brush my teeth twice a day and I get a lot of exercise so I stay fit. However, every day I consider it a challenge to wear at least three things my mum has knitted. It's also nigh on impossible to stay groomed when around horses, ironically enough. I quite like challenging people's perceptions of what I "should" look like. Yes, if I go out for the evening I make an effort. But there may well be people looking at me and thinking "no wonder she's single, look at that woolly jumper".

Oh and yes, I do my own DIY stuff. It's not that difficult and doesn't require much physical strength so long as you've got power tools and enough basic mechanical knowledge to understand leverage.