But life is a numbers game, W.
All of us go through our teens and twenties (and 30s) assuming we'll meet someone great at some time. We meet, date, go out with, fall in love with people. Most of us here have had children, and most of those have assumed that the person we had kids with was 'the one' that we'd grow old with. Obviously that hasn't happened, otherwise we wouldn't be here.
And having got used to being with someone, our perspective is that that is the right and usual state of things. When it's not. You only meet that person once, and we forget all those crushes and unrequited loves and shitty dates we went on ten, twenty, thirty years ago, and the fact that in most cases we spent a lot of our time in an unsatisfying relationship or no relationship at all.
So it's difficult to find the next relationship. Especially given that we have kids, and jobs, and less free time, plus the market of available people is far smaller than it was back then, before people of similar ages and life situations had settled down.
So OLD is shit. But it's better than hanging out at a nightclub every Friday night trying to pull, or asking friends when they're having a dinner party where they might invite their hot single friend. Because that's either embarrassing or vanishingly unlikely.
People can choose to be single, or choose to hope.
OLD is hope. Mostly vain hope, but hope nonetheless.
I don't want to serial date. I want to find someone fantastic. I haven't yet, but I'll keep plugging away.
When I can be arsed.