The silly season is over … Thank God. Now it will take a whole calendar year before again being subjected to corny Boney M and mince-pie jollity. And I, finding myself newly ”single”, will have a measure of respite from the kind looks, soft comments and unspoken words that associate me with one thing — starchy, grim virginity.
One would have hoped that with feminism and all, the situation of single women has changed and that it is no longer associated with wallflower-hood — of signifying, as Germaine Greer once put it, ”not a lack of opportunity to pair up, but a failure to pair up”.
The married state is by no means a barometer to determine whether you are involved in a relationship or not — many unmarried people are not necessarily single. Most would have what is now fashionably called ”a partner”. This notwithstanding, it’s still somewhat of a mystery to some people how you could not only be ”partner-less” — but totally single, or, to choose a better word, manless.
Unfortunately for single women out there, it seems the single state is now less respectable than ever before. Not that Christmas, the season of office parties, friendly get-togethers and family dos, is the only time you, as an unmatched woman, raise curious eyebrows sauntering in alone.
Being a Muslim woman and, horror of horrors, a divorcee (a word so repellent you get the whiff of mothballs at its mere mention), I’ve had ”But when are you getting married?” queries from well-meaning co-religionists before the ink was even dry on the talaq (divorce) papers.
And then there are your friends. Yes, your pals, especially those who are, as they so eloquently enthuse, ”with their other half”.
By the end of December, if the dumb jewellery store/paint/margarine ads — all of which are plastered with happy couples — don’t get you seriously depressed — your friends will.
Not so much from the ”my sick pail doth overfloweth” attempts to find you a man (thankfully my inner circle realises the lack of wisdom in such a venture), but from those friends who suddenly decide that, last week’s crying session on your couch notwithstanding, they can pooh-pooh your advice regarding their relationships because, shame, you’re manless. What would you know?
Not only are you to be regarded as a forbidding creature better suited to knitting needles and tabby cats, but you also have absolutely no moral authority to speak about men and whether or not they are wonderful/dogs/losers. You’re manless. If you have anything to say, it’s probably because you want to destroy your friend’s relationship and make her manless like yourself.
If you suggest a night out with the girls and mention your friends should leave their boyfriends at home, it’s because, shame, you’re jealous. After all, let it not be forgotten — you’re manless.
Then there are the men — the ones who think they’re doing you some kind of favour by asking you out. After all, shame, you’re manless. You probably haven’t had a shag in years.
This has particular connotations if you’re that cold, angular creature, the ”divorcee”, who is not really unbought merchandise and ”on the shelf”, strictly speaking, but ”damaged goods”, for the returns section. There must have been something wrong with you to make him flee. One thing’s for sure though, you’ll take anything and everything that comes along, in the chance it may be your last for a while.
This seeming contempt for the unattached female has replaced the old feminist bogeyman, the pressure to marry and have babies. Now you’re under pressure to find a man. We should all be legions of Bridget Jones out there — success in the workplace, great friends notwithstanding — ”I’m everything I am because he luuvs meee …”
You’re made to feel that you should, as a matter of record, be filled with a sense of anxiety, of failure, that, to quote Greer again, choosing to be single comes to be seen ”not so much as a woman’s own choice, as much as the result of not having been chosen”.
Trying times indeed for us ”damaged goods”, who on any given day attract some dodgy men, or repel them as easily as onion-breath, because they’ll assume that you’ll be planning the wedding invitations before you’ve even got to the second date. Sometimes the worst part of it are such assumptions.
For the record, no sex is better than bad sex. And no relationship is better than one in which you find yourself emotionally, physically or otherwise abused. And being a single woman in your twenties does not imply that you are gay, dysfunctional, or that you are that girl nobody wanted to dance with in high school. It can prove depressing, especially around December, when everybody reminds you that you’ve nobody to kiss under the mistletoe.
But then again, it could be a rather favourable situation. For one, you don’t have to spend hours of your time, not to mention your money, shopping for boxers or Mickey Mouse ties that never end up being worn anyway.
And being a New Age spinster, stilettos and DVD players work just fine as substitutes for knitting needles and tabby cats.