Single, and Loving It?
By Lisa Mitchell

"The media teaches us that we are supposed to be `liberated' and that means so many choices but these can become new forms of bondage as we find it harder to commit out of fear or making the wrong choices." Dr Francesca Levine, Director, The Australian Institute of Change
 
Britt, 29, is desperate to get married but can't find the right man; Verilyn, 42, is committed to her career and single life; Claudia, 35, wants a life partner but is too terrified to commit; Eve, 41, wishes she'd had enough money to have children; and Kate, 37, is going to have them anyway*. These are attractive, intelligent women who have never married. Statistically, they're single for life, but are they loving it?
 
Savvy television network executives asked this question approximately five years ago, and their answer was to provide a sort of global, bi-weekly counseling session for women to thrash it out amongst themselves - Ally McBeal and Sex and the City. These programs have a huge audience of women who are no longer sure they want to live with men, or without them.
 
Right now, we're straddling a half-changed world where divorce and cohabitation is acceptable and escalating and the single population is on the rise. And yet, a woman still can't go to a bar on her own in complete safety, or be considered less than a workaholic if she's unmarried in her 40s with a top notch career. Single no longer means spinster, but it certainly doesn't mean swinger either. Whether single by choice or circumstance, there's not an adult woman around who doesn't want to sock the person who asks (or conveys with a glance): "Why hasn't a nice woman like you settled down?"
 
Verilyn is 42 and a successful buyer with a commercial enterprise who has fully renovated and landscaped her family-size suburban home. Her household consists of herself and her dog, Fergy. She earns a top wage and has a busy social life. "I guess I was never particularly interested in any type of guy and the ones I went out with were deadheads! I didn't have a burning ambition to have children and, being independent, was able to cope without a man in my life… I did have a burning ambition to succeed at work though… [and it is difficult] the way people see you and judge you... Most people you meet on a business level assume you are married with children."
 
It's not for want of marriage proposals that Claudia, at 35, is still single. She'd like a life partner but is terrified she'll end up like her divorced siblings and unhappily married parents. "My role models leave a lot to be desired," she says. It's a fairly common issue given the divorce rate, says Rosalie Pattenden, a senior counselor and psychologist. Rather than run from relationships, these singles need to be aware that they're capable of making mature and different choices that suit them better, she says.
 
Are some reluctant singles just being too picky? Britt, 29, has a large social circle and meets more men in a month than most women could hope to hanging around the men's wear department. She wants "the usual" which for her is, someone professional, with a sense of humor who is in touch with his emotions, can communicate, wants a family, a home and who likes to travel. If there's no chemistry, there's no date. Envy Britt her social life but it's become her biggest stress. On nights she'd rather stay home, she feels compelled to go out in case "he's out there".
 
"I'm beginning to think there's something wrong with me," says Britt. She isn't prepared to settle for the next best thing when, she says, she's been led to believe her soul mate does exist and she'll "just know" when she meets him. "Look at the divorce rate! I don't want to settle with just anyone. I think I know what I want, if I could just meet him."
 
She's obviously getting to that age. For reluctant and committed singles, Pattenden suggests the years from 32 to 50 are a questioning time for many single women who start to reflect on the consequence of their choices. Verilyn, for example, says: "The worst thought is of being old and having no dependents - I'll probably be a bitter, twisted old woman in a nursing home with no visitors!" Pattenden believes that as the single population grows, society will meet its needs and retirement villages could give way to a kind of Melrose Place for millennium women and men in their eighties.
 
It's also a time when singles in this age bracket can find themselves excluded from the couple activities of married or defacto friends and then there's the occasional nagging from the maternal bosom. When the formerly content single gal starts to falter, Pattenden suggests, it's time to do a stock take. "I tell them to reflect on the choices they've made and see if those choices are still valid for them… One of the things we get stuck on is, we seem to believe the choices we make today are choices we should be locked into forever. That's rubbish because our lives, goals, values and motivations are changing daily." Generation Y's got the idea, she says, they're "accepting that they can change their mind along the way, and that's probably a whole lot healthier". But Gen X and even Baby Boomers need to catch on.
 
Of course, single life has huge advantages. Hail and envy the single her Friday night pizza/wine/video lounge-in and that extra disposable income for fuscia slides or a week at the Golden Door. She has to consider no one else in decisions that matter. She doesn't have to compromise her time, money, routines or desires. On the flip side, Eve, 41, would sometimes swap her treasured independence, for a hug a day. Sometimes, a massage just isn't enough.
 
"Of course you miss the intimacy that a partner brings: the sex, kisses, hugs, just general physical contact with anyone. I do have a couple of friends available for casual sex but for me, there are emotional and moral complications with that… Up until now, I would not have considered having a relationship with someone I don't love but I might be able to, should a person whom I respect and have a great friendship with `come along'. Even if I don't, there are so many positive aspects to my life that I value what I do have and don't spend futile time lamenting what I lack."
 
It's only in recent times, says Eve, that she's realized she would like to have been a mum if she'd been in a better financial position. "The fact that I don't have a partner is not what prevents me."
 
At 38, Kate has weighed the statistics and decided to try and have children on her own. "All of my other friends who are single, they're saying they're not prepared to have children unless they have support from a man but my logic is, 30% of men piss off anyway from their relationships. If you're going to make the decision [to have children], you may as well ensure you're independent. There's a one in three chance of being left on your own anyway."
 
The trickiest time of all for reluctant singles, particularly women, says Pattenden, is in their late 40s to 50s. "Men tend to choose younger women to have relationships with so it becomes a declining top level of available men." By the time the widowers, divorcees and swinging bachelors hit 70, she says, the fillies are replaced with a stable of female thoroughbreds. "After Mum died, my father was inundated with all these widows running around him with requests to change their light globes, fix a fence, any excuse, giving him dinner, just to get him over!… I think the motto should be, it's never too late, for anyone."
 
Prevailing single life is a sign of liberating and confusing social times. Whether we choose to be single or are by circumstance, the numbers are growing. While our parents may have had a job and spouse for life, the new future appears to lie in several careers (and partners) and a new definition of singledom that acknowledges the courage it sometimes takes, to live differently.
 
* Names have been changed
 
Lisa Mitchell is a staff writer and features editor for theLounge.com.au
 
This article is reprinted with the permission of theLounge.com.au, the women's website www.theLounge.com.au