In December last year I found myself on my own after a nine year relationship. My thirty-fourth birthday was approaching and the break-up precipitated a move back to London from Singapore. When I landed in Heathrow, to the welcome of the British winter it hit me; I was suddenly single.
It wasn’t being single at my age that bothered me, it was the fact that the man I thought I would spend the rest of my life with didn’t want to spend the rest of his life with me. And although I knew I would get over him, and move on at some stage, could I ever employ my own judgement again? It didn’t have a glowing track record and there was a shortage of decent references.
I could barely remember the last time I was single, but I was in my twenties and I was a very different person then. I was always happy to trawl bars and the clubs with my girlfriends, meeting men and having flings which I sometimes hoped would lead to a relationship, (and others hoped would be permanently erased from my memory). Basically I kissed a lot of frogs. And then I met my prince.
NOTE: Frogs are sometimes very adept at disguise.
I wasn’t scared of being single. Don’t get me wrong I was scared. But being single isn’t a disease, and it can and does happen to the best of us. We’re born single, after all, it’s not like we pop out of the womb desperate to be coupled off. And we spend a lot of our lives single, so really, we should be good at it.
Of course, while it’s OK to be single when you’re twelve, it changes when you get older. You’re expected (I am really not quite sure by whom exactly) to achieve a certain level of relationship success. And I had complied by this rule to a degree, so despite a broken engagement and a broken heart, it wasn’t being on my own that scared me. Quite the opposite infact. What frightened me was being with someone else. What actually had me terrified and quaking in my new Vivian Westwood boots was looking for someone else; the very idea of dating again.
There were a number of distressing obstacles in my way, not least my state of mind and the length of time it had been. I was also totally clueless. I didn’t know where you went to meet men. Had we moved on from waiting for them to call? I had no idea how long it was appropriate to wait before you slept with a man. And did men still pay for dinner? Most of all the burning question that kept flying through my mind was, would I ever be ready?
I received some friendly (and unasked for) advice when I found myself up for grabs once again, and from what I gathered, in nine years dating had changed. I was informed that there were no rules to abide by; I felt like a born again virgin dater.
All this made me want to either run back to the unwelcoming (and perhaps already full) arms of my ex, or join a convent. But once my initial panic died down, I thankfully did neither. Because although I knew nothing, maybe the whole knew education that stretched in front of me would be fun, or at the very least interesting. I might not know what I was doing, or who I’d be doing it with, but that wasn’t so bad. It might even be exciting. NOTE: I am terminally optimistic.
At some point I would dry those boring old tears. I would ensure that I always looked my best. I was already embracing the fact that I had a fantastic group of girlfriends around me, (many of who were also single), and I was already having a love affair with London since my return which kept me busy.
As much as stepping off the cliff of dating was scary, it might also be filled with wonderful opportunities. I just had to keep telling myself that as I stood on the precipice waiting until the time was right.
And I began to feel it would be soon. The hurt stays with you for a long time but it fades. The familiarity you miss and it lurks in the background. But I’m not one to wallow and I’m not the sort of girl to let life stand still. All it would take was a lot of courage, and a hell of a lot more wine.
I was about to embark on my own voyage of discovery; my debut into new fangled modern relationships. I knew that in order to start dating I could really do with a life-jacket and an instruction manual, (at the time I found the concept as confusing as trying to put flat-pack furniture together). But despite all that I would soon be ready to kiss some more frogs. I just wasn’t sure that I believed in princes anymore.
copyright 2006 Faith Bleasdale, all rights reserved.
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