Member-only story
Why I’m (still) single
Reasons that may or may not be valid
To give context, when writing this I was 37 and single, of course.
The usual question is “Are you married yet?”. Then they ‘downgrade’ it to whether I have a girlfriend. Some add on “or partner”, “or boyfriend”, just to cover all the potentials.
I say no. Some then ask my age, tell me I’m still young and I have time. Thankfully.
They tell me they could line me up with someone. I laugh, and say sure, and then they send me a photo or a number or something. I ask a few questions and sometimes they change their mind and retract the offer. This could be because they realise that one of us could probably destabilise the other, or something like that.
Normally the people asking this question are my age or older, but I was surprised the other day when a member of the youth club I run asked me. Suddenly the tone was different, and the response too, obviously.
He said it was a private question and I didn’t have to answer if I didn’t want to. But I know teens hate being swatted away, and prefer to get the same honesty we demand from them, so I gave him a shorter version and age appropriate one of the below.
Get close, get hurt
Yes yes, we’ve all heard that old adage — better to have loved.. but we also know - easier said than done. At a maturing age, a small seed was planted in my head after a few rejections. Looking back, it could have been self preservation, but ultimately it was this teenage angst idea that I was better off alone, after all, what do relationships ever come to.
After this, I remained, to a certain degree, emotionally immature which showed itself during university. Whilst others were forming longer term relationships, it seemed to be back then that I lacked something to commit a bit more. I couldn’t put my finger on it then, and put it down to drunken incidents, plenty of random events and just being at that stage in my life.
However what is clear now, based on this piece, was that university was always a temporary thing in my mind, and not long term enough to want something to perhaps carry over past those years there. Summers were spent away from Liverpool, and so why would I…
