UK Agony Aunt and Life Coach (lordy I’m glad she’s not coaching me!), Dr Pam Spur has published an article in the Daily Mail declaring all women who are single and over 30 are miserable and also liars if they claim to be otherwise. She writes:
“…do you believe any single woman over 30 is being honest when she claims to be happy that way? I don’t.
What’s really going on behind that confident demeanour and fulfilled exterior is crushing loneliness and desperation.
Single women become adept at playing the isn’t-life-grand game.
They have to do it around men so they don’t appear desperate.”
Slamming as ‘tosh’ reports about the rise of the ‘freemale’ (single women who are happy and earning their own money) Dr Spur insists it’s a myth that women want to be without a man.
“Yes, outwardly women in 2008 are supposed to aspire to careers and
self-fulfilment, but inwardly they also long to satisfy an urge that’s
been around as long as humankind: to connect with a partner – and if
their biological clock is ticking – to fulfil it and produce children
together.It’s absolute tosh to think it’s any other way. The human species would die out if this weren’t the case.
Yes, career, independence and self-fulfilment are important, but ideally they can be found in balance with a relationship.
By
far the majority of single women I speak to would give up a high-flying
career in a flash in exchange for life with a good man.Once
you’ve sat on that proverbial shelf for a while, the relationships that
many such women left behind in their 20s seem, in retrospect, like a
golden era in their life.”
You can read the whole thing here….
Why oh why do we have to make these kinds of sweeping generalisations about women? Why does it have to be a one size fits all approach to being single? It’s perfectly legitimate to want to find your soulmate or even just someone to hang out with. It’s equally legit to feel happy without a ring or a defacto or a significant other. And it’s legit for the same woman to feel both those things at different times, or even at the same time.
What’s not legit? Insulting all single women by lumping them together like a herd of emotional sheep.
Top Comments
New Flash girls, married women can be lonely too.
Since I have been married I have been constantly put down by my husband as never good enough, worthless, and the classic "what do you do all day?"
Sorry to say, but marriage is not the happily ever after we always thought it was. Furthermore, I am so fed up with hearing from everybody that I lead a life of leisure for deciding to stay home and bring up my two small children.
And yes, I do envy my single friends who have so much disposable income, when I have none. And I envy them for all that free time, when I can't ever find a babysitter just so I can go to the gym. Forget any kind of social life.
So when a lady tells me she is single I always say "Good for you!"
Yes, the sweeping generalisation isn't fair at all. We tend to pigeon-hole people and relationships, and I know some women who really ARE happy being alone (notice how the word "alone" now conjures up feelings of pity? Social conditioning) . I agree with Mel though that on some instinctive level (we aren't that different from the rest of the animal kingdom, as much as we like to think so) most of us want to find a mate by that age. But life is such a grand, huge thing and there are hundreds of different aspects and facets that give us happiness. On some level I think everyone has needs that aren't being fulfilled, and that's ok! I know plenty of men who also want to find a life-partner. Remember, it's not just women who may feel this way.