Singletons, finding a boyfriend is easy

No other species on earth would lie down and take the amount of pitying, patronising rubbish directed at single women.

More to the point, no other species would swallow the stuff that's spoken, filmed and written about them. The latest offering is the American writer Laura Doyle's self-help book, The Surrendered Single, which recommends adopting a doormat-like, submissive stance at all times in order to get your man.

In the five years since 1997, when Bridget Jones first burst onto the scene, single women all over London have started to think of themselves as tragic statistics, doomed for ever to remain pitifully single, their poor old biological clocks ticking away, their fertility in terminal decline. I have friends in their early thirties who have taken to gazing ruefully into the middle distance, rocking like bears in zoos and saying: "I'm coming to terms with the idea that I may never have children," as though they were 92, gaga, and smelled faintly of wee.

It's ludicrous, when you stop to think about it, because the problem is actually non-existent - a fact grasped by our country cousins, rarely short of a suitor or two even if they live in a village the size of Highbury Corner. But the single urban girl - and I'd say it's more of a southern than a northern problem - still can't get her head around the simple fact that getting a boyfriend is about as difficult as scoring some iced buns at Sainsbury's on a Sunday morning: all you need to do is get out there.

I have never had any trouble acquiring boyfriends, from the age of about 12 upwards - me, not them. I don't say this in a trumpetytrumpety, fabulous-me kind of way, but rather to prove that if I can do it, so, frankly, can anyone. I'm 36, a size 16 on a good day, I wear really unattractive pants-of-steel-type underwear - mmm, foxy - and I'm also the divorced mother of two children, which is theoretically the biggest turn-off of all. Judging by the papers, magazines and books I read, I should have applied to the nunnery years ago.

Back in the real world, a mere twoanda-half months elapsed between my husband and I separating and me meeting my current partner. I don't think boyfriend-acquiring ease occurs because I am a wonderful human being or a sizzling foxtrel. It occurs because I don't see why it shouldn't. It's a question of attitude.

But are London girls getting out there and seeking lovers, like normal human beings? No, they are not. If you want a job, you go out and look for one: you don't expect the job to fall into your neurotic, tear-stained lap. If you want a new sofa, you go and check out some sofa shops: you don't roam about looking grumpy and boring your friends to death by bleating about how your ideal sofa has yet again failed magically to materialise overnight. Ergo, if you want a new boyfriend, you put on some lipstick, go to places where there are men (eg anywhere except a lesbian bar), and you make an effort. It's hardly rocket science. Yet many women still believe their own atrocious press, and skulk about at home with their horrible cats, crying into their lowcal meals for one and obsessively waxing their body hair, just in case.

Where have these women come from? They didn't exist 10 years ago, when I was 26: back then, having a boyfriend wasn't the be-all and endall, but rather the cherry on the cake of your nice life. Today, a nice life counts for nothing at all if there isn't a man in it, which is really pretty disgraceful. The species mushroomed horribly as a direct consequence of believing that, since Bridget Jones was demonstrably funny and charming, it would be a really terrific idea to emulate her.

And now, poor saps, they are her, except mad as rattlesnakes and without the jokes.

On top of that, they are all unbelievably picky. One friend of mine has been single for three years and it doesn't seem to have occurred to her that perhaps she might be rather more successful if she widened her net a wee bit: at the moment, she will only consider dating, in this order, 1) actors, 2) artists, 3) successful writers. This is because my friend finds herself "creative" and sees no point, having wasted three years already (she has no body hair left at all) in compromising her creativity with someone who doesn't share her interest in "the arts". I also have a girlfriend who absolutely point-blank refuses to date anyone who isn't over 6ft 1in, dark-haired and blue-eyed, on the puerile basis that this, and nothing else, is her "type".

Enough, already. Women of London, get a grip! Cheer yourselves up by logging on to the oddly addictive website match.com and checking out the hundreds and hundreds of men in the capital who are even more desperate than you and, as a rule (though, naturally, it's not a toad-free zone), are perfectly presentable, articulate and non-loony seeming. Then go out into the big, wide world with your eyes open, have a good look around, and take your pick. Yes, just like that. Go on. You have nothing to lose but your cats.

? India Knight's new novel, Don't You Want Me?, is published by Penguin this week, £6.99.