‘Marriage, babies, love — I realised I want that too’

It was a significant week for general romantic seriousness among my circle.

Jo and her new man decided this was it; Hannah got engaged; Serena announced her pregnancy; my cousin and another friend are about to drop. Even my younger brother is looking at wedding venues. I’ve written a lot recently about being very happily single but it all made me feel quite — weird.

After all the congratulations, I felt kind of alone. Knowing with complete certainty that I didn’t want for myself just yet what they had didn’t help and I had to pep-talk myself, Ted Lasso-style. You have to really trust yourself to remain content single when everyone else is moving on; to buy tickets to a film with emptying stalls when there’s a queue out the door for another.

But sitting on Serena’s sofa the day she announced the baby and seeing the way Bob watched her as she told me about it, hearing how he went out to buy food for all her cravings, knowing their absolute commitment to a joint life, showed me I did want all that too. Because sometimes I wonder.

The shockwaves from the Russian invasion of Ukraine continue to ripple to our doorsteps and, as with the pandemic, those in couples cling to each other while the single wonder if a human anchor would be reassuring. People ask me all the time whether I am actually looking to meet someone by writing this — but let it be laid down that I am very, very interested in that.

After a bit of time off, the pianist I was cuffing with before Christmas called me. He had been fired. “I was thinking of changing my dating profiles to say, ‘Man with no job who lives in his car seeks girl with long legs and glasses’,” he said. I told him he’d probably get loads of matches because people would think he was joking. Last time we dated, he took me to a lido with a hot tub. “Lido?” he suggested. Here we go again?