Every month balanceLife’s
very own single girl about
town will be discussing the
loves, laughs and mishaps of modern dating!

My single life is quite simple and I like to keep it that way. I have a job which takes up all my time and is extremely rewarding and if I did meet that someone special it would just be a ‘fly in the ointment’ of life. At the moment I can stay late at work to get the job done without having to call home to explain. I can get home after 10pm and have a TV dinner or beans on toast without having to think of anyone else. I can stay at my friend's house and fall asleep on their sofa if I like and I can leave the washing up until the next day if I so wish. In short, I am too selfish for a relationship.

I have a lovely little flat with white washed walls and pictures of my travels emblazoned across them on canvases. I have trinkets and knick-knacks picked up from my travels to different parts of the world strewn on my window sills and hanging from the bed post. I have a haberdashery dummy in my bedroom that I use as a clothes horse and I utilise the under stairs cupboard as a double-decker shoe rack. My bathroom is always clean so I can take a bath without washing it round first and I sometimes remove the batteries from my smoke detector so I can light candles in the living room and joss sticks in the hall. I have a fold out futon in the living room with my beloved old quilt tucked behind it to pull over me when I’m watching an old black and white movie. The DVD player holds a very old Billy Blank’s DVD which I exercise to after I get home from work and on Saturday mornings. My cotton pyjamas are slightly ripped under the arm but I don’t want to get rid of them because they are so comfortable. To add a man into this harmonised, personal space would be an invasion of trainers, mud, dance music and man flu.

I have a small garden and when I moved in last year I realised mowing the lawn was one chore too many so I had a ‘garden party’ where my friends and I turned over the entire lawn and I sprinkled forget-me-not, poppy, nigella, primrose and sunflower seeds into the earth in an effort to create my own cottage garden. It’s been a partial success (some sunshine would have helped the sun flowers.) I know any man coming into my life would want my sweet, low maintenance cottage garden flattened for a football pitch, barbecue area or some other such monstrosity. I am happy with a small patio and a table with four chairs where my girlfriends and I can eat, drink and laugh. I have a small charcoal barbecue and I do all the cooking – do you think any man would stand for that?

People have different opinions about me being single and it used to annoy me that friends tried pairing me up with other single people. I have been single for four years and my parents have given up on grand children and my boss no longer looks at me in panic if I say I’m feeling a bit queasy at work. One of my best friends is desperate to have me fall in love but spends Friday nights at my flat complaining about her boyfriend! Other friends love my individuality but warn me not to become too stuck in my routine or I will stay single forever. Sometimes I quite like that idea!

I do enjoy male company and in the future I’m not ruling out love, children, getting old together or any of that jazz, but for the time being I am happy just being single. I think I will know instinctively when the time is right for me to pack up my chintz cushions and make room for a leather sofa and when I do feel like giving up some of my own space to embrace someone else, they will have to be someone with as little baggage as possible because I’m not giving up my under stairs shoe storage for anyone!