Choosing to live alone

Single occupier households. The largest growing group. To my younger self, and to an extent my current self this seems like an unhealthy trend. People are too selfish, damaged, frightened, antisocial, unlovable to share their home with another.

Yet this is the choice I am finally going to make.

And it has a lot (though not everything) to do with my ovaries. Up until 40 there was still a chance of starting a family with a man, now there is not. So unless a man brings me true delight, companionship, love and an acceptance of who I am and where I've been, there seems little reason to open my heart, home and bank balance to him.

I feel I have played my hand all wrong. My life has not been unhappy, and I look forward to the future. I imagine in my solo home I will surround myself with interesting friends, be involved in sport and other activities and live a happy and fulfilled life. However I do feel within me the stirrings of a post-feminist backlash. Whose little mocking voice says: "If you want to raise a family in a comfortable stress free environment, trade on your assets whilst you are young. Use your pretty face and narrow hips to snare the best prospect you can, snare him before he becomes a hardened bachelor, and put your enviable intelligence into supporting his career and raising your kids"

As I sat on the train on the way home I pondered my options. (1) Hook up with my ex (2) Go out there and find the devil I don't know (3) Have an FB

..and in all honesty option (3) is looking the most attractive. I don't want any more court battles. Both Neil and Simon are entirely impossible to live with and by extension probably so am I. And my little frying pan is undoubtedly surrounded by fire.