It's not hopeless... I hope!

Evaluation options oportunity
Under the kissing plant!

So one of your  New Year’s resolutions is to find yourself a relationship that works well for you. But where do you start?


We find ourselves deep in the party season, when even those who are antisocial the rest of the year feel obliged to enter the fray. Now, if at no other moment, one is compelled to meet people, commune, converse – meaning the suggestion of sex hovers alluringly in the air as surely as you are beathing. Christmas is a time for encounters: social, sexual, romantic.

And I know of what I speak. A few Years ago, I met someone at a Christmas party and we lasted 2 years together, after years of living the solo life, including writing blogs about being single,  I then found myself thinking about committing again. I still think of myself  as temporarily single. I guess!

‘How,’ people constantly ask me, ‘did you pull it off?’ – given that I defied conventional platitudes by relishing my lone life, having a ball now and then, not being particularly bent on it ending, then meeting  many perfectly charming women ....seeking love, that other men might refer to as the perfect ‘illusions’, or ‘dreams’. If  you see dating as the process of "evaluation," then it's easier to make the choices. Others might say dating is the process of "illimination..." I disagree, simply because "evalution" means that there is a possibility... that you might make a connection.  While " illimination" implies less to no chance of possibilities of making a connection with someone.


In my mind, the answer is not luck (when you find someONE who just feels right, but by avoiding these platitudes in the first place. Smug I most certainly am not. My single life could end tomorrow, and I hope I would embrace my new circumstances with the gusto I’m recommending. Neither do I believe that coupledom is for everyone. Cue my first tip…

Work out whether finding someone is what you actually want.

It’s not always self-evident, that single means "lonely" or in a relationship means "happy."A lot of people assume that, merely because they are single, you must thus desire a partner. However, the message of their behaviour may be entirely the opposite. A friend once informed me that I was ‘ideologically single’ – and she was right. My relationship status wasn’t going to change until this did.

Relationships are hard work – a different sort of hard work to keeping the show on the road..... There can be an ease to single living: a briskness and knowing where one is with it. And, despite their ability to act as a salvation to loneliness, one is never more lonely than in a difficult, or failing, relationship. I know this because I've not always been single my status is listed as "divorced " which means I have experienced coupledom.

There are many ways of having love, companionship, and/or sex in your life, and different approaches may be appropriate to different stages of that existence. Consider whether it is a partner that you want, and – if it is – act on it.

Cultivate a dazzling social life!

Go through the process of evaluation
instead of illimination!

This one’s a no-brainer, whether you are determined to stay solo or become conjoined twins . If you’re single, your social life  is your life; if seeking a relationship, then socialising will be the only means of achieving it. In either case, new blood  encounters is all that you need. Plus, it can be terrific fun.

The majority of my closest alliances were forged when  I became single and I would take a bullet for each and every one of those friends. (I'm being dramatic here) They are far more involved in my life than friends of yesteryears; what a pal refers to as ‘heritage friends’ (like ‘heritage tomatoes’, only frequently  less palatable).



A lawyer I know, who has been unhappily single for  about 12 years, invariably barks, ‘I don’t need new friends. I have enough friends. What I need is a boyfriend,’ then wonders why she never meets someone new, while spending her time hanging about with the same two friends from her university days. Hmmm!

The 'One,' or even merely A.N. Other (place holder), is not going to appear on your doorstep by way of some benevolent deus ex machina. You’re going to have to put the work in: meet people, risk vulnerability, put yourself out there. Falling back on the argument that  you ‘never meet anyone’ means you have only yourself to blame. What are you doing about it? Now? Tonight?

I get it. I’m kind of a (closet) introvert myself,  but even introverts tend to want to have  human encounters. Take some responsibility, and get off your butt, and meet people.

Embrace change!

Not only do you have to work at it, you also have to work on yourself – as we all do, single or enmeshed, at every stage in your life.