As the festive season draws near, I was distraught to find my mother slipping dating adverts for ‘Festive Dating’ under my bedroom door. As a 22 year old woman who has only just decided which path to enter for a full time career, I was left astonished and embarrassed that my mother actually thought it was an issue that i was single. I will be the first one to admit that coming from a family where all relatives have been married before the age of 21; it must be quite disturbing for her.
I have since pondered my situation and now thanks to that small gesture I have found myself paranoid i will now be alone, living by myself and possibly enduring a lifetime of lonely Christmas parties. 

I have had 2 serous relationships in my lifetime – one when I was 16 which lasts 3 years, and another which lasted 6 months. So i suppose you could say one actually, considering the second didn’t really make it that far. At university my sister met her husband, so did my cousin and so have the majority of my female friends who have paired up with my male friends, leaving me the single one out in the cold.

It’s hard to be positive this time of year, especially when the inevitable question crops up over Christmas lunch with your Nan; ‘So how’s your love life? Got a man?’ I have learnt to pre dig a hole before the massacre, falling into it with my sprouts and all. ‘You have not got long left you know!’.And that’s just it. When did being single at the age of 22 become a problem for the older generation?  My mother has assured me she is not putting her nose in, but leaving dating adverts as a remedy for an aching heart is surely not minding her own business.  It came to me the other day while analysing my situation that maybe, just maybe I am un-datable.

I find myself being the karaoke queen at Christmas do’s – work mates shocked to see the devil spawn that comes out after a few drinks. Those who came with partners were gripping to their arm indefinitely, while the men grinned and enjoyed my flirtatious behaviour. The next office party i was of course obliged to decline, which then left me out with the one single friend in my friendship group crying because she too felt the world would end if she didn’t find love this Christmas.

I have been single for over a year, and in that space of time I have had the odd fling but namely with the one person who un be known to them thinks it’s just a ‘laugh’. I instead wish to shout from the rooftops ‘I love you’. Being in a society today where men run miles upon miles from commitment I have learnt to keep quiet about my actual feelings, instead opting for ‘I love being single! Who wants a man anyway’? And that’s where I am wrong. I do want a man, preferably one who can put up with my hideous renditions of ‘All I Want For Christmas ‘ by Mariah, and who is not going to run away when the slightest inch of commitment rustles his feathers.

I find myself filling these voids with Vodka, and let’s be honest here, a woman necking back neat paint stripper while chanting ‘I don’t need a man to make me feel good’ isn’t the right way about it. So maybe this Christmas my mum is right. I should avoid the usual hangouts, nurse a mauled wine instead of double vodka and try out this ‘Festive Dating’. Who knows? I could find what I have been looking for.