I was recently staying with my parents in the UK who were interested to know more about the man I had been seeing for the previous 5 months. I happily regaled them with whatever they wished to know and remember quite clearly one evening saying to them: ‘if this works out it would have been worth staying single for all these years as he’s great’. I think he broke it off a week later over Skype – life loves a bit of irony doesn’t she?

Apart from the usual discussion we had about why it wasn’t going to work (he hates his job and wants to move back to the states – fair enough) two things have stuck out about that afternoon and as the weeks go by it’s those things that have made me more and more irate; more so than being ditched. And those things are the following:

1. In my distress and disappointment I asked him what he thought I was doing wrong to still be single after all this time. He told me that living in HCMC wasn’t going to help (I would agree that living in an area with a small ex-pat community, a large number of male travellers just wanting a shag and a huge proportion of Vietnamese men who are approximately 3 foot smaller than my giant 5’8 proportions doesn’t bode well). He continued by saying that sleeping with someone too early wasn’t a good idea either. Sorry, what?
2. He is 30 and I am approaching 36. I was also told that he has time and he didn’t want to waste mine because (obviously) I am over the hump that is the grand old age of 35 hurtling towards middle aged 40 and my eggs are crying out for fertilising. Of course!

I suppose I ought to be comforted by the fact none of these things are actually about my personality, personal hygiene or intelligence…just plain old archaic and frankly irritating double standards and hypocrisy.

I find myself wondering as I wake up alone again as to when did my womb become an issue as to whether a man was willing to make a sacrifice and make the effort to try and stay with me or not?

Not to sound bitter but if Mother Nature had sat me down at the age of 18 and said the following I might have just given up before I began. I imagine the conversation would have gone something like this:

‘Now dear, here are the cards I intend to deal out. You will be on a long term relationship from 20-30 when everyone else is single and then be ditched just before you turn 30 when everyone else is starting to get engaged and/or buying a house together. This will be to free up time so you can then waste 3 years with a guy who cheats on you and likes to retain his powerful alpha male status by slapping your arse in public before you finally tell him to f-off and disappear to the Far East’. All this so that I can then be single for 3 years and ideally pretend I live in a nunnery and not have any sex during my self imposed years of singledom until some wonderful man decides that because I haven’t put out for a while I must be a decent sort that he shall date and not screw over? Brilliant.

Why is that when I met G and we slept together that night I didn’t judge him and was still happy to meet up again based on his personality but not so the other way around? He claimed that this wasn’t the case regarding ‘us’ but just from his experience back in Canada but he was still a ‘thing’ he brought up. We met randomly on a night out when I was feeling tiddly, reckless and just wanted some fun. How was I to know that we were going to hit it off? Who goes out on a night out, meets someone and takes time to think  ‘hmmmm….if I want this one to be my partner, I shall keep my french knickers on regardless of the fact I haven’t had any attention for months and feel like a wizened, invisible and ugly spinster most of the time while my coupled up partners get to have hugs, kisses and sex whenever and wherever they want. I know! I shall play the game and hopefully he will call me, date me and put me out of my misery?’ Maybe some people do but I thought the whole point of feminism was to give me a choice in the matter so that even if I wanted my cock and eat it, I could.

I was surprised and disappointed (again) recently to learn that a good male friend of mine whom I respect  (he is a very intelligent senior leader) who started seeing a woman a few months back felt that he went off his latest squeeze when they slept together on the first night…the chase was gone.

Seriously? Is this seriously something I have to think about? At the age of 36? In 2015? I still have to play stupid games to find a partner and deny myself basic human pleasures? For a while back there I decided to purposely not play games feeling that if a guy was like that he wasn’t the guy for me but as I enter my 3rd year as a singleton while all around me are seemingly engaged, pregnant or otherwise involved…I am starting to want to give up and just join in with the charade and be as false as the guys want me to be.

Just to add insult to injury, when G ditched me I decided that I was going to fulfil all those other ambitions I have seeing as clearly love in the family way just isn’t happening right now. I looked into MA’s and charitable organisations I would like to work for. I was met with websites that actually said  ‘open to all those who are aged 35 and under’. I could have cried. So men don’t want me because I am 36 and neither do the charities I want to work for. So my unused shrivelled up eggs and womb really do define who I am now and not my intelligence, work experience, determination…in fact all those other facets that make me who I am.

Why not tattoo across my forehead ‘I am 36 and past it – only those with children and/or aged 40+ may apply to be my partner; job optional’. Oh but I can’t because then I’d be accused of being a Feminazi or some other ridiculous term.

I’ll go now and hug my cat whilst tightening the screws on my chastity belt lest I remain forever the ‘spinster’.