I’m single and I’m sick of my smug married friends treating me like a freak show. Maybe they could tell me about their thrilling sex lives…

I’m sitting around the table at my friend’s 30th birthday meal, with a group of women I know from school but haven’t seen in years.

We’ve discussed all the usual topics: work, family, vacations, and so on, when the conversation turns to dating.

Or should it be Mine to date. Because I’m the only single one in the group.

“How is Hinge, Sophie?” one of them asks with a lecherous grin. “Have you been on any funny dates lately?”

Immediately all eyes turn to me. There might as well be a spotlight hanging over my head and my name in neon lights as a ringmaster shouts, “Roll up, roll up, come and see the side-splitting bachelor Sophie!”

Of course, there’s something cathartic about sharing a terrible dating experience with friends. From the guy who made me watch his shitty electronic dance video in an otherwise quiet pub, to the Olly Murs wannabe, to the one who kept me up until 3am explaining how the pyramids were ‘planted on Earth by aliens’, the past Two years have been filled with many funny anecdotes, while at the age of 30 I am single for the first time since my late teens.

But while I love sharing my stories, I can’t help but feel a little annoyed when I’m wheeled out like some kind of freak show and expected to enjoy myself just because I happen to be the only one who isn’t married or is not married. a long relationship.

It’s reminiscent of Bridget Jones’ infamous dinner scene (my friends call me “a Northern Bridget Jones”), where the gathered “smug married people” ask her why there are so many unmarried women in their 30s. To which she replies, no doubt cut off from being patronized for the umpteenth time: “I don’t know – I guess it doesn’t help that our whole body is covered in scales under our clothes.”

It can often feel like coupled friends are trying to live vicariously through me. By encouraging me to send a risqué text or go on another date with a man I met on a dating app, they can enjoy the excitement of single life from the comfort of their relationship.

And that’s the point; there is no emotional danger for them. They may gasp in shock, or laugh at a funny story, while quietly feeling relieved that they are not in the same predicament.

Maybe it’s this power imbalance that makes the conversations unpleasant for me. Maybe I would be more willing to tell my ridiculous stories if they had similar missteps to share with me from their own relationships.

As I vaguely described a recent date that I enjoyed but wasn’t quite feeling the spark yet, I was pressed with follow-up questions, such as, “What was going on with him?” and ‘But have you slept together yet?’

I hadn’t spoken to this particular woman in almost a decade and would never have asked about her sex life with her husband – but since I’m single, no prying question is considered off limits.

There’s a part of me that understands. Two years ago, I was the person in a long-term, serious relationship who wanted to be regaled with the stories of my single friends who were (wisely) spending their twenties dating. I enjoyed hearing their funny stories.

Apart from a period of about nine months when I was 20, I was in two long-term relationships. The first was when I was seventeen and lasted three years; the second lasted almost seven years before we ended it in January 2022, just before my 28th birthday.

When I decided to start dating “properly” in September of that year, I thrived in my new role as a flirty, single friend. Because I come from a friendship group that tends to tear each other apart, I’ve never been afraid to be the butt of the joke, and I can laugh at myself and my own misfortune.

Flash forward 18 months, and telling stories about my dating life is starting to get a little tiring – not least because I often feel pressure to make a disastrous or disappointing date sound funny to save face.

I had a running joke about attracting “sad guys,” who first told me they were 100 percent over their ex, only to realize after a few dates with me that, as it turns out, they were still very confused are. love with her.

While this may say a lot about the unhinged, unhealed nature of the British thirty-somethings, I find myself making light of the fact that this was someone I was excited about before it all went pear-shaped.

Of course, rejection is an essential part of the dating experience – not everyone will like you, and vice versa – but that doesn’t make it any easier.

Maybe it’s because I’m a little older that it feels like an extra sensitive subject. I’m happy to be single and I’ve built a life so rich in other areas that most days I really feel like I’ve hit the jackpot.

But with four gorgeous weddings to attend this year, and a slew of engagement and baby announcements, that nagging feeling that I’ve done life ‘wrong’ by being in a relationship for most of my twenties, and now on my being single for the thirties is still there – especially after a bad date.

It’s not that I panic about getting married or having children. I’m not even sure I want both anymore. These were always two milestones that I saw very clearly in my future with my ex; but since ending the relationship, I have learned to ‘live in the moment’ and refuse to compromise my happiness just so I can be a mother. However, the social pressure to settle still weighs heavily.

It’s also no secret that the dating scene has become dire in recent years. According to a Forbes survey this month, 80 percent of online daters reported feeling “burnt out” from using the apps. I can’t help but agree with them, and the constant onslaught of strange and emotionally unavailable men has made dating more brutal than ever.

So maybe it’s time we give our single friends a little grace. My love life is only up for discussion if yours is too. Don’t want to share every sordid detail of your relationship or marriage? I don’t blame you. Instead, ask me about my travel plans, what I’ve been working on lately, that gig I went to that looked like a lot of fun — anything but boring, “hilarious” stories about my dating woes.