State We're In Read Online Free PDF

grief or remorse, which are the emotions that haunt me. She most certainly does not think of her life as one long corridor of closed doors – marked
Missed Opportunities
,
Regrets
and
Lost Chances
– along which she dawdles aimlessly. I feel as though I’ve wandered up and down that particular corridor, alone, for ages now. I can’t explain it to her. It’s too harsh. It’s too humiliating.
    She doesn’t think I’m due any sympathy, because I threw over Martin. I dumped him. But honestly, sometimes that makes things harder, not easier. The regret is sharper, more poignant. I messed up. He was a great guy. Marrying material. The sort of man women want to marry. Should marry. I see that now. All my friends are married or living with someone, and once they have settled partners they’re no longer interested in coming out and meeting new people. (Oh OK, what I’m talking about specifically here is coming out to meet new men
–
obviously.) My horizons are narrowing. When I was younger, I used to meet new people by the dozen, every week: at uni, in bars, in nightclubs and then at work. As the years have passed, opportunities have diminished. My friends from uni are now far-flung and most of them are happily coupled off and wouldn’t dream of going on a pub crawl and chatting to total strangers like we once did. I can hardly go to bars on my tod, and I could never go to a nightclub now, even with a battalion of supporters; those places are frequented by women who are literally young enough to be my daughters. I’d have to fight the urge to encourage them to wear a coat or button up their tops to cover up their smooth, plump skin. The biggest irony is that I work for a bridal magazine, which besides being a constant taunt is, as you might guess, an entirely male-free zone.
    I have tried to find other places to meet people, I really have. I am not a quitter. I’m a member of a gym, I’ve joined a night class to study French (as everyone knows it’s a very sexy language) and I go to a salsa club to practise flirting, every other Tuesday at the town hall in Wimbledon. Afterwards I stay at my parents’ house. I know a sleepover at the parental home probably does reduce my chance of wild nights of passion, but my mum makes unparalleled lasagne and it’s hard to resist. I have made some new friends through these channels, but no men friends, no
single
men friends, which is the aim; the classes are largely populated by other women who are also looking for romantic leads. While I’m quite good at making new friends and these women are smiley and usually up for a glass of Bordeaux or a margarita after the class, it seems my new friends are invariably more adept at finding life partners than I am. They keep getting married. One after another. Hence the obscene number of wedding invites I receive.
    These other women make looking for love seem so easy. It appears to be the case that no sooner have they decided they are ready to settle down than they do exactly that. Then, inevitably, a ritual is observed. Initially the newly-weds invite me to join them on double dates or they set me up on blind dates with their friends and colleagues, but for one reason or another, I’ve never stumbled upon my soulmate, and while I maintain the friendship with the new bride, the invites for double dates eventually dry up. We settle into girl-only evenings, where we spend the night picking over my disastrous dates, and when that’s just too depressing, we pick out kitchenware for their new homes.
    What is wrong with me?
    I have a good sense of humour (it says so on all my singles profiles but it is also true). I’m generally caring, thoughtful, sympathetic, and I’m known to be generous. I’m fun, I think, as far as anyone can ever judge this about themselves. I know I’m lucky to have a number of interesting, amusing and committed friends – friends I’ve