I'm puttin' on the shades to cover up my eyes

On ridin' solo and relationship privilege

There is a wealth disparity between those in relationships and those who are single. I know relationships have their own problems. Life is not always rosy — the grass is greener on the side of the fence where the sheep are tied together, sure.

London rentals. Wedding attendance. Flat renovation. It all adds up when you don’t have someone to split the bill with. Trust me. Last year, the film of my summer would have been called ‘Four Weddings and an Overdraft’. Yet, when I say wealth, I am not solely talking about monetary disparity. Yes, the financial gap does exist but I am talking about emotional wealth. There is a confetti-showering of anxiety; speech-worthy amounts of logistical planning that come with riding solo and making life decisions alone. As a solo party (it’s not really a party if there’s only one of you is it?) you’re constantly balancing if you’d like to be uncomfortable or be out of pocket. The answer is: you will probably be both.

This week, on my way back to Italy after celebrating a hen weekend in London, I navigated a terrible Italian car hire experience on my own. The queue was huge, there were arguments kicking off in the office with every customer, I worried about being scammed at a later date as they attempted to upsell me insurance that cost more than the car hire itself (when I had pre-paid for insurance at booking). I felt anxious. I navigated it with composure. I found another female solo traveller and we helped each other out. I felt proud of myself. I felt independent. Then, when I got in the car, facing a near two hour drive alone after a long day after a delayed flight, the navigation system didn’t work and the charging cable was the wrong type of USB. My phone was low on battery after all the Ryanair-standard impediments so I made it back in the dark, using only my intuition and Italy’s badly placed road signs. My cortisol spiked during the drive. I panicked I’d get lost forever, never to be seen again. I didn’t. I’m here writing this now. Go me.

When I arrived at the house in one piece, I wanted to celebrate. I felt brave. I felt like an independent woman who didn’t need no man but my God, did I want one. Have you ever noticed that the lyrics to Independent Women, Part 1 go: ‘I pay my own fun and I pay my own bills, always 50/50 in relationships’? Destiny’s Child are a beacon for financial independence but it doesn’t say anywhere in the song that you’re expected to stand without water, in the heat for thirty-five minutes, negotiate your way out of a late pick-up time fine because of your flight delay in your best pigeon Italian, all while a bunch of sweaty, angry, hot and bothered Brits shout down the phone behind you about the ‘utter chaos’ going on Surprice Car Rental Pisa totally on your own.

After my debacle, I wanted to laugh in the face of car hire adversity and relish in the brilliance of life’s adventures with someone else. I didn’t. I cried in bed that night instead. I sent a message to my mum who replied ‘Glad you’re back. All good stories for your writing.’ She’s right. But, I’d like to add that despite being Italian herself, she had never driven a car in Italy until she was forty-two and even then, she’s never done it without a passenger next to her in the car. So really, she can’t offer much solace here.

I am courageous enough to travel solo; I am privileged enough to be able to afford to. Some don’t feel brave enough and I don’t blame them; some are not financially independent enough and I am not surprised. Travelling alone can be expensive and it is not always relaxing.

Solo travel, to me, is freeing: you are in control of your own agenda; a book is a great companion; you can quite literally become the flaneur of your own holiday-based destiny, aimlessly wandering but never feeling aimless. There are so many more hours in a day alone. You can sip in the delicacies, whiling away hours people watching and reading. You can always get a table, even when the restaurant is busy. You are more likely to meet people. Last year, solo in Verona, I spotted the girls who were sat next to me on the plane out at the same restaurant on my first night. I went over and introduced myself and we ended up travelling to Lake Garda together the next day. This would not have happened had I been travelling with someone else.

What you can’t do is when travelling solo is: go to the late night bar without pre-reviewing how you’ll get home; (definitely not as a woman, anyway); lie on your front because (there’s nobody to suncream your back); have the restaurant’s speciality dish (it’s always two-person minimum requirement). Generally you will struggle to laugh as easily in the moment whenever anything goes wrong because the onus is all on you. You are driver, navigator, DJ. You are agenda creator, cook, cleaner, grocery-purchaser. It’s empowering, but it is also lonely. Solo travel gives us many things, but it also takes a lot from us.

I have single friends who have renovated whole houses alone. They have friends who support, who sit ready to respond in the Farrow-and-Ball-Fan-Club Whatsapp group, re-assuring them Borrowed Light is a better choice than Cabbage White for their blue-hued kitchen units, sharing their progress updates. But, reassurance seeking is a further bit of admin on top of their already draining solo-pursuit. It’s not a conversation with a lemon and ginger tea on a Sunday morning as the light changes about which shade they should choose. It is them, alone, making decisions without consultation or taking pictures and sending to their friends and awaiting a response. Albeit small, there is an active element to single life decisions that don’t have to exist in relationships. Relationships are given the affordance of passivity. Of course for singletons, there is the avoidance of arguments due to misalignment in taste but isn’t that also all part of life’s tapestry? Recently, I’ve been feeling like perhaps it’s something that might be semi-enjoyable. I am pretty good at arguments. (My exes might not agree).

When I was under-going fertility treatment, many women I knew in relationships joked about the way they were freaking out at the injection stage when we discussed our experiences:

‘I don’t know how you did it! I am just too scared!’

‘I would never be able to inject! I would have to get Mark to do it for me’

‘Charlie has been great. He’s really been there for me every night helping me with the injections.’

‘My hubby grabbed the champagne cooler from the freezer the other night for my tummy pain and we turned it into a bit of a fun, which helped.’

This made me feel even more isolated, livid. Why was I was having to do this solo? What did I do? I got on with it. No games. No hubby. (The only game I played was allowing myself a square of kinder bueno after each nightly shot and I vow when I eventually get married, I will never so much as even utter such horrendous term for my spouse). During my two-rounds of treatment, my female friends showed up in more ways than I could have imagined. No love-laden stone left unturned. From flowers to voice notes, cook-books and thoughtful gifts or planning wholesome activities as a welcome distraction, I felt loved, supported and championed. However, when I look at the group who did show up for me, it isn’t a surprise that eighty-percent of them are single or have spent large period of their time on this earth with single status. These girls know.

They know what it felt like to go to bed alone with my own thoughts every night. They know how much courage it took to go to every appointment and advocate for myself alone. They know how I might have felt every time I wondered if it was the right thing to do, to question what this was all for without someone there as a regular live-in soundboard. I am lucky there were always people there to support me but often, I had to actively message someone and let them know: ‘Hey, I’m struggling with this right now and I need help.’ There is an encumbrance that comes with that. The same cannot always be said for those in relationships who can recount their concerns as pillow talk.

Those in relationships, particularly those who have been in them from a young age, often forget that being single is exhausting. I am not talking about the actual admin involved with finding love: setting up a dating app, sparking conversation with strangers in a bar, shamelessly plugging friends for set ups. I am not referring to the digital wasteland of online dating: messaging to no response, sifting through twenty identical looking profiles and getting dressed up to meet a man you realise you don’t fancy at all within the first twenty seconds because he looks like the one unattractive picture on his profile. These things are all draining but this is not the worst of it.

I am also not talking single day to day existence; that actually has some benefits. I am very happy sitting in my flat watching Netflix; it’s refreshing to be able to choose exactly what I want to watch. It’s lovely to cook for someone so I host regularly for my good friends. I enjoy taking myself out for dinner; the company of a book is sometimes all I need. Occasionally, I think it would be nice to have physical touch but then remember, I own a very good vibrator with eleven settings.

What I am talking about, what makes me angry and frustrated to my core is the unrelenting solitude in the highs and lows, the decision fatigue that comes with a life of singledom and the lack of someone to report back your experiences when these events happen. Really, what I hate most is that those in relationships don’t appear to see this part of the single struggle.

Sometimes I feel angry that others get to go through life with this unrelenting relationship bulwark whereas I am constantly left to figure it out for myself. I am so grateful to be on this earth. I love my life. I don’t hate myself (not most of the time, anyway). I have a loving family and great friends. I am a very self-content, self-aware, self-assured human being but being single still gets to me. This is not intended to be a woe-is-me-sob-story. I am aware that a minor car hire drama does not a trauma make. I am privileged to be able to travel alone. I do not wish for your pity.

In fact, pity is the the worst part about being single in your thirties. Pity is degrading. Pity is pessimism; it makes you think people have actually given up hope on your behalf. It implies their assumption that your life really is sad and boring. They stand, looking over from their newly-purchased property sidelines, eyes brimming with sadness for you. Please don’t assume my sorrow. I am not always miserable but I am often tired.

Couples will say:

‘Ow, man. Poor you. Dating is hard.’

Then choose to spend their Bank Holiday weekend together in the garden, not thinking that for the single friend in their thirties a ‘brat girl’ night out is the last thing she actually wants to do. (Actually we’d love help picking some new flowers for our balcony at the garden centre).

Couples will ask you about your dating life and assure you based on absolutely zero facts that you’ll find someone, you’re wonderful and there are plenty of fish in the sea:

‘I just cannot understand how YOU’RE single’

Then, totally forget to consider what it might take for you to arrive at their wedding on your own. (Actually, we’d love for you to set us up with a warm, kind member of the same sex to alleviate some tension at the drinks reception; to give us their Whatsapp in advance so we have someone to chat to and hunt for canapés rather than suggesting that we could share a lift with the Groom’s only single friend that goes by the name ‘Looter’).

Girlfriends will come through with an out-of-the-blue brunch invite. You’re thrilled. You say you’d love to catch up; it’s been so long. Then, as you sit down and tuck into your corn fritters:

‘Oh, my hubby is away on a stag this weekend’

You realise they’ve only selected you because they have no idea what to do with themselves for the one weekend their other half is away. (Actually, we’d love for them to let us know this in advance, to be transparent, and to acknowledge that that this is what our life looks like every weekend and they don’t know if they could handle the same).

Singletons don’t need your pity, we need your active understanding of the decision fatigue, the bravery and courage it takes to put ourselves out there every single time we leave the house, create our homes, make plans with others, open ourselves up to the esteem-shattering dating app world, to choose to travel alone or make big life decisions in our careers. We need you to say: ‘how are you feeling about this thing in your life?’; not ‘are you actually looking to date anyone at the moment?’

The wealth gap for singletons may require an interest-free credit card but single people often pay a higher tax in that they face the harsh reality of life more regularly. Those in relationships have a level of cushioning for the good and the bad. They have a constant mediator, a regular second opinion. They can share the stress between themselves, tackling problems with their complimentary skill sets. But most importantly, they have someone to laugh in the face of car hire adversity with and help them drive their life forwards with all the ease of automatic transmission.

We need you see that we don’t always have an active choice in who we meet, that we are trying (trust me, we are trying) but we are exhausted by the distance technology has brought to us all in creating new human connection. We need to you realise that we don’t take companionship for granted and nor should you. We need you to understand the societal privilege that comes with being in a relationship.