It’s raining single women

A string of unlikely happenings recently plunged me into this circle of ladies who call themselves the Big Four. (Scary huh? It now appears I transverse the deep end in my free time).

The first one has been divorced for three years now; she’s tall, beautiful, very smart and a lawyer. Status: Single.

The second one is vivacious, pretty, driven, confident, fierce, sells IT solutions. Status: Single. The third one – I don’t know much about her yet, only met her twice but she is sort of quiet and looks like those women who know a hell lot more than you do even on her slow day. Status: Now dating.

The last one is strikingly beautiful, enterprising, has a brilliant sense of humour and is eerily calm, like a crouching predator. Status: Estranged.

No decent guys

They are like the cast of Sex in the City; smart, learned, independent and know their whisky. They take luxury holidays alone. They fuss over their weight. Some walk from work. Or do morning runs. It’s not uncommon to find one of them wearing a calorie watch on, or whatever you call those watches that most women nowadays wear to show how many kilometres they have walked and how many calories they have burnt. They read a book a week. Gosh, I read one-and-a-half books a month and yet I call myself a writer. Their perfumes are stronger than my conscience. They remain stylish even if they say dismissively, “Oh, this is old thing?”

Single girls. And it’s just not them.

There are tons and tons of women like these who are single. Why the hell are there so many pretty, single women running around this town? Are men overwhelmed or is it because they are completely un-datable, or is it because men couldn’t be bothered to be in relationships? Are we all spoilt for choice or are these women single because they have higher expectations? Or maybe ours dropped?

Are they hoarding their chips at the gambling table?

I asked one of them – the vivacious IT solutions one, because she is hysterical – why she and her pals are single and she said it’s because she is done with mediocrity.

You hear that, single chaps? She is done with mediocrity. I asked her what the hell that meant and she run the gamut by me. These are the kind of guys they have to pick from, according to her.

The married chaps

(Yep, they never stop chasing even after they settle down). She says every other half-decent chap she meets is married. And they want in. She says the married ones are more attentive (you don’t say!) and are more charming. The single chaps, in comparison, are more arrogant and see no need to try because they have a hell of a lot of options. The single chaps want the women to kneel at their feet and say, “Oh ye great single one, I’m quite privileged to even know thee.”

The Old Money Bags

They want to take you to a bar where everyone wears a Stetson and order for samosas and boiled meat.

hen they want to show you off to their pals - all who have hats on. Money is not a problem. The problem is that they sometimes nod off while seated in a bar at 3pm. Naptime is naptime.

Jokers

This is a wide pool. You are a joker if you say, “I will call you Monday we plan where we will meet in the evening,” and then you call on Wednesday and say, “You have tupad me!”

You are a joker if you want to spend all your time in her house, eating her food, drinking her whisky and then borrow her car.

You are a joker if you don’t know or care what you want to do with your life five years from now. You are a joker if you are reading this and thinking, “Aki I forgot to call Stella.”

Hit-and-run Cassanova

These are guys who can’t spell ‘90-Day Rule’ (even if it is a stupid rule, if you ask me). Chaps who are relationship-phobic. They only want sex.

With you. And Miriam. And Lucy. And Farida. And Farida’s cousin. They are those guys whose shoes never ever gather dust, even if they were to walk through Dandora dumpsite.

They say the right things and they do the right things. Mothers love them. Dogs adore them. Then one day they are gone.

Mommy’s boys

These are chaps who refuse to grow up. They are in their mid-30s but still drink like they are in campus. Their mum’s still come to their place once a week to make sure there is food in the fridge. They can’t make a single decision without asking Mum what she thinks.

The Drunk

This is particularly worrying, they say. They moan that men are spending time in bars. That you take them to bars on first date, then on their birthday and any other day.

They say that we have prioritised booze over everything. That we are constantly drinking and when we aren’t drinking we are planning when to drink. And they are tired of it – so tired that given a choice between that and being single, they would rather be single.

You want to know what I think, though? I think that it is easy to sit in a drier and count the types of men who have contributed to your single-hood.

This is a move that any head-burying ostrich would applaud. I think these women, as they take time under these dryers, should consider that perhaps they also contribute to their status – that perhaps, if you find yourself single for most of the year, then surely it’s not the man with the problem. It just could be the girl under the dryer.