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Claire Kenny
Features Writer
@my40pluslife
12:51 AM 27th November 2021
lifestyle

Finding A Partner? One Job's Enough Thanks

 
Image: Pexels
Image: Pexels
40+ blogger Claire Marie on why she’s freed herself from the work involved in meeting her 'Prince Charming'.

Apparently, there's been a significant piece of research about the odds of meeting someone, with over 88,000 participants. And the odds are unfavourable to say the least.

To be more specific, 1 in 562 if you let it happen 'the old fashioned way'.

But don't despair. Because if you talk to someone at the gym the odds shoot up by a whopping 15%! I don't know about you but I can barely breathe if I'm at a gym, let alone flirt.

40+ Blogger Claire Marie
40+ Blogger Claire Marie
There's a 16% if you go for after work drinks.

Getting introduced by friends of friends increases your odds by 4%. Or by family or friends it's 1%.

But the biggest increase - of 17% - is by signing up to dating apps (you can read how that experience went for me Are Dating Apps Crap? ).

Do you know how I felt after reading about this research? Knackered.

I mean, I have a full time job. I also have my blog, which I absolutely love, but rightly takes a lot of my time and energy as well.

Then there's exercising three times a week. Caring for my teenager and dog. Seeing my lovely family and friends, getting out and about, then relaxing in between because I deserve to do that too. These are the things I love, the things that give me life. Spending hours looking at pictures of random men I don't know gurning and answering inane questions on dating apps doesn't.

I honestly feel like the strategising, planning and mental effort we're told is now essential in order to meet a partner feels like another job. And not one I even enjoy. Yet there's so much pressure to prioritise it above everything else. There are multiple 'relationship experts' on social media who write chastisingly - and very patronisingly - about 'getting yourself out there', treating your quest to find a partner like a business strategy and contorting yourself into something completely alien to your true self to 'snare that man'.

No thanks love.

I genuinely enjoy being on my own, but I'd still love to meet someone at some point. I’d like to get married again one day. I’d like someone to order a takeaway with, or cook for. Or to just be my number one in life, and to have that reciprocated.

But I won't be treating every single time I leave the house to work out, shop, or walk my dog as a potential way to meet men. Because that's a surefire way to suck the joy right out of everything.

So what's my 'strategy'? Well, I don’t have one.

I'm freeing myself from 'the work'. I’m leaving it to fate, building a life that excites me rather than treading water waiting for someone else to.

Despite the rubbish odds.
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Claire can be found on Facebook and Instagram as My40pluslife.me