BY JON ALEXANDER

Yes, I’m single, and it’s great! I genuinely don’t mind it and my life is perfectly fine without a partner in it. Yet confess to someone that is in a relationship that you’re single and you get those pity eyes, maybe even a pat on the hand or shoulder and those everlastingly patronising words “don’t worry, you’ll meet someone one day” –  Aaahhhh!

I wouldn’t mind but the main people who say that are probably the worst advertisements for a relationship I could ever imagine, people who spend all day everyday complaining about their other halves or worse, the overly cutesy couple that can’t keep their hands off each other in public.  The ones I dread are the latter, I always fear that one day I’ll witness the conception of their first child as they forget I am there.

I don’t understand this obsession with being in a relationship, as though it defines us all. Don’t get me wrong. Sometimes I do wonder (after all it’s been quite a while since I was last in one) what it would be like again but life’s too short to worry about these things. I have a fulfilling life with family and friends, I have a demanding job that takes up a lot of my time and I have my own little projects (such as this one) and most of the time I don’t even notice.

I think I’m a pretty confident person so it came as a surprise that a friend recently seemed upset on my behalf when they asked me what three things I wanted over the next few years and a boyfriend wasn’t in the top three…you’d think I’d confessed to being Fred and Rose West’s accomplice.

I never make plans or assume I’m going to be in a relationship. Apparently, that’s rather “sad”.  I call it being realistic. Why plan for something that may never happen?

However, on the other hand am I just denying it bothers me (another question posed to me)?

I don’t think so.  All my friends will confess to never having had that drunken conversation/cry-a-thon over a guy.  I’ve never blubbed into a bucket of ice cream wondering why I’m single. I’m sure people could rattle off a list, I’d probably be able to compose one in a few minutes myself but I don’t plan to change and I don’t expect anyone to change to fit around me either, so this stalemate will probably endure until I’m 100!

Then again, maybe a rich, handsome, chisel-jawed stud is right around the corner…I think I’ve got more chance of winning ‘Mr Gay UK’. I wonder if society will ever accept that some of us can actually survive perfectly well on our own and still be fully functional?