I got better at convincingly playing aloof, but felt increasingly wrecked by the pressure to settle down. My self-esteem hit incredible lows. I went to unreasonable lengths to try and look “prettier”. I beat myself to death about my acne and saw three top-of-the-line, expensive dermatologists in a single month. I joined a gym and was much harder on my body than my doctors advised. I developed an unhealthy relationship with my arthritis, convinced it made me an imperfect bride.



At times, I resented and envied my married friends for having found the anchor I hadn’t. I spent several sleepless nights weeping that nothing was going according to plan.

All this coupling up had an unforeseen effect on my social life. My friends had much less free time, and in what was left of it, they now socialised by default in twos. (Though most of them still go out of their way to accommodate me and my tribe, and make it look absolutely effortless if we were to spend all weekend lying around in their house like furniture.)

I love my friends’ partners – and I am now in much thicker friendships with some of my friends’ spouses than with them – but I miss having relationships with people, rather than with couples. For instance, it took me a while to get used to my friends, individual human beings, always speaking for a duo. “Oh, we still need to catch up on Oscar movies”, “We haven’t tried that new sushi place yet”, and “Let me see if we’re free that night”.

As our wedded friends became less available, all of us remaining singles began gravitating toward one another. We may only have been acquaintances a year or two ago – familiar faces from campus, colleagues who were always cordial, neighbours whose names I didn’t know – but what binds us together now is familiarity with the fleeting but deep flashes of loneliness that emerge from being, living, staying, and especially sleeping alone. We turn up the volume on books, TV shows, films, hobbies, food, work, and record these songs over our lives’ unexpectedly blank tapes.