Books for those alone at midlife- eg by Donna Ward

[AuroraSky]

I have the very good fortune of being assigned some time with support workers each week (I do help pay for the cost which is fair enough) and this gives me a chance to talk about whatever's on my mind. I enjoy upbeat chitchat about this and that with whoever is assigned that day, but I haven't figured out a way to talk about being middle-aged, single and staying that way, and not really having too many in-person friends (though I have good people in touch with me by text/ e-mail/ voice chat).

Once in a while I do find something like a memoir or a travel journal where I can relate to the author and they express both the many advantages but also some disadvantages of the solo life, without self-pity. One is "Living Alone and Loving It" by Jane Mathews, which I like on Audible.com . I think I have found another good one, which maybe focuses more on pressures unique to involuntary single and involuntary childless women. Just sharing it as a resource (the vimeo link at the end give a lot of good free content, no need to buy the book).

If anyone can recommend me anything else to read, either a book or an article or an online community or even a podcast, that would be great


https://gateway-women.com/never-marr...visible-story/


The first chapter is here, it seems to be available on Kindle right now but not in paperback in the UK til November - I treated myself to ordering from Book Depository which has free worldwide shipping from Australia to get a copy sooner. A little article is tiding me over til it arrives :-

https://www.artshub.com.au/news-arti...g-alone-260240

There was also a good group panel even about single women to celebrate the US release of the book, it's about an hour long :-

[Dougella]

^ People who are married do not necessarily have an active sex life, or one at all!

[AuroraSky]

Thanks both for your good points. I can imagine social media might come into how feel about their current situations, even if they had good situations in the past. I literally have 8 or 9 Facebook contacts and 3 Instagram ones. If I had many previous friends on social media now excitedly sharing photos of new children or grandchildren maybe that would be painful (though I was never sure I was qualified to be a good dad so it was less of a dream for me). Likewise, I know such few people no one is really prying into my private life. If I wanted to watch four hours of Tour De France or four hours of tennis there would be no one judging me or saying I should "put myself out there". The only trouble is that if I did put myself into new social situations like new support groups, I might have to deal with questions from people trying to get to know me better and I would be uncertain what to disclose (for example, not everyone has our best interests at heart and saying I lived alone or the difficulties I found with that is potentially risky, as it's highlighting my status as a vulnerable person. That seems to be more an issue in person/ locally than with an online friend who could be 300 miles away).

[Moksha]

Interesting thread NFL. I can't think of any books I'm afraid. Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf is the only thing that springs to mind.

I'm also in midlife now (44, single and childless). But I can sense a change coming. Until very recently, single, childless people were looked at with suspicion. If you were a woman, it was "ah, poor, girl, left on the shelf, never met the one", etc, and if you were a man, well, you were sinister - either a sex addict or a closet homosexual or just very selfish and unpleasant. In the last ten years or so that has really changed. I know a girl in her late 30s who has never even had a boyfriend. I assume she's a virgin, though perhaps not (none of my business). Yet she's incredibly sociable, has lots of friends, and seems much happier than most of the married people I know. And no one seems to judge her, not like they would have done 20 years ago.

One other thought. I've just been reading Ageless, by Andrew Steele, about the coming revolution in ageing. Pretty soon we will have senolytic drugs that slow and even halt the ageing of the body. Many people now predict lifespans of 130 or more for those in the developed world. When/if that happens, I have a feeling marriage, and the whole idea of a nuclear family, will come under serious pressure. The truth is, many, many people find marriage a suffocating and horrible experience. They might not admit it, but they do (ask a therapist). The main reason people grind it out is that they don't want to be old and alone. If they had 130-150 years of healthy life ahead of them, no way would they put themselves in that position, not unless they were truly happy (which, I'd estimate, only around 30% of married couples are).

[Consolida]

^ I think you're right about a change coming, Moksha, and not before time!

There should be room for everyone in this diverse World of ours and no one should feel in any way pressured, embarrassed or ashamed if they aren't living the life that Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms/Non binary person down the road are living.

Originally Posted by Dougella

^ People who are married do not necessarily have an active sex life, or one at all!

Lol, ain't that the truth.


Btw, very interesting thread NFL_fan

[Moksha]

Originally Posted by Consolida

^ I think you're right about a change coming, Moksha, and not before time!

There should be room for everyone in this diverse World of ours and no one should feel in any way pressured, embarrassed or ashamed if they aren't living the life that Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms/Non binary person down the road are living.

I do think things are changing - and fast. Attitudes to sexuality, in particular, have undergone a radical change. As a society, we're becoming more tolerant of difference. It will be very interesting to watch things develop. For a long time, people have felt pressured to form a nuclear family. That was 'the norm'. And if you failed to achieve it, then you were a loser. So lots of people would stick out miserable marriages, or have kids they didn't really want, just so others would consider them 'normal'. Once that pressure has gone, a lot of people will reconsider. Not everyone, of course. Lots of people do enjoy being in a family. But a hell of a lot feel pressured and then regret it.

The other main reason is fear. People fear being alone, and they especially fear being old and alone. But if the coming medical revolution extends the lifespan and removes horrible things like cancer, that fear won't be so intense.

Social pressure and the fear of being old and alone, those are two of the main reasons people form nuclear families. Once they have been removed, I wonder what will happen? It will be interesting to observe.

[Dougella]

^ I'm arguing with you again, sorry. People are different from eachother. If we boil it down to biology some of us are more biologically compatible with someone than others. They've done studies about smell where people are more likely to find the smell of another person appealing if they are a good match genetically speaking for that person to have children with.
Apart from that some people are just compatible with eachother. My partner says he hates people, apart from me which I find a big compliment

Where I would agree with you is that there's too much emphasis on finding one person and having a traditional relationship. Not everyone is suited to living with another person, not everyone wants to. Marriage in a lot of cases seems to come with a lot of expectations that don't suit everyone.

Personally I think someone who had never had sex at all but wanted to and someone who was married and had an unsatisfactory sex life, or an almost non existent one (which definitely happened more in previous generations I expect. Some people got married not even knowing what sex was!) are probably at about the same level of unhappiness I would say. An unhappy or busive relationship is just as bad if not worse than no relationship probably.

[indignant misanthrope]

I find the topics relatable in the sense that I have been pursuing a path of single life amidst the adversity of people claiming I shouldn't, or that this path is bad/wrong/unnatural. I don't believe it is for me and my circumstances, in fact I have come to a conclusion that is more natural and healthy for me. obviously I still have biological attraction and in my case towards women I feel attraction on a purely physical level, I also get all the same problems heterosexual men get when encountering women, anxiety and nerves. but the mental side of the pursuit of sexual attraction I make (or don't make) based on my drives has changed. i've simply lost all interest in pursuit.

I can't relate to womens own personal experiences they have had in life of being a woman in relationships, but I can relate to authors for whatever reason take a similar path in their own lives and that aspect of things.

[Dougella]

^ A few weeks?! You have a very positive view of the amount of sex middle aged women are having.

Actually your points of view are always interesting and just because I may disagree with some aspects doesn't mean I don't learn from your thoughts on these subjects.

[Consolida]

^ Ditto Dougella.

^^ As you've talked about it before on this forum, I believe I'm understanding you correctly in that you think single middle aged women are very rarely comparable to single middle aged men because sex is more readily available to all of the former but not the latter. Women have it a lot easier when it comes to finding someone to sleep with them so to speak?

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but are you suggesting that any woman, if she chooses to do so, can pretty much click her fingers and she will have a queue of potential dates whereas a man over.. say 28, that doesn't fit a certain profile (eg. tall, confident, sexually experienced) doesn't have much hope of getting a date, ever...?

Accept there are older, short, sexually inexperienced men who do go on to find loving partners! There's also middle aged women who really do struggle to find a date perhaps because they've experienced unsatisfactory or abusive relationships in the past and are not interested in the kind of man who may only regard her as a notch on the bedpost.

Dating, meeting a compatible partner and then maintaining a long term relationship are challenging for both men and women and neither has the monopoly on just how difficult it can be, although admittedly the challenges encountered may be quite different.

Sadly some men may complain of receiving zero or limited interest from the opposite sex and thus repeatedly suffer the pain of rejection before there is even the whiff of a sexual liaison but how commonplace is it for a man to suffer rejection immediately after a sexual liaison and cry to their friends that she only wanted me for sex.

Originally Posted by The Devil, Probably.

who have spent protracted periods of their lives - maybe their entire lives - being solitary and sexless. Especially when this is caused by, say, morbid shyness, or personality disorders, or just the sad and brutal truth - unique mostly to men - that no one actually wanted to sleep with them.

While I can certainly understand and empathise as to how this existence would be an incredibly lonely and unhappy one for a man - indeed anyone - it's important to remember that suffering with mental health issues has a huge negative impact on womens' love lives too. For instance, I wonder how many women stay in a desperately unhappy marriage because they feel that they don't deserve a better life? Or women whose mental health issues cause them to repeatedly end up falling for controlling and abusive men? I think most folk would agree that a lifetime of poor mental health is not a very happy life for anyone.

Oop's I think I've gone off on a bit of a tangent and haven't addressed what this thread was originally about (sorry NFL_fan ) so I'll shut up now.

[AuroraSky]

At the risk of answering my own question, a book arrived today which is a deep dive into loneliness, non-fiction but drawn in the style of a graphic novel. What I have read so far relates very closely with a lot of my issues, though the issues don't come up all the time for me. Anyway the book is called Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness by Kristen Radtke. I think it would be ideal both for those who felt lonely during Covid lockdowns and those whose loneliness pre-dates it.


https://smile.amazon.co.uk/Seek-You-.../dp/1524748064

(it's not very often I spring for a hardback edition but this book was especially meaningful for me - I imagine it might be better suited to ordering from the library for most folks who are on benefits/ a bit strapped for cash or just watch the YouTube videos by the author).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MCs...nterabangBooks


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRKV...teraryFestival

[KellyUK]

I've just started looking into these types of books and there are pros and cons to them as you'd expect.

As a single and childless woman in her 40's AND as someone who's never had a serious relationship or sex life, I obviously can't identify with every aspect of the author's writing but they do help as a reminder of the more positive aspects of living alone, even if it's just to stop you from having a bad day when you're feeling particularly isolated and alone.

There is a difference between those people who are living alone on a short term basis - obviously those coming out of a relationship etc - and those who've always lived alone because of one issue or another but it doesn't stop me from wanting to read these types of books

[Sunrise]

Originally Posted by indignant misanthrope

I find the topics relatable in the sense that I have been pursuing a path of single life amidst the adversity of people claiming I shouldn't, or that this path is bad/wrong/unnatural. I don't believe it is for me and my circumstances, in fact I have come to a conclusion that is more natural and healthy for me. obviously I still have biological attraction and in my case towards women I feel attraction on a purely physical level, I also get all the same problems heterosexual men get when encountering women, anxiety and nerves. but the mental side of the pursuit of sexual attraction I make (or don't make) based on my drives has changed. i've simply lost all interest in pursuit.

I can't relate to womens own personal experiences they have had in life of being a woman in relationships, but I can relate to authors for whatever reason take a similar path in their own lives and that aspect of things.

I can relate to this exactly. I still have normal desires but I have little interest in forming that type of relationship because it's not for me, not at my current stage of life anyway. I don't think it's something that's going to make me happy or change my life for the better.

What makes me unhappy is the idea that it somehow isn't "normal" to live like that, and I've often felt like I should be doing more just because it's the "normal" thing to do. My previous (limited) experiences have all been disappointing, and it's not something that I seem to gain much enjoyment from at all. Trying to navigate the relationships minefield has caused me nothing but stress that I don't need.

Even if it is a result of an embarrassing level of social ineptitude, why should it mean that you should punish yourself and see yourself as on the social scrapheap? Loneliness is a serious issue for people, but turning it into a stick to beat yourself up with is only going to make someone even more unhappy. What's actually wrong with trying to find some sort of acceptance in a situation and concentrating on the positives? Even if you want to change the situation finding a level of acceptance and contentment would put you in a better place to make any changes than being all bitter and twisted.

[AuroraSky]

I'm just bumping this thread in case anyone has come across a good solo living resource since, whether YouTube channel, article or book. I do appreciate that maybe some of these books are written by women who used to be in relationships, with little resources for men who might always have been alone. However I can't help but think regardless of backstory some women simply do a better job of being alone than many men. It's said that single women are often just as happy as married ones, but single men do worse on health and happiness measures. I can easily picture a solo woman eating healthy, following along with yoga videos, keeping a tidy home, keeping up a support network. Maybe there are guys like that too but I can also summon up an image of a single guy in a bedsit surrounded by beer cans and takeaway containers. I am no angel either I just eat ready meals and still have sweet treats despite type 2 diabetes. I don't seem to be good at copying what successful solo women do but neither am I sure what advice or support would help me as a man. I went to a men's group twice but the concerns of others there, often about living up to gender roles, I couldn't really relate to either. Still on the hunt for the magical "life and how to live it" YouTube channel for those single and staying that way!

[choirgirl]

Re Moksha's post: I honestly grew up thinking it was completely fine to be single and childless/childfree from a societal perspective. Which was great because I simply couldn't imagine myself married/settled down with a bloke (snorts.) I also always knew adults like that as a child. I think of myself as a spinster type but I think the 'left on the shelf' thing was seen as rather dated by the time I was growing up, at least that was my interpretation, probably because a spinster might a)have a career and independence and b)was assumed to have or have had a sex life. Thus the loserish element of the spinster was lost. (Although there were always cool spinsters, like Miss Marple).

[AuroraSky]

There are definitely cool spinsters, indeed wasn't there a book reclaiming the term? Also I can think of someone in my nieces' lives who was the prototypical "Cool Auntie" (not a blood relation but called "Auntie La-La") before she met a lovely guy at a later age and adopting, while still being a beloved friend to my nieces after that.

[Mole58]

It's said that single women are often just as happy as married ones, but single men do worse on health and happiness measures.

Think it is a well accepted statistic that the longest lived people in this country are single women/spinsters. And the least longest lived. single men. With the rest somewhere in between. If nothing else it gives the single woman more opportunity to be happy in her life. Also a lot of women seem to come into their own after the menopause, no longer having swings in hormones that can be difficult to handle, certainly for some if not all? Not one myself, so am surmising here.