to put my single girl ranty pants back on..

**Warning - I am about to get my single girl ranty pants on...just in case you want to exit now**

I'm single....I think by now we all know that.

I don't necessarily want to be single...I think we all know that as well.

But what I do want is to be OK with being single, and for the most part I am trying to be. I even wrote a blog post on Valentines Day about why it rocks to be single! I am cruising through life doing my thing and trying not letting my single status stop me.

So what I think I really need, and what I think would really help "people like me" is if society was OK with me being single. Of course I don't mean 'me' specifically but women in their 30's. I think if there wasn't so much focus on it from others then I would be handling this stage of my life a lot better. Each time I meet someone for the first time it's only a matter of moments before they ask me if I have a boyfriend/husband. I can almost guarantee it will be one of the first 5 questions they ask. I was at a friend's wedding last weekend and met some of her other friends for the first time and one, who happened to be a male and had taken full advantage of the bar tab (much to his girlfriend's distress), appeared quite dismayed that a (and I quote) "hot girl like you is single, what's wrong with you?"... bang...there it is again!! And I'm suddenly thrown back to a place in time when I question all that I am and wonder "what is wrong with me??" (Like I don't get emotional enough at weddings!!)

Even friends who I may not have seen or spoken to in a while ask if I've met anyone, and while I know that they do it out of love and concern (or whatever other reason) I really wish there wasn't such a focus on it and wonder if I would be so bothered by it if I wasn't asked about it so often. It's easy to say 'don't let it bother you', but it does, sometimes more than others but on the whole...it does.

What I want more than anything else in the world...believe it or not, is not to be married or even to be a mother, what I am realising is that what I want more than anything in the world is to be OK if that doesn't happen...to not feel like I have failed somehow or that there is something wrong with me.

And pics like this that pop up on Facebook from time to time, do not help!

I know I've ranted about this before and you're probably wondering what's prompted this latest whinge. Like 172 465 other people I follow Mamamia on Facebook. I find some of their writing thought-provoking, some informative, some annoying, some head-scratch worthy and then some downright frustrating. Like an article that popped up in my newsfeed over the weekend. Now like any good tabloid it's the headlines they use that usually sucker me in... The open letter to Prince Harry we all secretly wish we'd written , now while I know this 'open letter' was written in jest and cheekiness it does put the sting that because Harry is a couple of months off turning 30 it's time for him to settle down and "find some princess-wife material" because you can't possibly be in your thirties and single these days! So what if Prince Harry is 30 and single? So what if he doesn't find someone worth marrying? Is that the worst thing that could happen? What's so wrong with him being single? I get that he's a Royal and all that but William's got the whole heir to the throne thing covered, give the guy a break! 

Now if you have been living under a rock over the weekend you will also know that the BIG news (*cough..whatever..cough*) is that Ian Thorpe has announced he is indeed gay. Now this again is something that I responded with a big fat "SO WHAT?" whenever another tweet or status update was written about it. Again, while scrolling through Facebook I came across another article on Mamamia with the headline "Why it matters that Ian Thorpe came out", my first reaction was to yell..."IT DOESN'T", but thought I would give them the benefit of the doubt and hear them out. In the article Mia Freedman talks about how easy it is for straight people to say "it doesn't matter" if people are gay because we don't have to worry about the negative impact and struggles that LGBTQ people have to face every day.

Again this feels like society is constantly saying it is wrong to feel or be this way. I didn't watch the interview but this article speculates that the reason Ian did not come out earlier was perhaps because he feared being ridiculed by the media and the public, that perhaps he thought he would not be respected by the public despite his AMAZING athletic ability. If either of these is even remotely any where near the truth then that is a sad sad fact, but one that I am, sadly, not surprised by.

I have since read some of what Ian had to say about why it took him so long to reveal his sexuality. One of the statements I read was that he was first asked if he was gay when he was 16 years of age....again with the questions people....

Here's my hot tip to society.... (and I am not speaking from experience with most of these so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong!)...

• The single girl in her 30's (or any age really)...doesn't want to be asked why she's single!
• The couple doesn't want to be asked when they are getting married
• The newlyweds don't want to be asked when they are having a baby
• The childless couple don't want to be asked why they don't want kids
• The newbie parents don't want to be asked when they are going to have another baby and so on
• The single guy doesn't want to be asked if he's gay 

So stop asking and mind your own damn business! *sigh*

Is there a question you wish people would stop asking you??

(And to all my friends, if I have asked you any of the above questions I am sorry and I promise to never do it again!)

Linking this rant up with Essentially Jess for IBOT.