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How to handle the "why are you still single?" question.

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Comments

  • I could have sworn Eve Pollard has 2 children, one of whom I thought was Claudia Winkleman.

    Maybe the poster is getting mixed up with Su Pollard...
  • jackyann
    jackyann Posts: 3,433 Forumite
    Love many of the above replies, but some people just can't deliver them without sounding weird (!)
    I would just smile & say "suits me".
    Can I also ask if this is something people ask women more than men? That's my impression!
  • I'm a divorcee, so when asked when I'm going to settle down I usually respond with 'Tried it once, didn't like it.' When asked if I have a boyfriend at all, I tell them that unless they've got a good candidate in mind, I'm not telling. If they do know a rich, gorgeous man with a twelve inch tongue and a congenital heart condition, then I'm available.

    The inevitable question (at the age of 37) about wanting children or 'hearing the biological clock ticking' is more tiresome now. I'm quite happy to tell people that I just don't like kids. I'm too irresponsible to own a pet, much less have a child. Until you can put them in kennels for a weekend, I'm not doing it.
    Some days, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps....
    LB moment - March 2006. DFD - 1 June 2012!!! DEBT FREE!



    May grocery challenge £45.61/£120
  • jackyann wrote: »
    Love many of the above replies, but some people just can't deliver them without sounding weird (!)
    I would just smile & say "suits me".
    Can I also ask if this is something people ask women more than men? That's my impression!

    I find it to be mainly women who get asked this unless my mother has encountered a man she may believe could be my future husband, then she tends to ask if he has a girlfriend and generally interrogate him whilst telling him what a lovely young man he is and how much she would like to have him over for tea. And nine times out of ten, I have to nudge her and whisper through gritted teeth, "mu-um, he's GAY!".
  • Person_one
    Person_one Posts: 28,884 Forumite
    Tenth Anniversary 10,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    edited 20 December 2011 at 3:32PM
    I could have sworn Eve Pollard has 2 children, one of whom I thought was Claudia Winkleman.

    I thought they were her stepchildren, I might not have been paying enough attention!

    Edit, you're right, I must be thinking of another interviewee and mixing the two up.

    Not Su Pollard though!
  • Person_one
    Person_one Posts: 28,884 Forumite
    Tenth Anniversary 10,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    Maybe the poster is getting mixed up with Su Pollard...

    Give me some credit!
  • Just checked Claudia Winkleman on wikipedia, no wonder you were confused as to who was the stepchild/biological child of whom! There are children from both her parents remarriages. She is def Eve Pollard's daughter.
  • I'm very lucky, in that my family wouldn't ever dream of asking questions like that. About work, sport, life, friends, sure, but not about intimate stuff, they wait to be told first.

    But in the wider world, being un-single doesn't protect you at all. I've not been single since I was 19, when I met OH, and I'm now 33. Instead I get asked about wedding plans / having another child (we have a 6 year old) and all sorts of other things. I tend to brush it off slightly dismissively.
    ...much enquiry having been made concerning a gentleman, who had quitted a company where Johnson was, and no information being obtained; at last Johnson observed, that 'he did not care to speak ill of any man behind his back, but he believed the gentleman was an attorney'.
  • Person_one
    Person_one Posts: 28,884 Forumite
    Tenth Anniversary 10,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    You know who I really feel for in this? Women who would really really love to be married and have children but it just hasn't happened for them. You can't click your fingers and have the perfect man appear in a puff of smoke!

    One of my good friends always wanted to be settled with her first child by 25, she's now closer to 30 and it just isn't happening. I've told her she should burst into tears and run away when people ask her why she hasn't settled yet, or insinuate that she's somehow at fault. She's already painfully aware of her biological clock, she doesn't need to be reminded of it by insensitive relatives!
  • candygirl
    candygirl Posts: 29,455 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    My MIL waits till my bf has gone to the loo before quizzing me about when we are getting married:mad::mad:Sadly to say the direct approach ie "when hell freezes over" doesn't even shut her up:mad::mad::mad:
    I just don't get why people are so bloody nosey, and intrusive:o:o
    "You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf"

    (Kabat-Zinn 2004):D:D:D
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