RISE OF THE ALPHA SINGLES

They’re career-driven young women who insist they don’t need a man or marriage to be happy. Nonsense? Two writers – one a married mother, the other an Alpha Single – go head to head

CRISTINA ODONE, who is 57 and lives in London with her husband and their three children, says:

YOU’RE a defiantly single thirtysomething with an impressive career, your own home and the world at your feet — you probably feel you should be congratulated.

Speaking as someone who spent her own 30s resolutely unattached, I believe you’ve outstripped my generation’s achievements on many levels.

Female graduates in their 20s earn more than their male counterparts; thirtysomething single women are buying homes at twice the rate of single men, and more single women than any other group enjoy expensive holidays.

New technology has allowed you to make connections that my peers couldn’t have dreamed of: social networking helps you initiate or maintain friendships, and with internet dating you can swipe yourself a date. Vastly preferable to all the dull parties with unsuitable men or friends’ embarrassing matchmaking efforts that we endured.

You have, in other words, plenty of reasons to celebrate your lifestyle. No other generation of women has enjoyed such high status. Hence the term ‘Alpha single’ which has been coined to describe you globe-trotting, go-getting single women.

But at the risk of playing the wicked fairy who breaks up the party, I feel I should offer a word of warning. Don’t fool yourself that things will stay like this for ever.

For this new landscape of equality is, I fear, a treacherous quicksand that could trick you into taking a wrong turn in life. It’s easier than ever to remain happily independent — but you’re at risk of forfeiting commitment and marriage for an illusory wellbeing.

The truth is, your 50-year-old self will have very different needs and fears to your 30-year-old self. And, as I have come to discover, those needs and fears are best met as part of a couple.

Life can veer outside of your control. You may find yourself facing your parents’ ill health or death; being made redundant; or having health problems of your own. And let’s not forget fertility. Take it from one who very nearly failed to have a family of her own: you can never dictate when your longing for a child will suddenly cloak every waking thought.

Aged 42 and still happily single, I was asked to present a short film about IVF for Newsnight. The consultant I interviewed told me point blank — though mercifully off camera — that there was little chance of conceiving naturally at my age. My defences came down and to my surprise I found myself weeping, with only the female producer to comfort me.

I remember Lord Winston, the IVF pioneer, telling me how childless women come to him in despair, confessing they no longer go out during school drop-off or pick-up times, and avoid certain floors in department stores lest they see prams and toys. Baby hunger may not start in your 30s, but baby regret risks poisoning later life.

Until then, I’d believed I was conquering the world. I loved my career — as editor of the Catholic Herald then deputy editor of the New Statesman. I had lots of friends. My life was unashamedly me, me, me. I was in the gym at 6am, at my desk before any of my colleagues, and partied longer (and harder) than everyone else.

There was no room for a significant other in my life, and I didn’t care when friends teased me for being ‘so damned independent’.

So are today’s single women really living the dream? When the Centre for Social Justice polled 1,100 teenagers this year about relationships, 78 per cent ranked a good and lasting relationship as highly as a good, lasting career.

Even in the 21st century, boys and girls dream of happy ever after. This is striking, given that half of their generation has experienced their parents’ divorce.

It was certainly one reason for my own postponing of marriage. Having lived through my parents’ break-up, I had no

interest in risking my freedom for a relationship that could falter.

This didn’t stop me from entering into relationships, but it did stop me from committing to any.

The realisation that I was compromising my own happiness came when a friend asked me, again at age 42, to indulge in a thought experiment. I was to picture two women. Both were high-achievers. Both were leaving the podium having given an inspirational talk.

One went home to an empty flat; the other stepped off the stage into the embrace of her proud partner, who whisked her back home to their children.

I knew which one I wanted to be. A few months later, a friend introduced me to Edward, a foreign correspondent. ‘You must not even think of getting involved with him,’ she warned me. ‘He is so cut up about his divorce and is obsessed with his two little sons.’

Not exactly Mr Right, in other words. Except he was right for me. Within days, he was writing me the longest, most interesting emails. Within weeks we had fallen in love, and by my 43rd birthday I was the mother of a little girl, now 14, whom I was able to conceive naturally, as well as stepmother to his two boys.

I was incredibly lucky. An emotional whirlwind was probably the only way to shake me loose

from my deeply held fear of a failed relation- ship. But I’d advise you, young alpha single, not to leave it so long: bargaining on being fortunate enough to find someone and conceive in your 40s is risky.

I look back on my single self with pride. But would I trade places with her? Never. Creating a happy family home means more to me than having things my own way ever did.

There is nothing wrong with being defiantly single in youth: investing in your career and your friends builds a strong platform. But use it as a springboard to reach even greater happiness.

Deep down, many Alpha singles know this. Don’t be afraid to act on it, now, before it’s too late.

EMILY’S STORY Emily Hill, who is 34, single and has her own flat in london, says:

THIs may shock you, but I am in my mid-30s and am perfectly happy to be single.

And I refuse to whip myself up into a frenzy of hand-wringing just because I never seem to have a boyfriend, never mind a husband.

It’s true that, if I judged my whole life according to my search for love, I could make myself miserable. But just because I have so far failed to find Mr Right does not in any way make me a failure as a human being.

My 80-year-old grandmother is appalled by my attitude, and thinks I ought to be taking drastic steps towards settling down.

But I shouldn’t be valued solely for my ability to attract a man — I’m a successful journalist, a good friend and sister — and I’m not going to conform to some ‘desperate’ vision of how a single woman should behave.

Frankly, such stereotypes no longer match the reality. single women are no longer outcasts, or even unusual; in Britain today, there are more of us than at any point in history, more and more of us in our 30s, 40s and beyond.

If you’re aged between 25 and 44, you’re also five times more likely to be living alone than you were back in 1973.

And yet the way we talk about single women has been slow to catch up.

The most familiar ‘singleton’ in fiction, for example, is still the hapless Bridget Jones — a character more than 20 years out of date, who popped up married and with a baby in the latest celluloid instalment of her story.

It’s bizarre — and sad, in a way — that the film-makers couldn’t resist giving Bridget a version of the fairytale ending we’re all supposed to long for. Please don’t assume that I don’t like men, or

don’t want a relationship at all. I’ll readily admit that I feel a little envious twinge when I see friends who have met ‘The One’ and are now joyfully ensconced with 2.4 children.

I always assumed that I’d settle down early, since my grandmother married at 19 and my parents at 21. From when I first started dating until my final, and worst, break-up five years ago, I was firmly convinced that every boyfriend would be my last — right up until he wasn’t.

But since then, I’ve come to realise the truth: that modern dating is nothing like it was for my grandmother, who met my grandad at 14, or even my parents, who met in a bar when they were barely 20 and quickly settled down.

Instead, the dating scene in 2018 is a mess of superficial interactions: meeting strangers through dating apps, sporadic conversations by text message.

spoiled by the choice and freedom available to them, men tend to offer nothing more lasting than casual sex followed by a disappearing act. That’s not for me.

I haven’t sworn off dating, and am trying to stay hopeful — as a result, I’ve endured countless awful dates and enjoyed only one romance, which ended the second I made it clear that I might want something serious.

I’ve yet to encounter a single man who could offer me the genuine commitment needed for marriage.

some of my married friends have accused me of ‘not trying hard enough’. But, in truth, I’ve tried so very hard, for so very long, that I’m exhausted.

As long as I still have a shred of self-esteem left, I’ve decided that I’m not going to run myself ragged chasing after men who just ‘aren’t that into me’.

But I don’t waste time feeling sorry for myself either.

My married friends admit that they haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in years, have to spend half their holidays with the in-laws, put their own dreams on hold because their husbands and children come first, and never, ever seem to have a single moment’s peace.

Even if children aren’t in the picture, having someone else in your life means making sacrifices.

I am working on a film adaptation of one of my short stories with a talented young director who says for her it’s not the ‘pram in the hall’ that prevents her from writing creatively — it’s the ‘extra toothbrush by the sink’.

NOW that she has a serious boyfriend, she’s happy to spend as much time with him as possible, but she finds it a real distraction from her passion, which is writing.

The truth is that men — when you really love them, and want to build a strong relationship — take a lot of time and effort, and inevitably mean you have to step back from your career goals.

If you’re born male you don’t experience this in quite the same way, because it’s more widely accepted that you will put your career first.

We single women, however, can please ourselves. We can throw ourselves into our careers if we want to, and blow all our money on frivolous things if we choose — we earn it and it’s ours to spend.

I live in my own flat by the river in Battersea, south-West London. I cook whatever I want, and enjoy full possession of the TV remote.

Of course, that doesn’t mean I exist without companionship and emotional support. Luckily, I can rely on close friends who make me feel just as loved as a boyfriend could.

My best friend lives on the floor below me — she’s engaged now, but we still chat every day.

I also have a gaggle of single girlfriends just a phone call away, even if it’s 3am. They understand how it feels to have no partner to turn to, so are always ready to listen.

But whenever I try insisting that I’m content as I am, couples who wed in a more romantic age look at me as if I’m stark, staring mad.

Every time I go back to my family home, I’m keenly aware that while I’d never call myself desperate, I

am a desperate disappointment to my grandmother.

Married for more than 50 years to a wonderful man, and the proud mother of seven, she can’t comprehend why I’ve failed so abysmally to do as she did.

so, yes, in ten or 20 years’ time, I am hoping against hope that I will be happy with a man and our growing brood.

But if not, my life will not have been any less worth living. And I shall hold firm to my belief that there was bravery in not settling for anything less than real love.

CRISTINA ODONE,57,single for years but now a happily married mum of three EMILY HILL, 34, lives for her career and says she couldn’t be happier