Man, It’s hard to be a (single) woman…

Opportunity should know better

Many men are sexual opportunists.

Oh, that’s a bit of a statement, isn’t it? I’ll bet you or your man aren’t. Nope, not us either.

However, last week a couple of friends and I enjoyed some delicious lunch and a wide-ranging and entertaining conversation.

All three of us at some point over that last two decades had been a single parent. Not even slightly remarkable, really. However, what we realised when we explored the topic was that each of us suffered the experience of receiving the pity pass.

It goes a bit like this:

Woman has split from husband/boyfriend and is now coping alone with the kids. She is likely to be relieved to be rid of crap chap and concentrating on making a home and career for herself and her little family. Sexual frustration is unlikely to be right at the top of her list of things that causes her sleepless nights.

Then one day the doorbell will go and there will be a man on the doorstep. He might be the husband of a pal, a colleague or some other acquaintance. At first she may be persuaded that he’s only there out of concern for her welfare – how thoughtful.

But shortly it will become apparent that it’s only her sexual welfare he is concerned by. He will be utterly convinced that she is, as well as everything else, addled by sexual desire.

So entrenched is his conviction that he is doing her a favour, that a rejection will be met by incredulity.

Oh yes. Having got rid of him with as much grace as she could muster, she will be left wondering if he really thinks that intelligent women can’t solve that particular problem by themselves.

The fact that she has just rid herself of one troublesome husband, means she is highly unlikely to want someone else’s.

And the pity pass isn’t confined to the suburban doorstep. It also appears at works dos – conferences and the like. Anywhere a woman is away on her own, there will be a man who believes that it is his duty to ‘give her one’, whether she has given any suggestion that this might be on the cards or not.

Obviously, I don’t mean you dear reader or your lovely loyal man, but to those others, stop it. An upbeat what-have-I-got-to-lose attitude may work in much of life, but not here. 

We don’t need a shag – and certainly not from you. And in any case if we fancied you, you’d know about it.