My marriage came apart in January this year, and life as I knew it disappeared. We agreed to separate, and I left America, my home for 24 years, running away to Marrakech. I’d love to tell you I was running away to heal, but I gave myself little time for reflection, or indeed healing.
Those first few months I drowned the pain of my divorce in parties and fun. My days were filled with making new friends, having dinners on rooftops that ended with dancing half the night away. When it became too overwhelming, I would jump on a plane to London, my hometown, where my family and oldest friends helped bring me back to reality.
Although there were moments of joy at the freedom I now had, there were also moments of intense grief. I thought I would be married for the rest of my life. I loved my husband, but over our 18 years together we had grown far apart, and wanted very different things out of life.
Our split was amicable, but I had moments of utter terror – how would I cope as a single woman in my 50s? Was I crazy to start a new life alone at this stage?
I had been through divorce before. My first marriage ended when I was 37. My four children were all aged six and under, so my focus had been entirely on them. I don’t remember ever feeling fear of being alone – or indeed a sense of freedom.
This time, after years of feeling constrained, restricted, of living a small suburban life that felt completely wrong once my children left home, this butterfly was finally unpinned.
With this came a curiosity about dating and dating apps. By early summer, I gave in to that curiosity.
I had, after all, watched every one of my newly single friends jump straight on the apps. While married I let my hair grow silver, happily, but quickly realised how ageing grey appears in the world of dating. I dyed it back to its once-natural brunette.
Then I signed up for Hinge, crafting a profile I thought was pretty accurate. I went to bed feeling rather pleased and woke up the next morning to discover 12 men had liked it. It was an ego-boosting start. It was to prove illuminating.
I hadn’t been on my own for 25 years. When my first marriage ended, I rented a cottage by the beach and fell in love with my landlord, who became my second husband. I was alone for about five minutes. I hadn’t had a chance to find out what life would feel like on my own with my kids. I moved from one marriage to another far too quickly, without taking any time to get to know myself.
By the time the pandemic hit and we were confined to the house, I realised there were very real issues in our marriage that we hadn’t dealt with.
Like any relationship that goes wrong, it starts with small resentments and misunderstandings which gradually build into a mountain that becomes insurmountable.
We had not communicated properly for years, had become instead ships that pass in the night, both of us leading completely separate lives. We had moved into a tiny beach house that didn’t feel like home, and ageing unwell parents, financial fears and an empty nest left the two of us with little in common.
With nothing to talk about, we spent less and less time together.
The day it ended was after one of those nothing rows that is usually fine, until it isn’t. My husband flew to Florida to visit his daughter, while I went to a friend’s house and sobbed on their sofa for hours.
I didn’t think about dating until some months later, and when I did, it was more of a distraction than anything else. The pain of this marriage ending was so great, it was easier to bury it in possibility, in the dopamine rush of someone else’s attention.
Of the first dozen men who contacted me on Hinge, one stood out. He had sent me a rose – the highest compliment you can give on the app. A landscape designer from London, he was ten years younger than me, and – superficial creature that I am – terribly good-looking. The sort of man who would never have looked at me when I was last single and in my 20s, riddled with insecurities, unsure of who I was.
Ageing suits me. I have grown into my skin, grown comfortable with my looks, and I know who I am. I walk with a confidence now that often draws people to me. I am no longer grateful for any man that likes me, understanding that I am also allowed to be the one to choose.
We jumped on a video call that night, and I was relieved and stunned that he was even better looking than his picture. He was equally charming as we chatted, at one point when stretching, his shirt rode up exposing a glimpse of a taut, perfect body.
My breath caught in my throat, as a long-dormant libido made it known that it had not in fact died, as I’d thought, but was very much alive.
A few video chats later, he suggested meeting in Lisbon to see the city, and see how we got on. ‘We’ll get separate hotels,’ he suggested. ‘Spend a little time together…’
I felt the kind of excitement I hadn’t experienced in decades. I was up for an adventure (though I would now advise anyone new to dating apps not to fly anywhere to meet someone). I was intrigued by possibility, by an adventure, too excited at the prospect of a romance with someone like this. Even though I barely knew him.
He arrived at my hotel to pick me up, and whisked me off to a tiny little restaurant with a wonderful reputation. He ordered the tasting menu for us. He was very much in charge.
But he was so good-looking, and I was so willing to overlook everything else, particularly fuelled by endless glasses of wine. I hadn’t flirted with anyone, or been flirted with, in years.
As the evening progressed, it became clear we didn’t have much in common. Conversation was at times stilted, but wine helped, and there was such chemistry! We ordered drinks, then more drinks.
When he walked me back to the hotel after dinner, he kissed me outside the door, and it was as toe-curlingly delicious as the first kisses I remembered from my teens.
We went out for lunch the next day. Without the cover of darkness, the wine and the candlelight, we had nothing to talk about. By the end of the day, it was clear we would not see each other again. I was grateful to get to the airport, and increasingly sceptical about the dating apps. There was no denying the rush I got from someone attractive liking me, but was it really necessary to be told I still had worth, was still attractive in this way?
Even if I did find a wonderful match on an app, was I ready for anything other than a flirtation?
On Hinge I was liked by an inordinate number of 20 and 30-somethings. Fresh-faced, handsome and often younger than my children. I wasn’t going to swipe right on any of them. I tried Bumble, which, it turned out, held a different sort of man.
My inbox was soon filled with 40-somethings who listed ‘non-vanilla’ on their profiles, and proceeded to tell me about their wanting threesomes, their ‘kink’, and all the ways they wanted to dominate, or, in rarer cases, be dominated.
I met three more men. I had drinks with Paul, a former officer and undoubted gentleman, in a cosy Cotswolds pub, where he charmed me with a beguiling smile and winning chat. I was slightly smitten, but when we met again for lunch, we both realised that despite an attraction, our lifestyles were completely different.
Tom was a financier who flew to New York to take me out for dinner when I was briefly back in the States. I knew instantly there was no attraction. He walked me back to where I was staying, and tried to kiss me. ‘I’m not ready to be kissed,’ I said. He looked at me as if he didn’t understand, then kissed me. I didn’t see him again.
My fascination with the dating apps was dwindling as I became less sure of why I was on there, or what I might find.
There was no chemistry with the third, Doug, when we met for a drink, but he became a friend. ‘You’re not ready,’ he told me one night. ‘You aren’t over your marriage and need to be on your own.’ Deep down, I knew he was right.
I have now been single almost a year. While the apps took my mind off the terrifying fact of being suddenly alone in midlife, I have reached a surprising conclusion – the only person I want to date right now is myself.
I have had a propensity to lose myself in my relationships. I have sublimated my own wants and needs to keep the men in my life happy, and ending up miserable and withdrawn.
I am not willing to have another relationship like that, even if it is no one’s fault other than mine.
I have come to fully understand the effect of childhood wounds, how we recreate the same relationship over and over until we do the work to heal those wounds, those voices that tell us we are not enough.
I won’t be a good partner for anyone until I have learned I am enough on my own; I won’t be a good partner unless I have learned to set boundaries, to be clear about the relationship I need, and until I have grown entirely comfortable with who I am.
Dating myself is self-care. It’s going out for lunch to wonderful restaurants and having a glass of wine, enjoying the feel of sunshine of my face as I sit and people-watch, perfectly happy to be by myself.
It’s driving to the countryside on weekends, lying by a hotel pool with a book, often the only solo woman there. It’s braving parties alone, not knowing if I’ll find someone fascinating (often the case), or will spend the evening standing by myself in a corner.
My heart is still healing, and I am busy. I have a new life to build, books to write, a home to create, this time one that is just for me. All of which leaves little capacity for anyone else right now. As overwhelming as it sometimes feels, as lonely as I sometimes am, I believe I am on the right path.
There are some hard days, but there are far more when it feels joyous to reach an age and stage where I am completely happy with everything in my life.
My mother used to refer to me as the cat that walks by herself after the Rudyard Kipling story, perhaps that is somewhat true.
I have no idea if I will find someone again or not – and, if that were to be the case, I am learning to be OK with that. Whatever I choose, I am surrounded by friends, and my life is full.
