Last week I wrote about how divorced mothers who make a conscious choice to stay single and bring up their kids on their own are likely be treated with a degree of derision and suspicion.

The column seemed to strike a chord with a few female acquaintances

"But it's men that hold attitudes like that," said one who happens to be childless, in her mid-thirties and who has never been married. So I guess you could say she should know.

Well I happen to think its not men that have a problem with women who choose to be single, it's other women. More to the point it's the very people who are supposed to have her best interests at heart – her friends.

• Friend A: "I don't know what's wrong with her? I really don't."


• Friend B: "Well she obviously can't move on. That's what it is."


• Friend A: "It's more like she can't find a man."


• Friend B: "Well, it's not surprising is it. I mean, she has let herself go a bit."

Before too long, some of her closest friends will be desperately trying to fix her up with single bloke at work, a friend of a friend, anyone.

If she's a single mum, the potential blind date will have come complete with baggage, ie. divorced and with kids.

That can create a whole new set of complications and issues, something I remarked upon in this column last week.

It's hardly surprising that men and women, who are recently divorced and feeling free for the first time, choose a single life for the short term.

We may know from personal experience the pitfalls of choosing to shack up with the first person who asks and rushing headlong into a doomed relationship. The only difference was that, in the past, everyone else except you could see it.

On reflection, I don't necessarily believe men or women make conscious decisions to stay single.

What people might misinterpret as a definitive life choice to not get involved might, instead, be a case of someone simply choosing not to get involved with the first person that comes along. Is that so bad?

When you get to your forties, it is about who is (theoretically) available to us.

That pool of potential life partners in your twenties has evaporated to a puddle.

So instead of "choosing to be single" we may be waiting for someone who is actually appropriate and whom we feel could enhance our life rather than just conveniently plug a gap.

So, well-intentioned but misguided friends agonising over the task of finding a new significant other for that single mate of yours, rest easy and let things take their course.