Sorry Patsy Kensit, you’ve no idea what it’s like to be single so stop pretending you know how difficult my love life is

WELL, slap my bum and call me Sally.

If it isn’t four-times- married-and-five-times-engaged Patsy Kensit announcing that she’s given up on finding a man because she no longer has any interest in relationships.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is headline news because Patsy has not been a wallflower when it comes to putting a ring on her finger.

And, let’s be honest, neither have I.

Like me, she is a self-confessed romantic, and while she maintains she still “believes in love”, it is not something she says she needs.

This is a complete change in direction for her because her intention, at 56, is to “fill the hole in her soul alone”.

But when she says she has “been on her own for a long time and I like my own company”, I suspect the lady doth protest too much.

I have nothing against women going it alone. In fact, I’m a proponent of those who decide to embrace the single life and those who admit they might be better off alone.

But Patsy only just broke off her engagement to property developer Patric Cassidy earlier this year.

That’s merely a matter of months, so forgive my cynicism and disbelief when she says she’s been on her own for a long time.

Practise before preach

Dear Patsy, being on your own for a few months is not on your own for a long time. Claiming you enjoy your own company after spending the weekend away from your partner or children is not being single.

It’s all well and good spouting on about how we enjoy the freedoms of being unattached, but come to see me when you’ve done six years in the solitary wilderness of “singledom”, like me, then I’m more than happy to compare notes.

 I find it hard to believe when I hear such a dedicated devotee of a relationship suddenly proclaiming that she will handle all that comes with a partnerless life.

I think Patsy will soon find out that talking the talk is far easier than actually walking the “singular” walk.

I wish that women who imagine single life with all its trimmings will be their next romantic chapter — when the reality is actually quite different — would think before they speak. Or better still, practise before they preach. It really gets my goat.

No one expected Ruth Langsford, 64, to leave her long union with Eamonn Holmes behind and skip into the sunset with a fresh new attitude and nice hair extensions. But she did.

I’m sure it would have been easier to stay put and put up; to settle and see out the rest of her time in a situationship that may have lost its sparkle.

She may not know what the future holds but at least she’s not harping on about intending to say “single” til the end of time.

It seems Ruth is happy to go where the wind takes her.

Vanessa Feltz, who has endured enough infidelity and disappointment to last her a lifetime, is honest enough to admit that she struggles with the single life.

Vanessa, 62, does not like coming home to an empty house, she doesn’t like being alone. She’s not good at it and she would prefer to have someone in her life.

Now, that’s the kind of honesty I value and respect. Acknowledging where your weaknesses lie and owning them.

Of course, being single is not a weakness. While I know humans have a deep desire to have love and connection, and procreation is essential for the survival of the species, it is NOT essential for life in its entirety.

We are perfectly capable of living and coping on our own. We don’t need someone else, even if we might want them.

Finding myself single at 57 has been wholly unexpected. I’ve always longed for relationships, maybe because I was so keen to mate and have kids. I believed in love and dedication and loyalty. But that was then. And this is now.

Unlike Patsy, I’m not looking for someone to “fill the hole in [my] soul”.

My soul is plenty complete without some irritating bloke who blinks too loudly, doesn’t put the toilet seat down or insists on talking during Thursday’s episode of Emmerdale. I’m more than happy for him to leave my soul alone. I reflect on all my years of singledom with a mixture of dismay but also immense pride.

I certainly had not planned to be single for so long after my third marriage ended. I didn’t realise that the playing field was no longer level; that dating apps would go a long way to destroying my hope.

Pitying comments

Yes, there have been a lot of dates. A lot. But nothing really worth writing home about and certainly nothing worthy of a serious connection, liaison or union.

Being single does not define me. It is not a characteristic trait or personality disorder like so many of the smug married would have you believe.

You know, the people who play happy couples; play it safe; stick to what they know because they fear striking out and going it alone. Those who prefer to pretend to be happy because it suits their social narrative and their social life.

I’m so over the pitying comments and glances from “the married” who feel sorry for those of us who are on our own and imply there is something wrong with us because we spend the weekends in our own company while they are enduring endless dinner parties with other, equally unhappy couples.

I’m not going to pretend that over the past six years of being single my cup has overflowed with happiness.

There have been grim times and I have had hopeless periods of loneliness, but they have always been countered by the fact that I’d rather be alone than unhappy with someone.

I know that research and studies will have you believe couples benefit from the stability, extra support and income of a relationship, and that makes them happier than singletons who supposedly are more likely to be depressed.

They also claim that matrimony reduces the risk of heart attacks and strokes and helps you live longer, but I, for one, am not buying any of it.

Who says being single, finding your own stride and making yourself happy isn’t the ultimate peace? Who says you can’t complete your own soul?

And as you’re asking: Yes, I’ll admit, it would be lovely to find and be with someone in a relationship. I’m a lover not a fighter, after all.

I wish people would stop judging you for being single, as if you’re faulty goods or too much work.

I also wish people would stop pretending they know what it’s like to be properly single and have to reach for the ladders to clear out the gutters when that’s what your ex used to do.

Who can forget Jane Fonda’s Instagram in 2017 when she was unable to get out of her red-carpet dress and was forced to sleep in it, remarking that she had never wanted a husband in her life “until now”.

Single life is certainly not easy. But it’s also not wrong.