So, then, here I am, in just a shade over 24 hours from now I will have turned 35. I am no longer just a 30-something, but a person in their MID-30's ... not long to go now before my age finally catches up with my waist size, and from then the two can happily start going up together concurrently until I end up in a coffin with a hump in the lid. That is unless posthumous liposuction is approved by the government.
Thirty-five trips around the sun since yours truly emerged into this universe, and the universe in kind cracked it's knuckles, snicked it's jaw, wricked it's neck and said; "Right then, sunshine, here's where it gets complicated …".
There was a change in media culture starting in the 80s, when I emerged dribbling, crying, naked, screaming and covered in all sorts of bodily fluids I hope never to encounter again. The Internet and video games emerged at the same time kids weren't out playing with other kids, what they were doing was sitting around in front of a Nintendo all day. Add to that the fact that as soon as they grew up and moved away from home in their 20s, there was free and abundant Internet porn to satisfy them with.
The only thing the world has in abundance is people looking to exploit these ills. Especially in the ever-over-complicating, horrendous, ultra-competitive sport of relationships. Dating sites are ready and willing to lift money from lonely people, then there's the booming self-help industry that teaches people with no dating prospects what they're doing wrong, despite the fact that they still walk away without any prospects after buying the books and therapists and whatever else.
Now, I’m pretty unremarkable in most respects – neither fantastically attractive (if only), nor absolutely hideous. I’ve got plenty of friends, male and female. They always express confusion and disbelief that I’ve been unable to get a girlfriend in the 20 years or so I’ve been interested in the idea. Apart from this, I’ve lived a full and active life, but somehow this particular aspect has, through more quirks of a fate than a superhero film directed by someone having just ingested a bucket of heroin, passed me by.
My parents met and married through work. They have been married for 40 years. And it hurts me to the core to be 35 and unmarried. Alone. Without a loving wife or a long-term girlfriend. I feel the pain from it every single day like I'm wiping my ass with a cheese grater. Or maybe it's because a random advert for Justin Beiber's new album spoiled my enjoyment of the Nostalgia Critic's review of "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice".
It’s a cliché, but it really did seem seem like one day all my friends were suddenly shacked up with a partner and squeezing out kids right, left and centre expect me. Arriving at 35 as a single man happens via one of three routes. The first is because there were series of relationships that never panned out. Or, there was one epic fail of a marriage that lead to a series of relationships that never panned out. The wake of this type of failure leaves a trail of broken hearts and disillusioned souls.
The third, mine, is because simply no-one has bothered to give me a bloody half decent chance because someone else arrived, with an agenda, therefore automatically gaining the upper hand before I had the chance to even offer the prospect of pistols at dawn at thirty paces.
Distrust of each other turns relationships into transactions. There is literally a universe of information consolidated into constellations of blogs on the topics of sex, love and relationships. As a society we keep talking about it, and by talking about it we make it important. Products, lyrics and lives coalesce around it.
Love is both form and substance yet, if you find yourself single at age 35, love isn’t nearly as important as feeling legit and being desired. And desire will continue to kick your sorry, pink, hairy ass until you find that you can notice it without having to turn your head. It doesn’t matter what bracket you are in. There will always be another rung of the latter to climb, someone to be jealous of and past failures to reconcile.
And I think the greatest lesson I’ve learned being 35 and single is that ultimately nothing matters in reference to the big picture. Emotions drag us into the fray and spur storylines that can both catalyse and interrupt the flow of creation. It's how I managed to drag it out into three "Ghostbusters" scripts and a mountain of "Doctor Who" fanfiction.
When I first set off to write this blog there was a very particular angst welling up in me that wanted to provide a narrative to the joys of being 35 and single. But, I had to stop myself because, honestly, it kinda sucks too. Four generations of rampant new wave feminism have not exactly produced a plethora of well-balanced traditional men who are equipped to head a heteronormative family and deal with non-feminist women, in fact, most young men are feminists or equalitarians who have been brainwashed into despising our civilisation.
In other words, they are just as unhinged and difficult as the young women that feminism produced - this is what you reap when you sow anti-authoritarianism and tolerate gendermainstreaming. Slowly but surely younger generations are realising what is wrong, but given the power of the Internet and mainstream media it won't be undone in a generation.
There are 60 years of terrible mistakes to undo.
Sadly, I means bypassing those such as yours truly, who have long since given up the ghost.
Happy Birthday to me ...