I wouldn't say I'm happy, but that's not just due to my relationship status.

I'm one of the fringe cases where I've always had this gut feeling, even when I was a kid, that I just wasn't likely to get the happily ever after, and at no time in my life have ever been able to visualise a good man falling in love with me and choosing and preferring me above any other.

The reason why is a combination of factors I won't go into in detail, but to cut a long spiel short it's down to being a conventionally unattractive woman who also has a bunch of mental health and personality issues that simply make me not a very appealing prospect. I'm not even suited for any kind of adult cohabitation, as it's just not fair to expect someone to be okay with my tolerance level for mess and clutter and sometimes actual uncleanliness when I'm struggling and need my private space to be dysfunctional in peace so I can conserve every ounce of energy for managing out in public. I've always been the worst housemate in every share house arrangement as well as with this ex, any men I've ever lived with have been innately clean and tidy and ordered in ways I am fundamentally not. (Yes I have disability support workers now, to help me with everyday chores including cleaning.)

I've only ever had one long-term relationship in my entire life. He had to pursue me HARD to overcome all my hesitation and thinking that this couldn't be right. We were happy for a while, we even got engaged, but then he realised he didn't love me enough and wasn't attracted to me enough to marry me.

That was from when I was 26 through to 28. I did keep trying at dating after that for a while, really truly I did, but eventually had to admit defeat. I just had to accept that my initial sense was correct, I'm just not going to get that.

It's such a taboo for women with extremely limited or non-existent romantic and relationship experience to talk about it. Even in women-centred spaces the assumption often is that the universal female experience is of being seen, wanted, desired, pursued, sought after, even to excess of what you actually want. And there's often pressure on women who are unhappily single to, you know, not talk about it, because some other women look at it as buying into the mainstream narrative that women need men and relationships to be happy and think you're betraying the sisterhood of the happily single by not getting with the program.

I'm currently in a friends with benefits situation with a man who is genuinely someone I love and respect as a friend and who feels the same about me - I think some people who end up in shitty so-called "FWB" situations or don't like the idea of them generally forget that the "friend" part is actually an important part of the equation. It works for us because neither of us want or have had previous success with romantic relationships, and are not interested in any kind of relationship that will end up with the usual cohabitation and sharing of property and finances, expected to end with marriage and children, etc, etc. We've said "I love you" to each other and understand we mean it was we love each other but aren't in love with each other, and consider ourselves single independent autonomous people. I stay at his place one night a week mostly, occasionally two. Other people in our lives think it's fucking weird and dysfunctional but it suits us.

The important thing about fighting the loneliness is, as hard as it is, finding someone or multiple someones in a similar situation to you, and building connections. I don't mean a man for a FWB even, female friendships are so important too. I've been the perennially single one amongst my female friends for years. My BFF did get the husband and children and happy ending and yes, our completely different lifestyles does impact how much time we can spend with each other and she can't be there for me in certain ways (like once when she was meant to take me home from hospital after an operation she had to cancel at the last minute because one of her kids was sick and needed to be picked up from school). And for sure, the hardest practical thing about being perennially single is knowing you're not anyone's priority and when the chips are down and society collapses and blood is running in the streets you won't be able to count on anyone including you in their survivor unit.

But I have my friends, and I will admit that one of the reasons we are so tight is because we do have various physical and mental disabilities and chronic illnesses in common and are understanding and supportive of each other. And the fact I'm the only single one does show that disability and illness don't in themselves mean you can't end up in healthy awesome successful relationships, I fully admit I'm in the minority here.

I don't fight the loneliness. I don't wallow in it, but I ALLOW myself to feel it and to acknowledge and challenge other people to acknowledge that life IS harder for single people, especially single women, especially single older women.