Better Late Than Single

When I’m pregnant I watch dating shows. At least, this is the pattern I’m observing. If more sophisticated taste exists within me at other times, it disappears with the appearance of a foetus.

When I was pregnant with my daughter in 2020 the first season of Love is Blind screened. Couples dated behind a wall and only saw each other after they had proposed. I ate it up.

The weeks before her birth were an Indian Matchmaking marathon. The show follows professional matchmaker Sima Taparia as she arranges for hopeful singles to meet their potential spouse.

The second season of Love is Blind aligned nicely with my second pregnancy in 2022 and season one of Singles Inferno, in the same year, introduced me to the unfamiliar world of Korean dating dynamics.

These shows have multiple later seasons that I didn’t watch. I wasn’t even aware, until writing this, that they had aired. Apparently, if I’m not gestating, I’m not interested.

As I write this, four months pregnant, I have already raced through season two of Love is Blind UK and, in recent weeks, Better Late Than Single.

This show hit me in a different way.

Better Late Than Single is, like Singles Inferno, a Korean show. The participants, ranging in age from mid-20s to around 30 are all ‘Eternal Singles’; those who have never dated in their lives. During the show the participants live together in a resort and are given opportunities to date and connect in the hopes of finding love.

Before their arrival at the resort, each participant works with a ‘cupid’ and other specialised coaches to improve on aspects of themselves that may have made dating difficult in the past. Some receive counselling, some benefit from voice work or physical training and, of course, they all get a bit of a makeover.

The show hit differently because it’s painfully familiar. This show gets closer to the experience of dating that I know myself. I struggled, in my late 20s, with territory that your average teenager is navigating regularly.

The participants demonstrate a massive mismatch between what they feel inside and what they feel able to express outwardly. I’ve been there. I’ve experienced dating as excruciatingly painful.

The fact that going to meet someone is a necessary step on the path to meeting someone used to fill me with an unbearable anxiety and tension. Better Late Than Single mirrors my own awkward and uncomfortable dating experiences more than any other dating show I’ve seen.

The show’s participants are attractive, educated and kind. They are not wholly undateable, and yet, each of them has some sort of inner blockage separating themselves from the life and love they want to achieve. In all honesty, who doesn’t recognise that story?

Whether we are eternal singles or old married couples, whether our goals relate to relationships or the myriad of other desires that may add value to our lives, who doesn’t know the feeling of longing for something that is somehow out of reach? Who has never felt that they should be closer to a life goal than they currently are?

Given the universally relatable nature of this experience, I question the shame that surrounds it. If we all know the feeling of being ‘late’ or blocked or inexperienced why is there such shame around the specific area of dating?

In the show, towards the end of their dating retreat the couples are given the chance of an overnight date, so long as both parties select each other. The tragically unselected stay behind and share a meal. As they toast to being “eternal singles no more” the conversation turns to whether or not their status is embarrassing.

“There are more of us out there than you’d think. People just don’t say” says one of them.

“Honestly, if we had met outside we wouldn’t have known” adds another.

“Right. I always lie about it” says the third, to a chorus of agreement.

I was the same. I remember a close, equally inexperienced, friend of mine recounting an evening at the pub with work colleagues. As the drinks flowed they began to share about their first sexual experiences. Eventually she was the only one who hadn’t shared her story and she openly admitted there was not yet a story to tell.

I admired her honesty but I was filled with absolute horror at the possibility of such a thing happening to me. I doubt I would have been so forthright and self-accepting. Instead, images of blushing, stuttering, awkward avoidance and possibly straight-up lying came to my mind.

But why should lying be a go-to reaction here? Besides the fact that one’s sexual experiences are extremely personal and private, why is it so shameful to be inexperienced? Is it so deep a flaw? What, in the cultural narrative, have we absorbed that says “I’m less worthy because I haven’t dated by now”?

Certainly, a relationship has huge potential to enrich your life, but so do many other things. Is there the same shame around never having travelled abroad? Would one feel the need to lie because they had never tried praying? Is the same kind of shame triggered in those who have never pursued a personal interest, a hobby or an important cause?

Or is dating in a league of its own? Is there a truth in this harsh judgment of late daters - whether the judgment comes from the outer world or from within ourselves? Is there something about one’s ability to couple up that is a pre-requisite for belonging? Is it proof that we are able to relate to others, that we are comfortable in the pursuit of our desires, that we can exist beyond the comfortable confines of our insular individual existence? Is it simply that the survival of the human race depends upon our ability to pair up?

I grew up between different cultures and influences, even within my family. My father is a white Englishman and my mother a British Pakistani woman. As a child I could feel quite at ease in the Muslim home of my Pakistani grandparents, in the Christian home of my English grandmother, in the homes of my Scottish schoolfriend with unspoken beliefs.

Even as an adult, I moved between multiple family and community cultures. Pakistani immigrant communities, spiritual communities made up of primarily European converts to Islam, a diverse body of fellow students, work colleagues from all corners of the country and beyond.

Attitudes to dating differed somewhat between these groups. From the religious side I received the understanding that I should be married early. Preferably before my mid-20s although, concessions could be made for pursuing ambitious studies.

The message from the wider western culture discouraged getting married too soon. I understood instead that I should enjoy being young by having lots of sex with lots of different people.

The overlapping message from both cultures was that I really need to be partnered up in some form or other. The part I could never figure out was why. Was it in order to be happy? In order to meet the expectations of the culture? In order to be a worthwhile human being?

These were my corporate-trained go-getting 20s. ‘Why’ wasn’t a question I had much time for. Reflection didn’t deliver specific measurable results. I didn’t give too much thought to why it might be important for me to be with a man. I just moved forward, awkwardly and uncomfortably, in pursuit of that goal.

By thirty years old I found that the hyper-efficient corporate approach wasn’t providing much success in any area of my life that I actually cared about. After experiencing a severe burnout and leaving my job I decided a few sessions with a therapist might be a good idea.

There was one moment in one of those sessions, one question, that is forever burned in my memory. Sitting in an armchair in a small room at the top of a narrow staircase I explained the great dilemma of my virginity to my counsellor. With contorted shoulders I revealed to her the terrible shame I carried as a result of my sexual inexperience.

“I think I’m going to just have sex with the next person who comes along.” I told her.

I expected a cheer of encouragement. I expected approval. I had given the right answer. I was choosing to be empowered and free.

“Why the loss of faith?” she asked.

Silence fell between us. The cogs in my brain creaked as they were forced to turn in new directions. This wasn’t the way this conversation had played out in my head. I had no answer to this question.

“It seems you’ve been living your life according to a certain set of values until now. What has changed?”

Her face was soft. Her being emanated acceptance. She was unruffled by my dark secret.

I had been living by certain values. Values like respect, for myself, for others, for the sacred. That hadn’t changed. Nothing had changed. I just got tired. I had lost hope. It wasn’t that I longed for a different path. The one I was on was just a lot longer than I expected. I had run out of energy.

I left London that year. My energy started to return. My hope started to return. My faith wasn’t lost at all.

At 31 years old I moved in to my parents’ home in Cape Town and slept in their study for a year. I accepted the support that was available to me; something as shame-triggering as my non-existent love life.

I journaled and journaled for myself. I began to write for others also. I walked every morning at sunrise and I grew familiar with the values I had now given myself permission to hold. I read Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, the words sinking beneath my skin and transmitting to me something of my own nature. I thought of myself as an unfertilised ovum, returned to the warmth and safety of the womb. I would not leave in search of sperm. That is not how conception occurs.

After a year my younger brother took a trip to Germany and crossed paths with an old acquaintance of his who had travelled from Italy to attend the same event. I received a message from him:

“Rahma, have you ever met the Palestinian doctor? I think you guys would really get on. Can I give him your number?”

I agreed. Let’s see if he’s a good swimmer, I thought.

I was impressed when he messaged me a couple of days later. The clear and direct nature of his message showed courage and consideration. I was pleasantly surprised when we spoke on the phone and he managed to make me laugh in his fourth language. When he got on a plane to Cape Town to meet me in person I was excited. There was still anxiety. There was still tension. I welcomed them. It was part of the fun. Meeting someone is the only way you can meet someone, after all.

When he proposed on the second day of his visit my mind started to spin, but my newly befriended intuition was not at all surprised. She had known this was coming since the moment he stepped on the plane. The journey from first message to wedding day was six months and four days. We’ve now been married six years and four months.

Looking back, I see I figured out my own ‘why’ for partnering up. Mine is not exactly the same as my mother’s or my colleagues’ or the society’s but it is the same as it has always been, for me. I wanted to partner up in order to have company on a path that I felt I was walking alone. To truly be with and relate to another in deep intimacy and collaboration. To achieve the kind of growth and learning that can only be found in the mirror of a long-term committed relationship.

I watch dating shows when I’m pregnant. As my body and being expand with the possibility of new life, my TV taste draws me back to the beginning. Back to those first steps into the blind possibility of the unknown. Back to the uncomfortable and vulnerable pursuit of one’s desires. Back to the truth of what is possible with a little faith.

Rahma Dutton writes A Woman Who Wanders.

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