Alison Taylor on relationships: Being alone is a skill, OK?

When I started writing this column, I wrote about how friends, and friends of friends, seem obsessed with knowing if you're "still single".

I wrote how annoying it is that that's all they seem preoccupied by; as if that's the most important thing in the life of a woman. I wrote how it's tedious, or at the very least irksome, to have to come up with something new to say back.

Which is why I often come out with really stupid answers ("No, no kids yet but I have been growing my eyebrows out") when my nervous energy self-combusts.

But then I thought about it in a different way last Monday night, post-dinner and halfway through an episode of The Sopranos, my current long-term companion.

These friends and 'concerned' acquaintances aren't the problem – I am. If I'm totally honest, I put pressure on myself to be with someone. Think I've somehow failed if I'm not.

I was nervous to write this because it makes me sound like a sap. Rationally I know it's silly, counterproductive and, to some extent, perhaps non-feminist, too.

Yet in my darker moments I do wonder to myself, how have I not managed to hold down a boyfriend? What's wrong with me?

On one of these off days, I may see a couple being all couple-y, look at the girl and think, what does she have that I don't? Like it's a skill set that I somehow don't possess and I'm on a shortlist for a job.

Then, thankfully, my rational brain kicks in and tells me off for it. I know it's ridiculous, I know her boyfriend is not someone I'd want to have drunken sex with let alone a relationship (etc) but still, I admit it, sometimes these gremlin thoughts are allowed an audience with my brain.

The thing is, I do want to find love and be with that person. I miss the intimacy shared with someone who sticks around through the hangover rather than contributing to it. And sometimes, OK, a lot of times, 'dating' can be downright galling. And tiring.

But, and I tell myself this too, being without a boyfriend is better than the loneliness of being with one who makes you unhappy. On a weekend when we are supposed to hunker down as a two. Being alone is better than being with someone for the sake of it. Being alone is a skill. An accomplishment, not a failing. And sometimes it just pays to have a word with yourself, OK?

@lovefool forever