Women singletons who are happy to be the one and only

SingletonS used to fall into neat categories. From middle-aged men who’d never quite cut the apron strings to spinsters who preferred cats to company, they stood outside the norm of the traditional happy family and all were to be pitied.

Then something changed. Being single was no longer the sign of some dire personality disorder and if you happened to take a leaf of Sex and the City’s Samantha it was also a lot more fun than doing the washing and ironing for a family four.

It wasn’t just a blip. According to recent market research firm Euromonitor International, the number of people living alone globally has skyrocketed, rising from 153m in 1996 to 277m in 2011 – an increase of around 80 per cent in 15 years. And it’s women who are embracing the single life – in the UK nearly half of women have never married; a figure which has more than doubled in the last four decades.

Any new social group worth its salt needs a catchy new name, so these independent, perfectly sane and happy women are now known as the freemales. Jaye Kearney is one of them.

“In some ways I’ve always been alone,” says Kearney, who has just written a one woman show (could it have been anything else?) exploring the single life. “I was an only child, brought up by a single mother. We moved around quite a lot, so I was often the new girl in school .

“I would happily spend hours playing balls games by myself. All my toys had names and personalities. I talked to myself a lot. I’m now 37, I’ve been single a long time and I’ve never really had a significant relationship, but you know what? It’s fine. In fact it’s more than fine.

“Part of the reason for doing the show was to explore how society views people like me. Those who know me well have stopped asking whether I’m seeing anyone, because they understand that it’s not an issue, but my step-mother will often ask. Her children settled down quite young and I think she and my father think my lifestyle is rather odd.

“We have changed as a society. More women than ever before are financially independent and that has changed the goalposts when it comes to relationships. Of course there are some people who still see marriage as the ultimate goal – you only have to look at how something like Bridget Jones struck such a chord to see that – but I don’t think being single quite invites the pity it once did. Most of us don’t worry about dying alone, eaten by Alsatians.”

However, Kearney is not completely immune to the social pressure to be one half of a pair and admits a few years ago that she did go through a period of internet dating.

However, the process of picking a potential partner on the basis of a list of adjectives and a carefully worded character synopsis left her feeling empty.

“I had a few unsuccessful dates and I just found it incredibly depressing,” she says. “I’ll happily choose a pair of shoes on the internet, I’ll happily order a DVD, but it’s just not how I want to find love. I found it all very soulless.”

And right there is the rub. While Kearney is happily single, she’s also a dyed in the wool romantic. To borrow a line from Bridget Jones, if she is going to settle down she doesn’t just want any old man, she wants “something more extraordinary than that”.

It’s a philosophy encapsulated in a movement called QuirkyAlone. Started by Sasha Cagen her manifesto for hopeless romantics and happy singletons has been gathering pace in America, so expect it to arrive with full force on this side of the Atlantic some time soon.

“I’ve never read a self-help book, I don’t own a copy of Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, but when I was doing my research for the play I stumbled across the QuirkyAlone website and ordered a copy of Sasha’s book.

“I didn’t read it until I finished writing the show, but when I did, it was like a lightbulb going off. It absolutely summed up the way I feel and the way I’m sure a lot of other single women feel.

“I like my life. In fact I love my life. Would I like to be swept of my feet and meet the love of my life? Of course I would, but it would have to be something pretty extraordinary to make me want to swap the life I’ve already got. I’m not going to settle for second best just so I can say, ‘Guess what? I’m in a relationship’.

“If it happens, so be it, but I’m not going to devote the rest of my life looking for it. Life is too short and too precious for that.”

Jaye Kearney’s One is at the Carriageworks in Leeds tomorrow night. For more details call 0113 224 3801, www.carriageworkstheatre.co.uk