Neil Hopcroft

A digital misfit

1001 Nights without sex

No, not me, its a book review….

Subtitled “The curse of the single girl” this book follows the story of the author through her descent from ordinary girl to desperate ‘still single’ black sheep of the family suffering a drought.

I was intrigued by this book, since it seemed to have a certain resonance with my ‘still single’ status, and I wondered if it could offer any insight into my own situation. She touches on subjects like internet dating, where she met a guy who seemed perfectly eloquent and charming online but turned out to be a bumbling buffoon in real life, and speed dating in the form of starting out with coffee dates where you’d only have to endure each others company for 20 minutes if it really was wrong.

Her description of wondering if this prospect is a streak-breaker was a little unnervingly close to my own feelings given such situations, often the answer is a resounding no – if I’ve waited this long its worth waiting a little longer for the *right* person.

With her unique family and continuous attempts to run away from herself there is an endearing quality to her writing, you feel like you’re being brought up to speed to join her council of advisors.

A very readable book, funny in points but in a car-crash kind of way, you can see things are going to go horribly wrong you just don’t know how. It probably won’t appeal to everyone, but anyone out there who has turned ‘still single’ should make an effort to read it – I think its helped me understand a bit more, whether I can do anything useful with that understanding is another question.


2 comments

  1. I’m not convinced about the streak-breaker, for two reasons. The first is that there’s not really such a thing as the ‘right’ person. Well, I don’t believe so, in any case, but then I’m clearly not a romantic. While I’m not advocating lowering your standard to the floor, sometimes people who seem only barely acceptable at the outset turn out out to be loves-of-one’s-lifes after things have been going for a while.

    The other thing is that *nothing*’s more sexually attractive than someone with a partner. It’s kind of a universal “the water’s ok” indicator. Recently-single and doe-eyed with grief works pretty well too. Machiavellian, but true.

    • :(

      Theres a theory that you break the drought with someone who doesn’t matter, then you’re lined up much better for finding the right person next time around. Every time I try that I end up getting so screwed up by the one that doesn’t matter that I can’t face finding the one who does. Back into the cycle again.

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