If you’ve been on your own for long, it’s easy as a single woman in your 30s to think that there are no single men out there or that all the ‘good ones’ are taken. This thought is compounded by the frustration of not even knowing where to meet single men.
It can be pretty tough for a single woman in her 30s to meet single men. You spend most of your time at work and after battling through traffic, the last thing you feel like doing is hanging out anywhere. Besides, you’re not going to find a ‘good’ man at a bar or nightclub anyway. Or at least, that’s what everyone says. The weekend is spent attending weddings or cooped up at home trying to recover from the hectic week. You don’t see how on earth you’re going to meet any guys this way. Maybe your mother was right and you should have married that cute but chauvinistic guy you dated 5 years ago. I admit, things look bad at this point but they just look that way. They’re not really so.
The important thing is to realise that you’re not alone. And by that, I don’t just mean there are other women in Lagos going through what you’re going through. I man there are women across the world wondering if single men are hiding from them. To illustrate this point, I remember reading an interview Beyonce gave years ago. She said there was a time in her life when she would see her friends going on dates and would wonder longingly how on earth she would meet anybody. Beyonce might have had all the beauty and money in the world but she also had problems meeting men. She was world-famous. She couldn’t very well set up a profile on match.com. Of course, you know the end of the story. She met Jay Z on the set of a music video (I think) and they are married today with a cutie of a daughter. If someone besieged by paparazzi wherever she went could meet a man, you can too.
First, you need to open your mind. The fact that almost everyone you know met their partner through a sibling or through a friend does not mean that’s the way you have to meet yours too. The truth is that you can meet fantastic men anywhere. I’ve met men on planes (another reason why single women should travel alone), in bookstores (another reason why it’s sad that there are so few of them around these days) and while driving (another reason why you should ignore people who say you won’t meet men if you have your own car).
A friend of mine met a guy she ended up dating for years at a French class. Another met one at a visa application centre and one of my favourite stories is the friend who met her husband at a nightclub. You don’t have to be rich or beautiful or a socialite to meet men. What you need is an open mind and to take consistent action. Consistent action does not have to mean going to a party every weekend but it means at least leaving the house every weekend even if it means going to the movies alone, going to a poetry-reading your friend drags you to or even just taking your time selecting groceries at the supermarket. There are many single men out there and some of them are looking for a woman just like you. Go out and give them a chance to meet you.
To get my book ‘How to be a single woman in your 30s in Lagos’, the witty manual for the single 30-something woman (or man) trying to create their own happiness in the beautiful, wild city we call Lagos, click here.
To get a free chapter of my upcoming book, 7 Steps to Meeting the One, click here.
To read my other posts on how to be happy as a single woman in your 30s, click here.
Want to know when a new blog post of mine comes up? All you need to do is subscribe. It’s free! Just enter your email address into the box on the right and click on the link that will be sent to your email address in order to activate your subscription. Want to get in touch with me? You can do so via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, GooglePlus or by sending me an email. I’m on Pinterest andYouTube as well. Woo-hoo!
