Having recently experienced myself what can only be classed as a substantial life accident (i.e. the termination of a serious long-term relationship), I have found other people's reactions, and my response to their reactions, to my fate increasingly interesting.
When a serious relationship finishes, friends are often the first people to rally to pick up the pieces. At least, this has always been the case in previous situations for me. Perhaps things become different as one gets older. Many of my married friends have been relatively unsympathetic, telling me to "just get on with it", "forget about him and stop moping" or, and this was a classic: "move on as fast as possible because time is running out and you really don't want to miss the boat on having children". As a woman who fervently hopes to have a family one day, I found this advice surprising and perhaps a little to close to the truth that I ultimately find so frightening.
I do feel as though time is running out....but I am so wounded by what has happened in my last relationship that the thought of meeting another guy / hurling myself back out there into the dating pool is deeply horrifying.....
Furthermore, surely rushing into a new relationship, which would inevitably be a classic "rebound" situation, would be the worst thing I could do. Surely what I need to do is take some time for me to figure out exactly what I want from life on all fronts. But the conclusion I keep coming to is that this is something I probably should have done when I would have genuinely felt that I could allow myself the time....
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