BlueBelle
Monica a single woman who is reasonably (to put it in the grandkids words) fit, does seem to be targeted as a spare to be wary of, whether it’s your experience or not (but seeing as you are married you wouldn’t know about it ) if there’s a group of married couples and one becomes single for whatever reason it’s going to unbalance the group so easier to leave her out
I wonder if it happens to guys too probably not so much as a single guy is looked upon as an asset a single woman is looked on as a failure whatever the reason they are single.
Bluebelle All the important women in my life have been single. My best friends from school, university, working life. One of my sisters never married, one didn't partner of marry until her late 40s. I had single aunts My daughter, for her own reasons, made a conscious decision at 20 to not ever live with anyone or have children. She is now over 50. Purely by chance single women have played a far bigger part in my life than married women.
Plenty of my friends, in their youth would have been considered 'fit' It certainly applied to DD - and still does, but all of them seem to have plenty of friends, married and single.
I think the key is, not that not being a widow I have no experience of exclusion, but rather that DH and I have never been part of a 'group of married couples' so I have no experience of that kind of social dynamic.
We have friends who are married but socialise with them on a couple to couple basis, so if death or break-up intervenes, the friendship continues regardless. Similarly some of my single friends have become friends of both of us. In fact, thinking about it, most of them have.
