Snow storms in April aside, spring has definitely sprung and the reason I know is that you can practically hear the sap rising. Friends with whom I have discussed recipes for ragout or the relative merits of the Screen over the Virgin cinema all winter, are suddenly beginning to come out with random statements like "Where are all the men in this bloody town anyway?", apropos of nothing. Actually, this is a little unfair; it is usually me who starts rolling my eyes and getting petulant about the lack of romantic excitement once the grey, thermal underwear skies begin to lift.
This year I have been blessedly quiet, not out of any sense of restraint or consideration for my friends, God forbid, but because for once I have a bit of romantic intrigue going on. Nothing so impressive as a boyfriend, or even a regular fling, just somebody I day-dream about. Most of my single female friends are in agreement about this one thing - it's not that we necessarily want boyfriends, who have a nasty habit of stopping one from flirting with waiters, it's just that it's nice having someone to think about in idle moments
Of course, this is a highly unfashionable thing to admit - young women are meant to be terribly busy pushing men off the career ladder and building caring family units, not mooning about like 1950s bobby-soxers before the prom. But old-fashioned or not, there is nothing to beat wondering whether the boy you flirted with last Saturday is going to call or whether it's too soon to call him, or whether it would be a better approach to e-mail first. Of course the downside of all this wondering is that sooner or later it can turn into worrying. If nothing happens with Davie Daydream, I might, just might, start to think that he doesn't believe I'm an Amazonian goddess with champagne instead of blood in my veins, and gold stitched into my underpants. This is where my generation reaps the benefit of all that assertiveness training that was flogged to death in the 1970s. When I get a red card after a short-lived dalliance, I usually manage to realise that it is not a reflection on my personality as a whole. The non-returner of my calls, I reason, probably had as good a time as I did, he just isn't of the right state of mind to start shopping for bathroom tiles. If I'm being particularly sensible, I also realise that the thought of shopping for anything with Mr Exciting Fling does not fill my heart with glee either.
To my mind, this is the perfect balance. Most of the time, I have the freedom to make choices about who I get involved with and how seriously I want to take it. If I don't have a choice because (unbelievably) somebody doesn't return my affections, I neither feel guilty nor used. I may get a little hurt, but hey, that's kind of inevitable, isn't it? Well not really, if a book that's currently causing a storm in the States, A Return to Modesty: Discovering the Lost Virtue, is to be believed. Wendy Shalit, its 23 year-old author is of the opinion that modesty is the new black, and that promiscuity is the cause of sexual harassment, date rape, stalking and anorexia. If young women weren't keeping their minds and legs open, they'd not only be a whole lot happier, but they'd earn the respect of their male peers.
Now who's talking 1950s throwback? Admittedly, the popularity of Ms Shalit's views probably says more about the growth of right-wing extremism in middle America (c.f. reaction to the Lewinsky affair), than it does about a growth in female promiscuity. However I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling rather irritated that Wendy Shalit has raised that old: "nice girls don't" chestnut all over again.
THE reality of the matter is that some nice girls do and some nice girls don't, and some nice girls sometimes do and sometimes don't, and at the end of the day, nice girls should know that a good relationship is built on love and friendship and not on whether you put out on the first date or not. Of course, this is no utopia we live in and there will always be nice girls who are persuaded to do what they would rather not, but the solution to that problem is surely not to drag society back to a time when men were lusty predators and women were frosty gatekeepers?
A much more positive and, it seems to me, 1990s attitude is offered in a quieter, more reflective book, also just out in the United States. It's called The Improvised Woman: Single Women Re-Inventing Single Life, and its author Marcelle Clements interviewed over 100 women about their single status. Clements too grew familiar with that rallying cry, "There are no men!" but points out that the speaker is really announcing that: "she'd rather be alone than in a terrible relationship and that even a mediocre relationship can feel terrible. And maybe she'd rather be alone, period. It is her awareness of choices that separates the single woman from the pitiable `single' of 1970s and 1980s lore".
It seems to me that rather than shoving young women back into a position where they have to say no to be respected, it might be a more enlightened move to encourage active decision-making - have flings or don't, stay celibate or don't, just know what you're doing and why. Meanwhile, I am perfectly delighted with Marcelle Clements' book because I have discovered I am not day-dreaming at all; I am actually exercising my awareness of choices, which sounds ever so much more impressive.