“When are you getting married?” is a question you will may hear many times – especially if you are a Black woman over 40, successful and single.

“Did you never want to get married or have children?” a colleague once asked. I was in my forties then and wondered why she would presume that because I was ‘still’ single I had given up on life and love?

It is a familiar story. You are over 35, got a good job and have enough disposable income to go on holidays, dress well and treat yourself occasionally, yet you just can’t seem to shake the niggling feeling that you haven’t quite hit the mark. Sometimes you feel that same energy directed at you from society, relatives and, if you are a person of faith, your church family too.

Singleness for so many mature black women has become like that old ache you get used to due to the lack of dating options and the reality of being unseen in a society that mostly celebrates being coupled up. Welcome to the world of the “reluctant singleton” – a term made popular by Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones.