"By single women I mean separated, divorced, unmarried or widowed". Many hope to fall in love again. Women know that generally any woman can get a man, if sufficiently determined. When they say: "Where are the men?" They mean nice men, decent and sincere, who want more from a relationship than just sex, men who are fairly good looking and fanciable... and who don't wear gray shoes.

These days you have to add "straight" to that list as well. Gay men are usually lovely company and make excellent "walkers" to the theatre or a party, if you don't want to turn up alone. But they are no good for the kind of relationship normal, sincere, funny, decent-women are seeking.

Some single women of a certain age I know spend their evenings watching television alone, consoling themselves that they are still luckier than many other women, say in Gaza or Afghanistan. As one woman pointed out: "But although television or your favourite author may be good company you can't canoodle with them. I want emotions!"

As the saying goes: "Meglio sola che mal accompagnata." Some tell me that they try not to forget how unhappy they were in relationships with men who destroyed their self-esteem, treated them like unpaid domestics and the home like a hotel and worst of all, betrayed them. Others don't want to recall their past happiness because it makes them feel worse now that they no longer have it.

Many single women of a certain age get on with their lives and pursue friendships and interests. "I could be ill in bed, and unable to do anything, so I make the best of my health while I have it.

Literature is full of women looking for a soulmate. I've tried to fit some of the quotations to the women who spoke to me over several months.

* * *

"Evil for women is one thing only, the loved one's absence, absence unlit by any hope of eventual return - that is the one horror for which there is no cure..." Therèse Desqueuroux by François Mauriac.

* * *

ANNE, early Sixties, still goodlooking and elegant, lives alone with her dog. "There is a destiny; a super intelligence who wants it this way. I had a good marriage, no children. If someone has to cross my path, he will, but I shall do nothing to make it happen.
I involve myself in social work as much as I can and make dozens of pots of marmalade to be sold for charity. Forgetting yourself is the only way to live. Abandon all desire. I refuse to fall into self-pity, to become a victim. No, being a victim is not my style. Time does not heal the pain of loss. That is a fallacy. Another relationship might help. But I cannot will that to happen. And as I get older I am less ready to make compromises - yet at the same time I am more tolerant. I understand men more. I live from day to day. My faith helps me to survive those terrible moments of aloneness."

BETTA, late forties, with several relationships behind her. Never married. "It is so easy to destroy a woman's reputation in this hole called Malta. I've seen men do it to women they fancy to ensure that others don't want them. If you are seen as much as talking to a man they are already jumping to conclusions. There's a great deal of wickedness around in this Catholic country of ours.
Not that I bother about what people say or think. I've stopped trying to please, to justify, to defend myself. I've stopped trying to change myself to accommodate men. I'm simply myself and I feel happier.
To love is to open up to the person you love.  At the moment I am in love with someone who can't for various reasons accept the love I have to give him. Such a shame. All this love going to waste. But life has taught me to take things lightly, nothing is really that serious after all. I've learnt to play the game of life with the cards I've been given. I've squashed all desires, all expectations, if anything comes along it's a bonus."

She quotes Dorothy Parker's

Indian Summer

In youth, it was a way I had

 To do my best to please,

And change, with every

          passing lad,

   To suit his theories.

And now I know the things I

       know,

  And do the things I do:

And if you do not like me so,

 To hell, my love with you!

No loneliness short of death is irreparable. Who knows what meeting may come your way, this evening,  tomorrow? So many paths cross our own. At any moment a spark may kindle, a current of sympathy be set up." Therèse Desqueyroux by François Mauriac.

HELEN, middle forties, single. "The few relationships I've had with men have been abortive, brief and out of sync. It has been vain hope and thwarted desires most of the way. It's not their fault nor mine. Things simply don't work out. One expects conflict in a relationship but it has to be largely harmonious otherwise it's preferable to live with a budgy.
Sometimes when I'm feeling depressed I start thinking something is wrong with me . I have an interesting  job and some good friendships, but there is something missing in my life. I still hope to meet that someone who can make life really worth living. But where, how, when?"

* * *

"I could hope nothing now from love. I was as ignorant of love at that moment as I had been in the days of my youth. I know nothing of love save that it is the constant object of my desire, a desire that possesses me and blinds me, setting my feet on the ways of the wasteland, dashing me against the walls, forcing me into quagmires, stretching me exhausted in the muddy ditches of life." Thèrese Desqueyroux by François Mauriac.

DORIS  is in her Fifties. Her husband died many years ago and her children are now grown up and away from home. She lives alone but has not yet resigned herself to ending her days alone.  "I had a very happy marriage even if it was somewhat short so perhaps expecting another happy relationship is being greedy and unrealistic. Many widows I know are resigned to their lot, or simply don't want another relationship. Resignation is very much the Maltese way. 'It's what God wants.' But who is to know what God wants?

I believe one can love again if the right person turns up. There is no substitute in this world for caring and sharing with someone you love. All is tasteless when you are alone.

I did meet someone special some years ago but the man in question wanted  me to go and live abroad. I didn't care for him enough I suppose,  to want to make a major change in my life. I want to die in my country where my family is. Loneliness can make us do all kinds of foolish things we may regret later on.

* * *

"One must have the humility to recognise that one can't face life alone; its easier to have someone else to live for." Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir.

JENNIFER. Fifties. Five children. Husband left her for a foreign floozy. "I now understand why of course. Having been told all my life to look after my virginity, to cross my legs and say no, I found adapting to the sexual side of marriage very difficult although I adored my husband. He was not the greatest or the best of lovers either but perhaps had I been more relaxed and shown some signs of enjoyment he might have become. With children the bed side of things simply became worse. I was terrified of becoming pregnant after the third child but I had two more. That's all I could think of as I lay there, trying to enter into the spirit of the occasion but knowing full well that I couldn't cope with anymore children.

Of course the answer was contraception but I was very rigidly brought up and it never crossed my mind to break the Catholic rule. With hindsight I realise we should have.

This foreign bottle blond was out here on the lookout. My husband was not an easy prey but we were going through a bad patch. She was determined to hook him and it seems lost no time in showing him what sex should be really like, I suppose. He came back for forgiveness. He missed the children and my cooking. He even said he missed me. She was not as hot in the kitchen as she was in bed it seems. I now regret not taking him back. But again, my upbringing had formed my character. How could I take back someone who had deceived me in this way, with a woman who was no better than me in any way, except in bed. Moreover I was the mother of his children. I am heartbroken but cannot forgive him. I must say I regret it now. We had shared so much. All is lost because of a stupid bottle blond who has probably spent her life seducing men and poaching them from other women.

Women are beginning to understand that life should have more than one goal. Careers are good for women I agree but they can never substitute someone to love. What is nicer than to share your life with someone. It is a human need to feel that kind of warm background, a knowledge that the person will be there, or will be there soon. That they're there in your life. Most things have no meaning at all when you're on your own."

* * *

"I was to discover in the course of my life that the most coveted joys of life die as soon as they are gathered, like the anemones of my childhood." Call No Man Happy by André Maurois.

GINA in her Forties. Married briefly. "Call me a pessimist if you like but after several relationships none of which were brilliant   am resigned to walk into the sunset alone perhaps with a dog or cat at my side, to the strains of Sibelius. My relationships have always been based on physical attraction but this is not enough for them to last, I know. These relationships seemed so fantastic at the beginning... but they fizzilled out. Not enough common ground."

* * *

"Acceptance is always a matter of choice, love always a matter of preference. If you wait until you meet absolute perfection before getting involved, you'll never love anyone and never do anything." The Mandarins by Simone de Beauvoir.

MARY late Forties. "I have been looking for ten-on-ten men all my life and now that I have reached my middle years I have decided to settle for a six-or-seven-on-ten because I am not perfect and I therefore cannot expect perfection.  What is more I think I've  found him... so let's have a drink to a new chapter in my life. My eyes are already beginning to mist over a little at the thought of him."

* * *

"Short unworthy intimacy brought no light or relief into her life. It soiled and humiliated her. It smashed her wholeness and destroyed her harmony." Cancer Ward by Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

TERESA, 44. Left her husband after 15 years marriage, three children." I could not take it any longer. He never gave me a penny, he bought everything down to the last needle. But he wouldn't hear about my going out to work to earn my own money either. He felt it would ruin his image. There were other things of course and slowly I lost my respect for him. With so much resentment building up, I stopped loving him. The separation meant he had to part with some money and I enjoyed watching him having to do this to make up for all those years of meanness and control.

I would love another relationship of course. It's not considered normal for a woman of my age to live alone. But I believe I am a one-man woman. Monogamous.

I've received several invitations since my seperation but I did not take any of them up. The men in question are not what I am looking for. They have other agendas. It doesn't even boost up my morale to be propositioned. I am not interested in transient relationships. But where am I going to meet this human being? I hardly ever go anywhere. There are my children and also the job and the house so there isn't much time and opportunity left. Decent single men seem to be very scarce in my age group. Anyway, I am a fatalist.  If it has to happen it will happen. If not..."

* * *

"...Quietly I make a wish: "Oh, let me love again. Let me be loved. A falling star is said to grant one wish, but I made two." Liv Ullman,in her autobiography.

And there lies the problem. The women I spoke to either have a pretendente somewhere or they themselves know of someone who to them is special but with whom for various reasons they cannot form a relationship. That is the strange thing about love. I love you and you love her and she loves some guy in America... and we all have these totally non-connecting loves which are not doing anyone any good. That is the crux of the matter. Love energizes. But love happens when two souls come together. When someone enters your soul. As  Liz UIlman writes.  One miracle it not enough. It needs two to make it work.