By Bunmi Sofola

WITH all her friends matching up and getting married, the average spinster can’t help but wonder when her turn would come.  She’s got fewer people to go out with now as a lot of her friends are married and she hasn’t found anyone she wants to spend the rest of her life with.  Now, her friends are putting on the pressure she should get married. But, not only doesn’t she want to spend her life with the fist nice man that comes along, she still enjoys her single status.

The big question here is: Is there any age when a girl should cut her losses and just make the best with Mr. Nice?

“I remember asking my mother that very question once,” said Tito, a mother of three who got married for the first time in her 30s.  “I was already 28 without a steady.  I had a good job, a flat of my own and a good circle of friends.  I knew she was as anxious as I was to get married, yet she assured me there would always be men no matter what age you were.  And, I agreed with her – but that was after I’d met my current husband who was widowed when very young.  His wife died at childbirth and left him an infant son to look after.

“We weren’t match-made.  We met at a workshop and we just clicked.  It wasn’t love at first sight.  I just respected his intelligence, but after a few dates, I realised he’d been traumatised by his wife’s death, but was now resigned to it.  Within months, we were lovers and I was shocked but delighted when I got pregnant.  I wasn’t going to dangle my pregnancy as a bait for him to get married.  I was well prepared financially and emotionally to be a single mother.  But, Jerome was quite thrilled at the prospect of his son having a brother or sister.

“That was how I became a bride and mother when I was 31 – in two years, I’d had two children all the kids we ever wanted.  Now, the three children are our lives and my husband is the best friend I’ve ever had.  Which goes to show that if you don’t look too desperate, the right man would happen along.

“I wasn’t an old maid who’d been actively looking for her ideal man when I met him, my husband.  Neither was I a 30-year-old woman foaming at the mouth because everyone else was getting married but me.  So, when Jerome met me, I was my confident cosmopolitan self.  I wanted to settle down, of course, but I was having a nice time also.  It was an icing on the cake that Jerome and I clicked.  Personally, I would rather be single and enjoying my friends than with someone I didn’t honestly admire, respect or fancy.  I don’t think it would be fair on the person you choose either: Everyone wants and deserves to be your number one choice.”

Not all prospective brides will be as lucky as Tito.  Especially those who believe it’s not much fun being single.  What is worth considering at this stage is whether the person you are waiting for actually exists.  In other words, do you need to make your ‘must-haves’ a little realistic?  The other thing to consider is if you want children.  If you are approaching 40 and being super fussy, this might alter your selection process.  No matter how many nice men you meet, if they are not your type, then you need to rethink where you are going to meet the type of men who’d up you chances of finding someone who is more your type.

Like a psychologist aptly puts it: “You have to consider what’s more important to you: Chemistry, Soul mate connection and intense emotional bond, or compatibility companionship and a respect for the institution of marriage.  If it’s the former, settling for anything less probably won’t make you happy any way.  If it’s the latter, it may well do…”

Fight Age-Related Illness With A 30-Minute Walk! 

If you want to stay young, don’t wait for a wonder drug – just go for a walk instead.  A half-hour walk every day is as good as a ‘super-pill’ capable of combating age-related illness from diabetes to dementia, Britain’s biggest science conference heard.  It also fights obesity, arthritis and cancer and helps lift depression.  Dr. James Brown an expert in ageing, said that while 30 minutes’ brisk walking a day may not seem like much, studies from around the world show it benefits all-round health.

Dr. Brown, a lecturer in health sciences at Birmingham’s Aston University, said: ‘All of these changes are not seen in people that run marathons, they are not seen in people who lift weights in the gym or spend four hours running on the tread-mill, these are seen in people who walk, and who walk for half an hour a day.  You can get all these health benefits; you can get a reduction in all of these diseases that are associated with ageing, by just keeping active.’  Dr. Brown told the British Science Festival that maintaining muscle as we age is key to staying mobile and living an independent life.  Not only is exercise the best way of keeping muscles from withering, it has many other benefits.

Delivering a round-up of existing research, he said: ‘Maintaining your muscle mass, maintaining your activity level, is really important.  But there is no need to worry because it has all been sorted.  There is a magic new super-pill.  This super-pill will prevent obesity.  It will also reduce deposits of bad fat.  It prevents diabetes, heart attacks and strokes.  This pill reduces the risk of, or delays, Alzheimer’s disease.

‘So if you give this pill to people with early stage Alzheimer’s disease, 50 per cent of the people who take this pill will have a reduced progression of the disease.  It reduces the risk of some cancers, particularly cancer of the gut.  It can increase mobility.’  He went on to say that regular walks can even treat depression.  Dr. Brown said that 30 per cent of people with depression who take up walking for half an hour a day find their symptoms are improved.  If the amount of time that patients spend walking is increased, the number who notice improvement reaches nearly 50 per cent.

He added: ‘It reduces anxiety in about 50 per cent of people and can improve levels of cognition.  It can improve your ability to think and reason.  It reduces arthritic pain in about 50 per cent of sufferers and can reduce hospital admissions in older women for hip fractures by 40 per cent.  It gives you more energy and reduces fatigue levels, and if you tie all these things up together into one real subject area, it’s quality of life.  If you give somebody a quality of life questionnaire three or six months later, their quality of life will have improved.  We also see a 23-per cent lower risk of death.  This isn’t a pill, it’s exercise.’