New Year is, apparently, a time for announcing to the world exactly what’s wrong with you.

You make resolutions so you can tell people “This year I’ll lose two stone/give up smoking/stop crywanking every Saturday night while watching films starring Jennifer Aniston.”

I wouldn’t mind that much, but there doesn’t seem to be anything to balance this out. We all know that there are some things that are wrong with us. Most of us are a bit fat, most of us have habits that are either bad for our health or irritating to our loved ones.

But we also all have certain qualities that are admirable, beautiful, or just plain cool.

Self-hatred ain’t sexy

During the first week of January, resolutions sweep through people I know like a wildfire of self-doubt. Friends who I have a very high opinion of will leap out of the woodwork and declare ‘hey, here’s my flaw – you might not have spotted it yet but it’s there.’

For the purposes of fuelling my rant, I’m going to use losing weight as an example.

Disclaimer: if you’re resolving to lose weight because your current weight causes you mobility/health problems, then not only do I 100% support you, but if you drop me an email I will give you some exciting tips on how to do it. OK, not necessarily exciting, they basically all consist of me saying ‘eat salad, then fuck vigorously’.

Most people are a bit fat, and I’ve spoken before about how guys who are a bit fat are pretty sexy. But above and beyond the aesthetic value of some hot jiggling, there’s something that comes even higher in the list of ‘things that are hot’ – not giving a shit about your weight.

Nothing is less sexy than someone moaning about their love handles. No one wants to listen to a partner telling them exactly how much weight they’ve put on, which bits of their body are the fattest, or exactly how many calories they’re limiting themselves to each day.

Feel free to make self-deprecating jokes about it, but as soon as you ‘resolve’ to ‘fix’ it, it becomes an issue. Something that your partners and friends feel they must notice, tiptoe-around, and pander to. Worst of all, it could even make them feel the need to ‘support’ you in your efforts by cooking you healthy food, or joining you in a run around the block.

A better new year’s resolution

Everyone’s got flaws – you might be a bit fat, need to ditch smoking, be an irritating cunt when drunk or, in my case, all of the above. But there are inevitably some things about you that are bloody great. You might be hilarious, generous in getting rounds in, in possession of a spectacular arse, or able to deep-throat people with aplomb.

So make new year’s resolutions if you like, but as a gesture towards the well-rounded and at-least-partially-brilliant person you inevitably are, why not pick one or two things that you definitely don’t want to change? Choose two things that are ace about you, and resolve, with all the willpower that your awesome mind can muster, to keep them exactly as they are.

Hands up who’s been with family over Christmas? And hands up who’s had to have the obligatory conversation with relatives about why you’re still single? Well, If I weren’t typing I’d be waving my hands frantically in the air, then using them to smash things in frustration about people’s unnecessary interference in my life.

Why does anyone think it is OK to ask me when I’m going to get a boyfriend? If you confide in someone that you’re lonely and they offer you dating advice, they’re responding to a specific request. But it’s a hell of a leap to assume that you can quiz your single friends/family members on their relationship status, and then hint to them that they should be working harder to ensure that they’re soon safely ensconced in a loving couple which, by the way, should really get on and pop out some babies soon.

I’m single because I like it

I think I might get this printed on a t-shirt that I can wear to the next family gathering so that I don’t need to waste my breath saying it over and over again.

Being single is brilliant. I can see people I like, avoid people I don’t, fill my diary with dinners and dates and drinking. If I’m in the pub and having a bad time I can go home, safe in the knowledge that I haven’t “thrown a strop” and dragged a partner home with me. If I’m bored of an evening, I can flip through my black book and see who wants to come over.

I can love people, fuck people, get drunk and be sick in the gutter and moan with hungover shame in a pile on the sofa the next day – and none of this will be of significance to anyone other than me.

Don’t assume that ‘alone’ means ‘lonely’

The question ‘when are you going to get a boyfriend?’ rests on the gargantuan assumption that the life I lead is incomplete. I think some family members imagine that I sit at home every night crying into a romance novel, lamenting the gaping, boyfriend-shaped hole in my lonely, miserable heart. I say “I don’t want a boyfriend.” They hear “I can’t get a boyfriend.”

This implies that no one in the history of the world has ever or could ever make an active choice to be alone, because being alone is a Bad Thing.

But of course, those of us who are alone know that it’s not. Being alone is a joyful, wonderful thing. We get to go out when we like, stay in when we like, spend time doing crap DIY, writing blogs or committing ourselves to whimsical projects. We get to drink all the gin in the cupboard, eat whatever food we’ve scraped from the back of the fridge, and then have a victorious wank right in the middle of the lounge.

My biological clock is of no importance

At 27 years old I am now officially ‘pushing 30’, which apparently means that I should be clawing my way into the heart of any available gentleman in the desperate hope that he fertilises my rapidly-dwindling stash of eggs so I can spit out a child or two to give my parents something to coo over.

This isn’t going to happen. Perhaps, years into the future, I’ll change my mind. But for now, the thought of getting pregnant brings me out in a cold, terrified sweat and makes me want to hug close to me all the things I love – my independence, my freedom, my time alone, my beautiful flat with all the things in it that aren’t covered in sick and dribble, and – perhaps most of all – my goddamn money.

I don’t care if time’s running out. Time’s also running out for me to retrain as a barrister or shag John McCririck. I’m not going to rush to do either of these things – they are undesirable things to do, and they aren’t going to become any more desirable just because there’s a limited time in which to do them.

Love hurts

My final and perhaps most important reason for staying single: love hurts. A relationship is the all-or-nothing option. You give everything you have to someone who has the power to destroy the lot on a whim.

If you’re in a relationship, then I’m impressed. You’re willing to lay your heart out on the chopping-block of their affections and trust them not to pound it into a miserable, bloody slab of pain.

At least when I’m single I know that my misery is my own. If I’m wretched it’s because I’ve made myself so, and I’m probably in a reasonable position to fix whatever’s wrong. But in a relationship it’s possible for someone else to make a decision that brings your whole world crashing down around you.

When I wake up in the morning I feel safe knowing that the only person with the power to destroy me is me.

Even given a multiverse of infinite worlds I still struggle to comprehend a possible one in which I could give less of a shit about your kids.

Don’t get me wrong, I wish no harm upon your – or indeed anyone else’s – children. It’s just that given the choice I’d rather you didn’t tell me about them in unrelenting, tedious detail.

I know single parent dating is hard, but this rule applies most emphatically, to those guys that I fuck.

Why? Well, kids just aren’t sexy. Your ability to raise offspring, while no doubt held in great regard by some women, has no bearing whatsoever on my own affections towards you.

Talk about them if you like – I’m aware that in the cacophonous mêlée of your life you may well need to vent about certain things. Feel free to mention them, tell me how precocious and cute they are, or regale me with an amusing anecdote involving the time one of them said something so adorable it made everyone at that family wedding spew Cava through their nose in a spontaneous gesture of delighted amusement: just don’t bang on and on about them as if they’re the only interesting thing about you.

I highly doubt I’ll ever have kids, and if I do I’m sure the world will not be big enough to contain the gigantic flying fuck that I’m willing to give about them. My kids will be as special to me as yours, no doubt, are to you. But right now, please don’t expect me to care.

Further, please understand that too much child-based conversation could seriously hinder my ability to find you attractive. Yes, you are virile and strong and manly: your sperm has been biologically successful on at least one occasion. But that does not impress me. If you can shoot it over your shoulder I’ll be impressed. Hit a bullseye at 20 paces and I’ll fawn in gushing admiration. Dribble it into a woman? Not so much.

Your reminder that sex produces small, vomiting, expensive packets of noise actually has a similar effect on me to the effect that it might have on you if I were to mention castration: it kills the mood. It reminds me that there are horrible, awful, cunt-ripping things that can happen to me as a result of our sweaty, joyful union. And those are things that, believe it or not, make me dry up faster than you can say “episiotomy“.

Again, I will restate for the people who will have skimmed over my original disclaimer: I wish no harm upon your kids. I’m not anti-child. I appreciate that in order for our race to exist beyond the next generation we do need some of these creatures.

So I don’t hate kids. Parents I know assure me patronizingly that I’ll definitely want one some day, and at that moment I’ll understand the soaring joy of having them. I will one day realise that it’s all worthwhile – giving up my social life, burying myself in shit and vomit, spending all my cash on ridiculous buggies and toys that make animal noises when you drop-kick them across the kitchen, etc.

They’re right, of course, one day I may well want a small girlonthenet so I can train her to continue my glorious works. But in the meantime, as I have no kids, I have no opinions to contribute to this conversation about yours. Even if I did have opinions, you probably wouldn’t want me to contribute them.

Usually a conversation consists of one person talking about something and the other chipping in with an opinion or a story of their own. Sadly I have few appropriate child-based stories of my own and lack of experience means my opinions are worthless to you.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve offered a suggestion to a parent on how to deal with the toddler-based problem they have just told me about, only to be greeted with “you wouldn’t understand, you’re not a parent.”

Well no, demonstrably I’m not. And so you talking about your kids is a pretty one-sided conversation. A one-sided conversation that leaves me slightly bored, occasionally belittled and deeply unaroused.

Look – children can be very cute sometimes. They’re a bit like small versions of adults, but more stupid, which means they say funny things and have cute tiny hands and wear outrageous clothes and beg for ice-cream and all that jazz. They have toys that I pretend I don’t want to play with but secretly quite enjoy (train sets and Play-doh: fuck yeah) and they do tend to liven up otherwise tedious family gatherings.

So I don’t hate kids, and if you’re a boy I’m fucking I certainly don’t hate your kids – I just don’t want to be engaged in a long discussion about them. Just as you’re probably deeply disinterested in the minutiae of the strategy meeting that I had today at work, I am not interested in the minutiae of tiny lives you nurture when you’re somewhere far from me.

Your kids are fine – I don’t hate them. On the contrary I wish them health, wealth, happiness, success, and a long life followed by a noble exit. I just wish they’d do it fucking quietly.

Background: A politician has been having a love affair with a young Russian girl, who was accused of shagging him purely so she could find out state secrets. Well, this week the courts ruled that there was no evidence that she was a spy – she just loved him.

Liberal Democrat MP Mike Hancock is a sexy man. Perhaps not to you, but he certainly is to Katia Zatuliveter.

For some reason we are aghast. We are shocked. We, as a nation, have risen as one and cried “WTF” at the sheer implausibility of someone who is young and (let me just get out my arbitrary ‘hotness’ measuring device) sexy falling for a guy who is – shudder – old.
We are so gobsmacked, in fact, that we believed her to be a spy.

She was a young, blonde Russian, for a start, so of course she was a spy. But more than that, she just had to be a spy, because the very idea that she would have been fucking an older man for anything other than money is just utterly grotesque. Awful. Unthinkable.

In his judgement (in which he allowed that Mike’s ladyfriend was, on balance, not a spy) Mr Justice Mitting concluded that “however odd it might seem, she fell for him.”

Odd indeed. Why oh why would a young (bring out the arbitrary measuring stick again!), sexy blonde fall for a beardy old Lib Dem? While you try to hold down the rising feeling of nausea at the idea of intergenerational relationships, I’ll throw out a few ideas:

Older guys are wiser

More years = more time to ingest facts and stories. Listen to an older guy talk and you’ll hear interesting tales and scintillating nuggets that, in turn, will help you to appear wise when you’re older. Just look at the weight of sexy knowledge contained within the brains of old dudes such as Ian Hislop, David Attenborough and Jeremy Clarkson.

Older men have more sexual experience

While they may still only do it in the same range of sexual positions as you’re used to, older guys have more experience and patience in bed. They are definitely more likely to make you come because they’ve had more practise at doing it.

Older guys have the aura of authority figures

Hi, teacher/driving instructor/angry army sergeant at a training camp for filthy female recruits. Older guys are hot because they can tell you off and have you really believing it. They’re a bit like dads, and therefore more likely not only to spank you like you’ve been very naughty, but also buy you ice-cream and help with your homework.

Absolutely none of the above

You know what I love in a guy? An awesome sense of humour, a filthy mind, a liberal outlook, a willingness to tolerate my excessive swearing. I am not generally bothered by his weight, his height, his body hair, or the year that happens to be printed on his driving license.

Maybe Mike Hancock is a great cook. Maybe he’s a brilliant listener. Maybe he’s sensitive, charming, funny and absolutely stunning in bed. Perhaps he makes her gasp for air as he rails her like a man possessed.

Just because we pick out one particular feature of someone (in this case his age) and dwell on it obsessively, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it is the only thing that potential partners will focus on. And just because there is a huge difference in age that doesn’t necessarily mean that this girl has an age fetish.

Forget his age and appearance for just a fraction of a second, and consider that maybe, just maybe, she loves him because he’s great.