Facing the curse of a newly-single friend

PEOPLE assume that when you're a single woman, you want all your friends to be single too, and that you consistently take pleasure in the news that your mate's relationship has ended. It means a) you've got one more person to go on holiday with, b) your decision to stay single has once again been sanctioned by another failed relationship and c) your newly single mate will want to go on lots of nights out, commiserative hangover brunches and shopping trips. (Because lets suspend our disbelief for a moment and assume we're in a Sex and the City fantasy where all women do is shop, eat brunch and hunt for men.)

So, the more of my friends that are single like me, the better for me, oui? Actually, no.

Obviously when a friend is in a miserable or bad relationship, I'm much happier when they're out of it – because they're happy. But for the most part news a friend has split up with her long-term partner fills me with exhaustion.

Your single friends fill a very different space in your life to your friends in relationships.

You will love your married friends, or those in long-term relationships dearly, but they wouldn't be your go-to for an impromptu weekend away.

So, your coupled-up friends fill a certain space in your life – for instance, they're the people you go to Sunday lunch with (as a couple). You and the friend will sometimes go to dinner, just the pair of you, but this will be planned weeks in advance, and never on a weekend night.

But, if she splits up with her partner, your life suddenly becomes one long spa weekend, which isn't anywhere near as fun as it sounds.

First there's the initial break-up stage. She'll either be heartbroken or euphoric, but either way your carefully planned weekends will descend into chaos.

She'll drink everything she can get her hands on and is obsessed with how much fun she's having. You invite her over for dinner, assuming she'll want to talk about her break-up and her plans for the future. Instead she wants to go clubbing, do shots of blue stuff and snog the gap-year barman.

The next night she wants to meet for a "quick" drink, but then refuses to leave until closing time. You can't leave because she's going through a break-up and needs your support.

You get home at midnight, exhausted, drunk and aware you've achieved nothing all weekend and will be going to work with a raging hangover.

Suddenly she wants to go on the "sort of crazy Saturday nights you're always going on – where you meet loads of talent". You don't want to admit you've spent the last three Saturday nights in a row watching House of Cards, so you take her to a bar where she dances on a table – presumably because she read somewhere that this is what single ladies do.

And even more infuriatingly, she will meet someone new seven to 12 weeks after her last break-up, at which point she will confess "I had so much fun being single, but I don't know how you do it all the time – it's exhausting".

Because what she doesn't realise is that, while that brief couple of months where she invaded your life was a fun between-relationship holiday for her, it is literally just your life and she's turned it upside down.

And it's not just physically and emotionally wearing – it's insulting.

People seem to assume that single women have swathes of spare time. That we're bored and lonely and grateful for anyone who's willing to fill it (if this was true, how crappy is it that said friend then disappears for the next four to six months with her new partner? How sad, lonely and desperate would my life become? As it happens, all I feel is intense relief).

What I want to know is, why do we value the plans people make with a partner over plans an individual makes on their own?

Because I'm single, people assume my plans are less concrete, less important.

On the upside, I suppose I've now got plenty of people to go on holiday with … - Rebecca Holman