I am approaching my 45th birthday. I am a single parent who has not married or found a partner with a daughter who will be 13 this month. I find myself regretting all the lost social opportunities that have resulted from parenting alone - I work full time and hardly ever go out in the evenings. So, I suppose its hitting me now that even if I had more free time to go out without any babysitter issues, my prospects of meeting someone are even more limited now because I am older and I look older. This is hitting me very hard at the moment and it is hard to know whether the future holds anything more possitive for me and there seems to be very little to look forward to, except whatever happens for my child. And I can't spend the rest of my life living through her? Of course, the worst bit is one's tendency to compare themselves with other people, who seem to have achieved more financially and in work terms than you have!

Its helpful to know that maybe at the end of the line things do start to improve and boy am I looking forward to the golden age because middle age truly stinks