My friend is staring retirement in the face. It isn't his choice but his company's, as he will soon hit 62. A divorced man, he has been musing, and thinks it would be a good idea to start a club for either older men or older women. Or for older and lonely men and women.

Which got me thinking - as the Beatles sang - "All the lonely people, where do they all come from?" Some have always been single, having never really found anyone they liked enough to settle down with. For others, singlehood is the result of either the death of or divorce from a spouse.

But hold on.

Does everyone go to the dogs once they become single again? There is a period of grief and mourning but does that mean all life stops unless one finds Another Significant Other? Does one sit glued to the telly day in and day out, because there is now no one and nothing else to do it with?

Maybe, if you have not got past the period of deep grief.

But once past that, does it mean we then need another person in our lives to be whole again?

There are those who prefer to go it alone henceforth. "The home stretch" is how another friend puts it - an apt description of how he feels to be physically and mentally footloose and fancy-free.

Which is not the same as always looking out for yourself or suddenly becoming terribly selfish - what most people unfairly think older single people become.

Just because you don't want another long-term relationship for various reasons (the time and energy you'd have to invest in one, for example) doesn't mean you become a venerable Scrooge.

Someone may have left your life, but the other ties, to children, friends, family, the community ... are still there. You have not changed.

But perhaps you would rather use your time now for community work you never had enough time for, or to take up the hobby a growing family did not give you space for. Perhaps you want to travel without having to juggle another's schedules.

Those who have been long married - and none-too-happily - will know the great loneliness that comes from an existing but empty relationship. Those who had a happy union might be happy to just live with the memories.

But whatever the case, not all single people are lonely. Not all single people want to "meet" someone else. For sure, many don't need society's pity. They have the herewithal, the confidence and the maturity to take life by the horns whatever happens next.

A 1920s Irish socialite, one Mrs Patrick Campbell, said: "Marriage is the result of the longing for the deep, deep peace of the double bed after the hurly-burly of the chaise lounge."

For some, after years of having someone snore into your ear, "the deep, deep peace" comes from sleeping alone.

So dear friend, forget about your club for the lonely. Just come over for pasta. ¢ agatha@mediacorp.com.sg



The writer is the voices editor at Today.