There is a critical difference between the single and the single again. No, not marriage or even divorce. This perhaps explains it. I ran into a friend recently: fashionista, littérateur, grandee. We were meeting after a decade, if not more. "You look 20 years younger than when I last saw you,” she smiled questioningly. Well, I said, divorce suits me. Standard riposte to such begrudging compliments. That how dare you bloom? You broke-up girl, go, play dead.

Why the world imagines the uncoupled to look weathered? Convenient stereotyping that. And here, single again, we blossom. Now, single girls never look younger. Rather, single too long, and they start to look jaded. It’s from trying too hard. Waiting too long. Pouting too often (in vain).