Jo Hemmings, author of The Dating Game, The Little Black Book and Be Your Own Dating Coach, trained as a psychologist before becoming a dating coach and relationships consultant. She has written for the Daily Mail,the Daily Mirror, Glamour and Cosmopolitan and has made regular appearances as the relationships expert on The Trisha Show and Radio 4's 'Woman's Hour'. She is available for private/groups tuition on flirting, dating, body language and relationships in general.

Jo acts as a dating coach for Meet at Last and for dating seminars and events. Find out more at her site or go along to one of her date coaching events at Meet at Last. She is currently writing The Relationship Detox Programme: six weeks to turn your life around, to be made into an 8 part TV series for BBC2 later in 2006. This excerpt from 'The Dating Game' is reproduced with her permission.

The good bits of being single

There are loads of benefits of being single, especially if you don’t let yourself see it as a permanent state of affairs but a valuable pause in the dating game.

As well as being able to choose what you want for supper – and indeed whether you want supper at all, or want it at midnight rather than 8.00 – you can eat it watching TV, eat it in bed or eat it with your fingers. You can choose how you spend your money, how you decorate your house, where you go on holiday. You are answerable to no one but yourself. It’s all take and no give and while this lack of compromise may seem alien at first, you’ll soon get a taste for it. I enjoy my space so much these days that I can’t imagine living with someone again 24/7, however much I might yearn at times for the intimacy, companionship and sex of a bloody good relationship!

Freedom and lack of compromise opens all sorts of possibilities up to you. You can shop until you drop, you can watch and sob with abandon at that slushy movie on a Sat afternoon, when he used to be watching the footie results. You can read a book in one sitting without fear of interruption, wear that oh-so comfy – but deeply unsexy – nightdress and fluffy slippers – the list is endless. And if you’ve never gone to the cinema on your own – try it. See all those friends of yours that he was never that keen on – or they on him. Develop a platonic friendship with that nice guy at work – have a few drinks with him, get the male perspective for a change. There’s no danger in him getting jealous or arsey now.

You could even completely reinvent yourself, if you have no other commitments to hold you back. Change your job – even your career. Travel or go abroad for a year or so. Be spontaneous without worry or guilt. Flirt with younger men, waiters, barmen, have endless girlie late nights out. The list is endless but in case you remain unconvinced here – in no particular order - are my personal Top Fifteen reasons to celebrate singledom.

1. No more cheesy sock and dubious underwear to wash.
2. I can have another drink, cigarette, chocolate and no one’s going to complain or make tsk-tsk noises at me.
3. I can take ownership of my own orgasms and never have to fake one or make flimsy excuses if I don’t fancy making love.
4. I can lie diagonally across a double bed and thrash about all I want.
5. I can watch TV in bed at 3.00 am without fear of disturbing or irritating anyone else.
6. No more snoring!
7. I can spend a small fortune on extravagant boots and shoes and not have to lie about the cost or pretend that I’ve had them for ages.
8. I can eat what I want, when I want, how I want.
9. I’ve got the use of both sides of my wardrobe.
10. I can buy great white wine and drink it all myself.
11. I can spend all evening on the phone to my closest girlfriends without any nagging.
12. I don’t have to remember his family’s birthdays as well as my own.
13. I can go to the loo and leave the door open.
14. I can listen to my music whenever I want, without criticism.
15. I can practise salsa dancing and workouts in front of the TV with no one to criticise my wobbly bits (why did he think that I was doing this in the first place!!?)
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