How Dolly Alderton managed to sum up the loneliness of dating in just a few sentences.

“People in relationships forget this reality the minute they’re coupled up,” 29-year-old Dolly Alderton, co-host of the pop-culture podcast The High Low and popular UK columnist, posted to Instagram this week.

The best-selling author of Everything I Know About Love is known for her insightful commentary on sex and dating.

She currently has an Instagram following of more than 100,000.

And the words she shared, only a few sentences long in total, entirely summed up what many know to be the loneliness and drudgery of dating.

Her post read:

“I’m often told by married friends to ‘put myself out there’ and ‘have fun,’ as if I’m a po-faced spoilsport who is choosing not to go out for a lobster and champagne dinner at the top of the Eiffel Tower with Dominic West every night. They forget that the great dates – the ones where you walk to the bus stop in the freezing cold at 3am just so you can carry on talking – happen about five times in your life. And my law of averages would suggest that one of those men will ghost you, one won’t be over his ex, and one will be the type of man who puts on a good date with everyone, like a charismatic magician on a sell-out national tour.”

Well.

That’s the most accurate thing I’ve ever read in my life.

It is easy for people to forget the moment they’re in a relationship that the loneliness and disappointment of dating can entirely outweigh the excitement of it. I know it has for me.

Putting oneself out there takes an enormous amount of bravery, especially after serial rejection. And it’s all well and good to encourage a single woman to ‘go out and have fun’ but… the question looms… with whom?

Many women who have spent years dating will be very familiar with the men Alderton identifies. Some of my most lovely dates were with men who disappeared, or who professed their undying love for their ex-girlfriend shortly after.

Alderton’s quote comes from a brilliant column she wrote for The Times UK which I highly recommend you read if you have a subscription.

In short, Alderton has given dating a, er, break, after committing herself to it for the better part of a decade.

And you know what?

Any woman who has ‘put herself out there’ time and time again, whacked on some lipstick and taken a deep breath, shared her stories and her fears, and ultimately asked the opposite sex: “So, what do you think?” only to be met with heartbreaking rejection, will know exactly why.