Apparently, there's been a significant piece of research about the odds of meeting someone, with over 88,000 participants. And the odds are unfavourable to say the least.  

To be more specific, 1 in 562 if you let it happen 'the old fashioned way'.

But don't despair. Because if you talk to someone at the gym the odds shoot up by a whopping 15 per cent! I don't know about you but I can barely breathe if I'm at a gym, let alone flirt. 

There's a 16 per cent if you go for after work drinks. 

Getting introduced by friends of friends increases your odds by 4 percent. Or by family or friends it's 1 percent.

But the biggest increase - of 17 per cent - is by signing up to dating apps (you can read how that experience  went for me here). 

Do you know how I felt after reading about this research? Knackered. 

I mean, I have a full time job I spend hours working really hard at doing and enjoying. I also have my blog, which I absolutely love, but rightly  takes a lot of my time and energy as well. Then there's running club three times a week. Caring for my wonderful teenager and dog.  Seeing my lovely family and friends, getting out and about, then relaxing in between because I deserve to do that too. These are the things I love, the things that give me life. Spending hours looking at pictures of random men I don't know  gurning and answering inane questions on dating apps doesn't. 

I honestly feel like the strategising, planning and mental effort we're told is now essential in order to meet a partner feels like another job. And not one I even enjoy. Yet there's so much pressure to sign up to it and prioritise it above everything else. There are multiple 'relationship experts' on social media who write chastisingly - and very patronisingly - about 'getting yourself out there', treating your quest to find a partner like a business strategy and contorting yourself into something completely alien to your true self to 'snare that man'. No thanks love.   

I've recently started to genuinely enjoy being on my own, but I'd still love to meet someone at some point. I’d like to get married again one day. I’d like someone to order a takeaway with, or cook for. Or to just be my number one in life, and to have that reciprocated.

But I won't be treating every single time I leave the house to work out, shop, or walk my dog  as a potential way to meet men. Because that's a surefire way to suck the joy right out of everything. 

So what's my 'strategy'? Well, I’m busy building a life that excites me rather than treading water waiting for someone else to. So I'm freeing myself from 'the work' and will be leaving it to fate.

Despite the rubbish odds.