‘Pass, Jen!’ calls out an anguished netballer. ‘I’m here! Would you pass!’ Jen, a rather large girl with black hair, flings the ball wildly and the other team intercepts it. There are groans of disgust and Jen looks doleful, hands on her hips, chest heaving. She is probably a high-powered lawyer, thinks Sophie, but every Wednesday at lunchtime she is the kid who nobody wants on their team. Sophie watches the game for a bit and then pulls her book from her bag. She is starting to get to know far too many of these people and has already identified a blossoming romance between the tall Goal Attack and a married-to-somebody-else soccer player. If she isn’t careful these lunchtime games will become her own personal reality TV programme, and she is already unhealthily hooked on too much socially unacceptable television. One should not be listening to a very interesting lecture on ancient Greek mythology, like she was last Monday night, and realise that one is actually thinking about who is the most likely candidate to be voted off on tonight’s episode of The Bachelorette.

She catches herself hiding the cover of her book in her lap and defiantly holds it upright for the world to see. Reality TV is one thing, but it’s silly to be ashamed of her choice of reading material. After all, these books are often extremely well written and meticulously researched. They are historically interesting, witty and clever. She should just come right out and tell people: ‘It so happens I quite enjoy a good…regency romance.’ She’d caught the habit from her mother, who isn’t in the least concerned about what people think and even belongs to a Regency Romance Readers’ Club. Once a year they have a party where everyone has to dress up as lords and ladies. Sophie’s dad always goes along, stoic and ridiculous in his cravat, breeches, stockings and waistcoat. Now that’s true love: a man who is prepared to wear a cravat for you.

Many of Sophie’s friends blame regency romances for what they describe as her ‘unrealistic’ approach to her love life. Recently, there has been an aggressive campaign to get her to join an Internet dating site.

‘There is nothing sleazy or desperate about Internet dating,’ declares Lisa, who met her boyfriend in a Paris bookstore.

‘I know so many people who are doing it, you don’t need to feel ashamed,’ says Shari, married to a paramedic who fell in love with her when he was winched down by helicopter to rescue her after she broke her ankle in a bushwalking accident.

‘It’s fun, it’s great fun, it’s so easy and convenient,’ cries Amanda, who actually did meet her husband on the Internet. Sophie doesn’t really like Amanda’s husband, and she suspects that Amanda doesn’t like him much either, which accounts for her demented enthusiasm on the topic.

She is resisting the Internet idea, not just because of Amanda’s husband but also because she doesn’t want to one day tell her children that she posted an ad on the Internet, interviewed twenty-five hopeful applicants, and finally their father turned up and looked good in comparison with the rest of them. It just doesn’t seem right.

Anyway, when she thinks about a truthful description of herself it makes her wince.

Thirty-nine-year-old moderately successful Human Resources Director. Interests include regency romances, reality TV, and baking large novelty birthday cakes for other people’s children. Hobbies include drinking Tia Maria and eating Turkish delight in the bath and dining out with her mum and dad. Wanted to be a ballerina but didn’t end up with a ballerina body; however, has been told she is an impressive dirty dancer when drunk. Knows her wine, so please just hand the wine list over. Godmother to nine children, member of two book clubs, Social Club Manager for the Australian Payroll Officers’ Association. Suffers from a severe blushing problem but is not shy and will probably end up better friends with your friends than you, which you’ll find highly irritating after we break up. Has recently become so worried about meeting the love of her life and having children before she reaches menopause that she has cried piteously in the middle of the night. But otherwise is generally quite cheerful and has on at least three separate occasions that she knows of been described as ‘Charming’.

Yep, that about summed it up. What a catch. If Sophie was a man she wouldn’t date herself. She’d run a mile. ‘Jeez,’ she’d say, ‘regency romances! Give me a scuba-diving, marathon-running, catamaran-sailing woman!’ The problem is that Sophie wouldn’t want to date the sort of man who would want to date her. She imagines too skinny a man with too nice a complexion, saying, ‘Oh, regency romances, how interesting!’ Blah.

She looks up from her book to watch a family group setting up a picnic nearby. The daddy in his business suit, the mummy in a pretty pink cardigan and skirt, two frolicking angels with white-blond hair. They’ve come in to meet Daddy in his lunch break and he’s so chuffed to see them! Good God, they look like something from a television commercial. Daddy is caressing Mummy’s hand and she’s giggling at something he’s said. Is Mummy looking over and wishing she was a free, single career-woman like Sophie? Nope. No way. She’s so blindingly happy it hurts to look at her.

Oh stop it. You are not going to turn into one of those embittered, jaded single women. They’re a lovely family. If you knew them, you’d be their friend. One of the blond angels comes toddling over to where Sophie is sitting under the tree. He holds out a grubby fist to her and shows her a piece of bark.

‘Wow!’ says Sophie. ‘That’s very pretty.’

‘Sorry!’ The mummy runs over and scoops up her child. ‘Don’t disturb the lady.’

‘It’s OK,’ says Sophie. It’s perfectly OK that you appear to be at least ten years younger than me, and you already have two children, and I’m a ‘lady’ who doesn’t even have a boyfriend. No problem. It’s fine.

There is something so undignified about being single when you’re nearly forty. It’s not glamorous any more, or funny. It’s sad and sometimes it’s lonely, even when you do have a Christmas card list numbering over one hundred and you can remember the birthdays of at least forty different people, not even counting their children. For God’s sake, even the girls on Sex and the City all got matched up in the final episode.

On Saturday afternoon, Sophie had talked to a friend who described what she’d done that morning: two loads of washing, grocery shopping, driving children to soccer and ballet, and so on and so forth. She might even have baked a cake. It was quite extraordinary.