Shortly after my thirtieth birthday back in 2013, I went through a crisis of sorts.

As much as I considered myself to be an independent free-thinker, determined not to follow the path of my older sister Devi who’d married her university sweetheart, Nikhil, and had settled five minutes away from our parents in Kent, I wasn’t immune to the world story of What A Woman Should Have Achieved By 30. ‘World stories’ was my term for certain narratives spun over and over again until they become self-fulfilling and inescapable because the joists of them are nailed down into books, TV shows and films. They become part of the small talk you engage in with taxi drivers or at the supermarket (‘I don’t think I’ve seen a sadder sight than a woman buying herself flowers’) and of interactions at weddings and family gatherings. (‘When is it going to be your turn?’)

I’m not saying men aren’t pressured around marriage and kids, but as I explained to my friend Anthony, who was wigging out after his fiancée broke up with him, we aren’t on an even playing field. While men may be judged more harshly if they don’t attain economic success, the same is true for a woman around domestic success no matter how much she has achieved in her career. We weren’t even allowed to have our own mortgages or credit cards until the 1970s, I told him. (And possibly shouldn’t have said any of this so soon after the break-up that the Save the Date announcement was still stuck to his fridge.) World stories might make cute rom-coms but they are not conducive to aiding life decisions. Think about the number of people who settled for an ill-suited partner because turning thirty and being single is a frightening prospect, a superhighway to dying alone.

After I hit thirty, try as I might, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I should be building something more permanent in my personal life. Work was fine but it was hardly dazzling. I focussed that wild excess of energy into my love life and tried online dating. This was in the pre-dating-apps era when you had to use a laptop to go onto Match.com and pray that a serial killer didn’t lurk behind the GSOH and ‘likes to travel’.

A few mediocre dates later, I met Gregor Jamieson in a large, airy pub in the banking district, an area I hated because the atmosphere was soul-less and everyone dressed like sad storm clouds. Although his deep voice and Scottish accent conveyed strength of character and confidence, I could tell he was nervous from the way he tugged at his sleeves and the pearling of sweat above his upper lip. One date turned into two, then three, which led to that comfortable, easy moment on the sofa where it was just the two of us being restful in each other’s company. Fetching a glass of water for the other, unbidden. Homemade dinners slowly forming a collection of favourite meals used as a balm of kindness and care when the other was having a bad day. The sex was not the best and my mind would drift off at times, wondering, What time does Homebase open? And, Did I send that email to HR or is it in drafts? But the intimacy of finding home within another person was wonderful. I felt less alone, not just because I was in a couple, but because there was someone who cared about me, made me feel safe, into whom I could pour my worries and needs and find words of comfort or the physicality of an embrace throughout it all. When my mother asked me how dating was going, I felt good because I had an answer. 

After a year of this, friends at dinner parties started asking us if we’d thought about marriage, and while I hadn’t, the idea took root within Gregor and soon that was all we talked about. I wallpapered over my reluctance by distracting him with meeting my parents, Devi and Nikhil. Mum cooked, Dad gave him the grand tour of his workshop in the garage, and everyone was polite and friendly. I had expected at least one embarrassing childhood story but instead, they asked Gregor questions about his family and mostly talked about work. Although Devi was occupied with Karen who was about to start secondary school, she didn’t tease or make a single joke. In a way, the restrained pleasantness was worse. I asked them what they thought of him and the feedback was ‘nice’.

His parents were a different story. His mother, Celia, was a ball of nervous energy and announced she’d ordered Indian takeaway for dinner as soon as we arrived. Despite my feminist credentials, I was shocked to find myself judging her. Not for the takeaway thing – I’d encountered a few people who assumed I was unable to contend with a roast potato despite being born and brought up in Britain. But the whole ordering food from outside thing. In Indian homes, my mother’s generation would never serve food from outside rather than making it themselves, unless it was for a large gathering. And certainly not for a prospective daughter-in-law.

But also, most Indian takeaway tasted like a joke perpetrated by brown folks upon unsuspecting white folk. It tasted nothing like the food we made at home. Once, Gregor and I had gone to the Balti Bazaar near Finchley station, where the food somehow managed to taste of everything and nothing. We’d been dating for long enough that I could be honest about why I didn’t like eating Indian food out, citing many reasons, from the fact that the most popular dishes were actually British Raj introductions, such as chicken tikka masala and jalfrezis, to my doubts that it was actually cooked by Indians. But Gregor’s white man confidence got the better of him. He started chatting to the waiter, who a) revealed he was actually Bangladeshi, and b) confirmed that his mother would throw a shoe at him if he offered her the food they were serving us.

Two years into our relationship, Gregor grew impatient with my inability to give him a firm answer about settling down. After many heated debates we agreed to buy a place together in Tooting. Due to a combination of a then mid-level salary and my ability to piss it away down the pub on a Friday night, as well as on holidays I couldn’t afford, I had no money to contribute to the deposit.

Whenever I wavered and thought about calling it off, I remembered when he’d washed my hair while I was ill. How he’d bring me breakfast in bed every Sunday. That he uncomplainingly listened to my rants about being under-appreciated at work. I pretended so well, not just to Gregor but to myself, that this was the right decision, the responsible move, the first step to settling down with the sensible lawyer, that when it came to the day of exchanging contracts, my body pulled the emergency handbrake. Minutes away from the estate agent’s office, I found myself throwing up in the bushes by Tooting Bec station. I knew I wasn’t pregnant. This was my body making a final attempt to talk to my mind, which had previously blocked out all such attempts to communicate doubt, from racing heartbeats to churning guts. 

In Case of Emergency by Poorna Bell is published by Cornerstone, £14.99. Please click here to pre-order the book. 

Images: courtesy of the publisher and Alexandra Cameron