You feel alone. Especially on your birthday. Especially when your friends are making jokes about you being old and single. And suggesting that you give up hope of finding a man and finally settle into your destined role as crazy cat lady.

And you have to laugh at their jokes. Because they don’t know that their jokes are causing you to have chest pain. They don’t know that after each session of forced laughter, you sigh and mutter under your breath, "Why is life so hard?” and "Kill me now.”

Your friends are not insensitive to your struggles. They don’t know that you have struggles. They think that you actually like being single. It’s your fault; you lied to them and told them you were single by choice and not by force of nature or witchcraft or both.

And it’s not like you can console yourself with material things. Buy a new dress. Go on a vacation in some ‘outside country’ and then post many selfies to make people jealous about your supposed fabulous single life. Your brokenness is thicker than beans in a pod. Speaking of beans, that’s what you’re eating on your birthday. (Sigh. Dear God, where is my man?)

You could have avoided facing this depression alone if you had told the truth. Maybe your friends would rally around you, buy you presents and try to make you feel better.But how does a girl, rather woman of a certain age (any age)start to admit to anyone that she doesn’t like to be alone?

This is Africa, actually, the world in general. We women are brought up to want marriage and everything that comes with it. But God forbid that we boldly pursue it. God forbid that we see a potential marriage partner and let him know that we would like him to be it.

No. We have to pretend to be nonchalant about it while the men that come in our lives decide whether or not they want us to take on their surnames and mother their children. Life is hard.

And if you drum up the courage to admit that you want a man, your friends will start offering to link you up with their sloppy seconds. And their not-so-smart brothers.

And since you can no longer use the "I don’t want to date anyone right now” excuse anymore, then you have to tell the truth. You are forced to say things like "He’s not my type.” Saying something like that about someone’s brother can lead to awkward situations. So now you’re single and friendless. Good luck to you and your future cats.

The bottom line is that birthdays start to suck as you get older especially when you’re alone. You can feign offhandedness about your situation. You can fool everyone. But you can’t fool yourself.

You know in your heart of hearts and in your diary, and even as you receive a birthday message from your now married ex-boyfriend you’re pretending to be friends with that being alone sucks. Sigh.