Living as a 40-year-old single woman is hard

Every time we meet, my friends, colleagues, and relatives will ask when I’m going to settle down, making me stressed many times over.

I consider myself a kind and introverted woman who is always willing to help others and improve myself. However, as my coworkers have been mainly women, I don’t have many chances to meet other men.

I was under the pressure of taking care of my family when I was young, so I didn’t think about getting in a relationship. Now, I think my age prevents me from having many men interested in me like before.

I have a stable job in a rural area, but men around me have already gotten married. Meanwhile, reaching out to men not living in the same town is hard, because nobody will agree to move to my town to stay with me.

I tried signing up for accounts on dating apps, but that didn’t work either since many people I meet there do not seek a committed relationship. I also tried matchmaking, but the men I got introduced to were all divorced or had their own children, whom I’m afraid that I couldn’t take good care of.

As someone who had a bad relationship with my mother since my childhood, I don’t want to make other children experience the same situation.

The older I get, the harder it is for me to have a child. I don’t want to be a single mother either because I don’t want my kids to live in an incomplete family.

Now everyday I go to work and stay at home afterwards. Friends my age all have their own family, so it’s hard to hang out with them. I think if I lived in an urban area, where there are more single people, I would have more chances to have a relationship. But as I’m living in this rural town, my circle is limited to a few female coworkers only.

Should I not care about dating anymore and focus on taking care of myself instead? Or should I keep looking around for the chance to have a boyfriend?