Featured Image Credit: Clara Meadmore
Topics: Sex and Relationships, World News, Community
Poppy Bilderbeck
Topics: Sex and Relationships, World News, Community
If you've not got a special someone lined up for when the clock strikes 12, how about taking a leaf out of Clara Meadmore's book?
It's the end of 2024 and you may be pondering about making a New Year's resolution.
If so, why not ditch any of the pressures to change up your diet or get on the treadmill, and if you can't face being told there are 'plenty more fish in the sea' for yet another year, go celibate?
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And providing you with all the inspiration you may need is a woman who didn't have sex for a whopping 108 years - yeah your dry patch of three months doesn't seem so drastic now does it?
Clara Meadmore was born in Glasgow in 1903. She went on to be a secretary and later worked in a telegraph office, as per The Daily Atomic.
At the age of just 12, it's reported Clara decided she never wanted to get married.
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On her 105th birthday in 2008, she said, as quoted by the Mail Online: "I've never had a boyfriend - I've never been bothered about relationships.
"When I was a girl you only had sex with your husband and I never married."
While it's not possible to determine the 'world's oldest virgin' given that sort of information is often kept private, Clara is considered one of the eldest people to openly reveal she's never had sex.
Not that it's anyone's business but hers, she also addressed questions about her sexuality, stating the 'answer is no' to anyone asking whether or not she's homosexual, clarifying: "I have just never been interested in sex."
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And while she entertained multiple notions of romance throughout her life, she was steadfast in her decision to remain a virgin and not even try to test the waters.
She continued: "I imagine there is a lot of hassle involved and I have always been busy doing other things."
Instead, Clara 'always had lots of platonic friendships with men but never felt the need to go further than that or marry'.
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Friends, alongside Radio 4's Woman's Hour, gardening, walking and reading kept Clara entertained for her 108 years on earth - absolutely iconic and something for all of us to aspire to going into 2025.
Clara passed away in 2011 at the age of 108.
In previous interviews she resolved: "Everything seems so fast these days. I don't know a lot about young people or the way they do things. I'm sure its very different.
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"I made my mind up at the age of 12 never to marry and I've not gone back on that.
"[...] People have their own views on sex, but I was never interested in it. I just never met anyone I wanted to marry, and I’ve always been happy alone."
Wise words to live by indeed.