In the years after my divorce, I lost count of the number of people who asked me why I was single. Friends, relatives, people I had literally just met, even men I went on dates with (who were, mind you, single themselves!) – all asked me why I wasn’t in a relationship.

It always struck me as a ridiculous question. I was middle-aged and divorced. I had trauma. I had three kids! And I was dating people who were also middle-aged, with trauma, and, usually, with kids of their own. The real question wasn’t why any of us were single. The real question was how anyone managed to get into a relationship at this stage of life.

Finding love at any age is quite the feat. You need two people – each with different backgrounds, personalities and experiences – to both decide they like each other, and to be compatible enough to successfully merge their lives. It’s like two puzzle pieces manufactured in separate factories with different materials fitting perfectly together.

Now, that’s a big enough call when you are 17 or 27. But when you’re 47 or (gulp) 53, it is way trickier. Forget the two puzzle pieces; finding love in midlife is like completing a thousand-piece puzzle that has been left out in the rain and then run over repeatedly by a truck. There are so many pieces to fit together, and a lot of them are a bit damaged, and it’s a miracle you can manage to make the pieces fit.

It’s not that we single, middle-aged people aren’t loveable. We just have a lot of baggage! We are either divorced, bereaved or have had traumatic dating experiences. We may have practical complications, like financial settlements or custody arrangements, and we may have emotional complications, like a fraught relationship with the ex. And many have kids, the most wondrous complication of all! We parents don’t exist as discrete human beings; we have smaller (or, in the case of my son, taller) satellite human beings who orbit us and form part of our worlds.

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The pieces of our puzzles are so numerous and, often, so ragged, the chance of a perfect fit is remote. We need to find someone we like, who shares our values, humour and goals. We need to find someone able to nurture us and who is ready for a committed relationship. And we need to find someone whose baggage is compatible with our own, who can get on with our kids, and whose kids we can get on with in turn. It is a miracle it ever works out for anyone.

Yet it does work out! I am in a happy relationship, years after my divorce. And while I’d love to say it is because I am so self-actualised, or because I have “done the work”, or because I manifested him, or because “you meet someone when you stop looking”, or because “every pot has its lid”, in reality it was just a wonderful stroke of luck.

A relationship in midlife is nothing at all like a relationship in your 20s. For one thing, there is so much to discuss! We each have 50-plus years of stories to tell, of experiences to share, of opinions to impart. After years of my kids rolling their eyes at what I say, it is a wonder and delight to have a new, enthusiastic audience who seems interested in my myriad tales.