At some point, 50 million years or so ago, a stegosaurus must have woken up from a long and satisfying night's sleep. He stretched, scratched his bum and maybe picked a bit of caveman from his back teeth. He then headed outside to catch up with his mates only to discover that the whole place was eerily silent.

“Where the hell has everybody gone?” he must have asked himself. Where was his drinking pal the brontosaurus? Where was the tyrannosaurus with whom he was going hunting? Where was the pterodactyl who invited him to the football? All gone.

I feel I know how that stegosaurus felt because I feel the same way. As a single, heterosexual male in my mid-thirties, I am a dying breed. We are facing extinction. I have watched my friends picked off, one by one, like blue whales in Japanese fishing waters. I've witnessed a senseless destruction of our natural habitat. Like Brazilian rainforests being cleared for strip mines, table-football tables are being replaced by love seats and wine racks are making way for shoe racks.

And yet this tragedy is going by unnoticed. If we were the blue-balled Bahamian jungle sloth, or the squat-nippled Arctic fruit bat, scores of do-gooders would be rattling tins outside Tube stations. They'd be petitioning world leaders to raise awareness of our plight. Someone might organise a charity concert or, at the very least, record a charity song for us. We'd have a minor royal as chairman of our own charity: Spurmo - Straight Proud Unmarried Men Over-30.

I remember a time when my friends and I roamed free in great herds like buffalo dominating the open plains of the American West. But as our numbers dwindle, I've had to lower my standards. Not my standards with the women I date. I've had to lower my standards with men. Through necessity, I've found myself associating with guys I'd never have been friends with at university. But I need someone to go out drinking with.

“You're exaggerating,” a female friend told me. “There are plenty of single guys your age for you to play with.”

Yes. True. There are. Thousands of them. But they're wearing tight white T-shirts and meeting for cosmopolitans to discuss which Sex and the City character they are. That's not what I'm talking about. I mean men at the same stage of life with whom I can drink/laugh/hang out/watch sport/pull women.

Another friend, an attractive blonde 23-year-old law student, told me it doesn't matter if there aren't any single men my age to go out with. I can join her and her friends. Yes, sure, like the lonely Great Ape of Rwanda could hang out with the lemurs. He could, but he'd feel as conspicuous as I do in a group of 23-year-old law students. As nice as they are, I can't help but feel they're staring at me wondering, “who invited Old Man Time?” I don't have any trouble talking to 23-year-old girls. But I'd be wanting sex and they'd be wanting career advice.

I don't begrudge my friends who have married and forsaken me. I'm happy for them. I'm by no means anti-matrimony. I plan on marrying one day. I just haven't found “the One”... or if I have (which is more likely), I just didn't realise it at the time. Love is a wonderful thing. Finding the right woman can make a man do the most amazing, irrational things. My brother is a perfect example. He was leading the ultimate bachelor lifestyle in Los Angeles, but when he met his future wife, this lifelong animal-hater sold his Aston Martin so that she and her four cats could move in.

I can't wait until I feel moved to act similarly. But it doesn't change the situation that, right now, there aren't many of us left. And it's a lonely world out there when you realise that you're closer in age to Homer Simpson than to Jessica Simpson. And that your lifelong fantasy of sleeping with a Yummy Mummy no longer involves an older woman.

Contrary to what you might think, the wives of our friends are not the Spurmo's enemies. The wives like us, mainly for purposes of matchmaking with their single female friends. We have a different enemy: babies. The babies themselves are not the problem. It's what those babies do to their fathers. A friend of mine was a legendary party animal. Now, as a father of two, he nurses a pint of shandy and announces his departure at 9pm,assuming we can get him to the pub in the first place.

It's the double standards where babies are concerned that I find objectionable. If a baby pukes, everyone rushes around like a Kennedy has been shot. But, if I should do likewise after three vodka tonics, a bottle of red and four sambucas, does anyone mop my fevered brow? No, they leave me to make my own way to KFC for a party bucket with mashed potatoes, gravy and onion rings. And when a baby kicks up a fuss, it is rewarded with boob. But if I start crying and demanding boob, I'm simply asked to leave the bus/cinema/restaurant/church.

I just want the Spurmo to be appreciated. We deserve to be protected as much as - if not more than - other endangered species. Let's face it, if the last 60 Californian condors are suddenly wiped off the face of the Earth, it wouldn't really effect your life. (I bet you didn't even know that Californian condors existed.) Straight unmarried men over 30 make your world a more interesting place. Being in our thirties, by definition we've had more life experiences than men in their twenties. We have wisdom, perspective and insight. The fact that we're single means that we don't talk about children. For that alone we should be applauded. Without us, the dinner party as a form of popular entertainment would die.

And the importance of our contribution to the global economy cannot be underestimated. Since we've been working longer, we have earned and saved more. Because we don't have to spend any of it on children, we prop up many important industries: luxury car and watch manufacturers, champagne makers, the entire male grooming industry, high-end electronics, travel and sport industries, overpriced romantic restaurants, hair growth research and development, etc. Without us, economies would crumble. And the world would be at a considerable loss without such luminary Spurmos as Voltaire, Beethoven and the Wright brothers. For these reasons, we deserve to be given the consideration due to other endangered species.

I don't want those on the cusp of Spurmo-dom, however, to think there's no upside. There is. It is a stage of life to be embraced and encouraged. We can do pretty much whatever we want, whenever we want and can generally afford to do it. More importantly, remember all those beautiful women who wouldn't give you the time of day when you were in your twenties? If they're still single, in their mid-thirties, desperation has probably caused their standards to drop low enough for you to stand a serious chance.

Support the cause by visiting www.spurmo.com

How to tell if you're a Spurmo
When you meet a woman, do you check her wedding ring finger?
On holiday, are you always put in the worst room of the chalet/villa?
Is hair loss a greater threat to the planet than global warming?
Do you mention ex-girlfriends early in a conversation so that people don't assume you're gay?
Have you ever said: “Fifteen years is not that big an age difference.”?
Do you have two or more godchildren?

(Answer yes to 2 or more: you're a Spurmo)

Spurmo heroes
George Clooney, Christian Slater, Jack Nicholson , Indiana Jones, Hugh Hefner

Historical Spurmos
Sir Isaac Newton, Vincent van Gogh, Voltaire, Ludwig van Beethoven, Sir Francis Drake