In my previous post, I reviewed some of the highlights for single people in the year 2011. Now it is time to 'fess up to the bad stuff. Granting in advance that I'm probably repressing some of the worst examples, I offer you this list of 2011 singles-happenings that made me sad.

• The Marriage Mafia continues to bulldoze over the science of singlehood and marriage and cow the media. Proclamations that getting married will make you happier and healthier proliferate, often published with no dissenting perspectives. Even progressive columnists can be caught issuing clarion calls for increased rates of marrying.
• Social scientists can be disappointing, too. A survey directed by several of them claimed to be a "comprehensive study of all aspects of the single life." Of the 128 questions, about 127 of them were about dating, mating, and procreating. I guess that's it - once you account for those three pursuits, there's just nothing left to our lives.
• Political leaders continue to be matrimaniacs and family fanatics. The recent crop of Republican presidential contenders loves to one-up one another on the number of children they've raised. (They are a bit more reticent about the number of marriages they've logged.) They also seemed to compete for the most matrimaniacal Christmas videos. Singlism is still used as a political dog whistle. It is not just Republicans who can't kick the verbal tic about "working families." I still haven't found an employer who hires entire families, nor have I discovered the toddler prodigy who excels at sales or construction.
• The 1,000+ federal laws that benefit and protect legally married people have gone uncontested for still another year (with regard to singles, though not same-sex couples).
• Single women have long been targets of ridicule and pity. Supposedly, single men are not so bad. They are the "eligible bachelors" rather than the shriveled-up spinsters. In 2011, the bashing of singles expanded to include single men, big time. Again, it is with much disillusionment that I acknowledge that academics and other intellectuals contributed to this gratuitous nastiness.
• In the year 2011, a woman wrote to an advice columnist and asked, in all seriousness, if there was something wrong with her because she enjoyed her single life.

Here's to a much shorter post on this topic next year.