Living Single

The truth about singles in our society.

Bella DePaulo is author of Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After. She is a visiting professor at UC Santa Barbara. See full bio

September 24, 2009

Enlighten Your Workplace: From Speaking Out to Buying an Office Kid

Prepare to raise your consciousness and those of your bosses and coworkers: Learn about issues facing singles in the workplace. Or, as a shortcut, just buy an Office Kid.

September 23, 2009

Singles Week Spins Out of Control

National Singles Week started out as an act of advocacy, education, and political reform. It was meant to be a week to enlighten the nation about the growing number of singles in society, their contributions, and the realities of their lives. It was not supposed to be about dating, matchmaking, or mocking people who are single.

September 21, 2009

What If the Most Important Person in Your Life Is Invisible?

The people in Margaret's life did not acknowledge her role in Anna's care the way they surely would have if she had been caring for a partner. Margaret noted that her "colleagues made few alterations in the demands they placed." At Anna's memorial service, "the president of our college pointedly addressed his formal condolences to Anna's biological kin."

September 20, 2009

Know Your Single People

It is SO not 1950 anymore! Singles don't have to wait until marriage to have houses, sex, children, travel experiences, or furniture from actual stores. In fact, they don't have to marry at all. They can choose to skip over any or all of the steps and accoutrements of what used to be the Standard Path through adult life. Problem is, too many Americans are caught in a cultural lag. Our perceptions of single people and their place in society have not caught up with the realities. What do you know about the actual lives of single people? Read More

September 19, 2009

Celebrate Singles Week – Join the BLOG CRAWL!

From the blog crawl press release: Join millions of people as they crawl the web's most popular blogs for singles, during the first SingleWomenRule.com's Blog Crawl for National Singles Week. In the virtual world, a blog crawl works like a pub crawl, or museum crawl in the real world; each day, you'll visit a designated blog to read featured blog posts from our favorite voices in the singles community.

September 17, 2009

CBS on Suspect in Yale Murder: Now 2 Weddings Are Ruined!

"Yale Student Death: Will Two Weddings End in Tragedy?" That was the headline of a CBS news blog. Really. You can't make this stuff up. Because truly, what could be more heart-wrenching than the demise of the wedding plans of a man who allegedly strangled a co-worker to death, then stuffed her body behind a wall in the basement of the building?

September 16, 2009

The Moral According to Smartmarriages: “Incredible, Painful Loneliness”

My wish for Ms. Shiber is that she feels free to follow the path that makes her own life most meaningful. I hope she recognizes that she doesn't have to do as Smartmarriages, or conventional wisdom, decrees - though she can if she wants to. As I've said many times, if we can expunge singlism, that would obviously be great for single people. Importantly, it would also be a boon to people who want to marry, because they could then pursue that goal affirmatively, as something they really want, and not as a way to avoid the stigma of singlehood.

September 14, 2009

50 and Single-Again: Is There a Moral to This NY Times Story?

A story in the New York Times about the life of a single-again 50-something year old woman provoked an intense reaction from the moderator of a listserv I'm on. I had a very different reaction. What do you think of this woman's life? (Also in this post: details of the upcoming AtMP book club discussion.)

September 13, 2009

Singles in Ads: Yearning, Pathetic, or Not Even There

In my last post, I raised the topic of how singles are portrayed on TV. Getting to the commercial breaks, though, provides no respite from the singlism. Same for ads in magazines, newspapers, and online. Marketing is saturated with singlism and matrimania. Ironically, this is not just insulting to singles - it is counterproductive to marketers. The singles they are portraying, or to whom they are selling, exist mostly only in their warped little marketing minds.

September 8, 2009

Singles on TV – What’s the Story?

With the new television season comes new hope. That has gotten me thinking about some portrayals of single life that grabbed me in a good way. What they have in common is that they show singles as people with passions and interests and lives that are not defined solely by the quest to become unsingle.