Living Single

The truth about singles in our society.

Bella DePaulo Ph.D.

Can a Love of Being Single Add Years to Your Life?

People who have positive beliefs about aging live 7.5 years longer than those with negative beliefs. Is the same true for having positive beliefs about being single?

The Pain and Shock of Losing Custody of Friends After a Breakup

People are often surprised to lose custody of friends after a breakup, and unprepared for the hurtful ways they are sometimes treated in their newly single lives.

How Often Are People Alone Because They Want to Be?

Are you currently alone? Do you want to be? The answers to these questions shatter some myths about what it means to be alone at different ages.

Single, Old, and Lesbian or Bisexual: Who Is Your Family?

Unconventional wisdom about what it means to be single and have a family.

Who Lives Alone in Middle Age?

Despite the obstacles to homeownership for single people, more than half of Americans in their 50s who are single and living alone own their own homes.

Who Does Better Aging Alone?

Older people who live alone and have diverse social ties do even better than their peers who live with other people. Having confidants seems to matter more than marital status.

6 Keys to Lifelong Friendship

Insights on the psychology of making and keeping friends from 2 scholars who have studied friendship for decades and a journalist who interviewed 100 sets of friends.

Who Is Spending the Most Time Alone?

We now know who spends the most time alone. We know less about an equally important question: How do they feel about their solitude?

Dead Bodies: Who Gets to Claim Them? Who Wants To?

Who gets to claim your dead body? Official next-of-kin can include people who are estranged. Some people do want to claim the body, but they don’t qualify as official family.

Why So Many Adults Think They Will Never Have Children

Being single is one of the three top reasons why some people do not intend to have kids, even though they want kids.

What Money and Popularity Cannot Buy, Authenticity Can

In the U.S. and South Korea, the same fundamental needs were relevant to whether an event was experienced as satisfying or unsatisfying.

Why Some People Find Power in the Single Life

Singles who are flourishing find singlehood empowering. Even among those who find singlehood disappointing, substantial numbers recognize the opportunities it offers.

Lonely? Stressed? Depressed? A Romantic Partner May Not Help

Do people who are married, or most like married people, have the best psychological health? No. What matters is whether you have friends or family you can confide in and rely on.

Hiding Who You Really Are by Converting, Passing, or Covering

People with devalued identities often feel pressured to convert, to pass, or to cover who they really are. That makes it harder to live authentically and to flourish.

The Number-One Reason Singles Aren't Looking for Relationships

Both before the pandemic and now, many single people are not looking for a romantic relationship or even a date. The most important reason in 2022? They like being single.

Why Don't Talented Single Women Get Promoted?

MBA graduates are less likely to be promoted early in their careers if they are analytically talented single women than if they are married men, married women, or single men.

Is Parenting, or Not Parenting, Important to Your Identity?

Experiences and decisions around parenting – whether, when, and how to do so – can be important to our identities. Here’s how we can be more understanding of different life paths.

Is Cohousing the Answer for People Who Prize Solitude and Sociability?

People living in cohousing communities like feeling connected without being controlled and appreciate the flexibility to choose solitude or sociability.

18 Questions to Get to Know a Single Person

Single life can be understood as a psychologically rich, meaningful life, if only the people we meet, as well as the social scientists who study us, would ask the right questions.

Does It Matter If People Know That You Are Happily Single?

A group’s clout isn’t just about the number of people in that group, but the number of people who know someone in that group. It might help if group members make themselves known.

Why a Little Socializing Goes a Long Way

Seeing other people weekly or even monthly can be at least as good for your health and longevity, and maybe better, than seeing them every day.

Who's Most Likely to Drop Their Old Friends?

Single people tend to shed friends when they start dating, new research finds, and couples do the same when they move in together. Empty nesters have the fewest friends.

Four in Ten in the U.S. Do Not Believe Singles Are Treated Unfairly

Unfair treatment of single people has been documented, but substantial numbers of Americans do not believe it happens or that it is unfair.

Growing, Learning, Connecting: The Benefits of Being Alone

Spending time alone can be emotionally rewarding in different ways for different people, even during a pandemic. Research shows that in some ways, the oldest adults benefit most.

The Strategic Singlehood of Black Women

Research shows that in their single lives, Black women pursue important life goals, experience personal growth, and appreciate their freedom and safety.

The Risk of Caring Too Much About Romance

Our preoccupation with romantic love has some serious downsides. Life choices can become limited, and people can become depressed rather than blissful.

Single Manhood Is So Much More Than the Stereotypes

The study of single life includes inspiring work by and about single women. But where are the men? Lucas Bradley shares some ideas about how to completely reimagine single manhood.

How Singles Find a Place That Feels Like Home

The typical nuclear family home is ill-suited for single people with no children. They have their own ideas for creating homes of their own.

For Singles, Gift-Giving Is Rarely Reciprocal

Singles often give more gifts than they receive because of the kinds of life events that are and are not celebrated. A study examines how they deal with the disparity.

Is It Harder to Be a Single Man or a Single Woman?

Singlism has gender biases. Craig Wynne and Joan DelFattore explore how prejudice, stereotypes, and unfair treatment of single people is different for single women vs. single men.

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