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"For the first time, I feel like I belong somewhere," said Ibrahim Umar.
"It's such a comfort to have people to talk to who don't have to be brought up to speed," offered Kristin Noreen.
Edward Bayley added, "Knowing that this is a global community that has no boundaries in terms of age, gender, or background, made me realize that I am not an exception to a rule, but part of another rule altogether."
Umar, Noreen, and Bayley are expressing sentiments shared by many of the people in a community that no one ever knew we needed, a Community of Single People. It might seem odd that at this point in history, single people feel the need for a special place where they will be understood. Never before have there been so many people. All around the world, the age at which people first marry is inching up, and that's just for those people who do marry. In the U.S. alone, there are nearly as many adults 18 and older who are single (divorced or widowed or always-single) as married, and Americans spend more years of their adult lives unmarried than married.
When hundreds of millions of people are living single, they can't all be doing so against their will. And yet the prevailing narrative about single people is that what they want, more than anything else, is to become unsingle. They probably have "issues," and need help in their quest for entrée into the Married Couples Club. Hence the proliferation of dating sites and self-help books and unsolicited advice from friends and family and perfect strangers.
It is that presumptuous storyline that left people like Umar feeling that he just didn't belong anywhere, and Noreen growing weary of explaining to others that she doesn't view single life the way they do. What's different about this Community of Single People is that it is a place for single people who want to live their lives fully and unapologetically, a place to discuss every single aspect of single life except dating and mate-seeking.
Because I have been writing about single life for so long, I am often approached by reporters looking for single people to interview, and each time I try to come up with names offhand. Single people get in touch with me, too, asking questions that can be answered so many different ways that I wish I could pose them to a whole community of single people. So in July I started one. I created a closed Facebook group (potential members need to have a Facebook account and then ask to join), and announced it on my blogs (including this one) and website. I said that I would post inquiries there. Beyond that, members could use the group in other ways if they so choose.
Wow, did they ever choose to do so. The Community now includes nearly 600 people, including men and women, people with and without kids, and those who are divorced and widowed and have always been single. They range in age from high school students to people who have long been retired. Our members include artists, writers, hair stylists, lab techs, workers in restaurants and department stores, college professors, high school teachers, seminarians, bankers, government workers, and more. Although most of us are from the U.S. (at least 37 states are represented), we also hail from every continent except Antarctica. Examples of places where members live are Australia, Brazil, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, England, Ethiopia, Finland, Germany, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Kenya, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, Nigeria, the Philippines, Poland, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Sweden, Vietnam, and Zambia.
I have welcomed into the group scholars of single people, professionals working with single people, and journalists and authors writing about them, even if they are not single. Not all members agree that we should be so open.
We all agree that the Community of Single People is not a dating site. When someone with the wrong impression slips through our vetting and ignores the welcome message explaining our mission, we set them straight, sometimes with a touch of humor. For instance, when one man introduced himself with a photo and the question, "hot or not?," members took turns posting the temperature where they live.
Since the group began, countless discussions have been launched. "Ugh, I just need to vent to sympathetic ears," one might begin. What comes next might be a recounting of a conversation in which friends or family just won't accept that the single person actually wants to be single, and insist that she just isn't ready yet and will change her mind when the right person comes along. Or the post could be about a workplace experience in which, for instance, the single person wants suggestions about how to deal with questions that he never should have been asked.
We share recommendations for books and authors and movies. When a travel opportunity arises that might be especially appealing to single people, we mention it. We talk about how we live now, what we love about our single lives, and how we hope to live as we grow older. We offer enthusiastic congratulations on each other's achievements, especially the ones given short shrift in a society obsessed with marriage and coupling and conventional family. We compare experiences across countries. Not uncommonly, members from outside the U.S. are surprised that Americans are not more progressive in their views and treatment of people who are single.
Links to the latest research studies, and media reports about them, are often posted with requests for critiques. Stories that resonate are shared – for example, the ones about the spectacularly accomplished Shonda Rhimes, who remarked that she has never been congratulated so heartily as when she had a man on her arm. Also posted are articles that leave us exasperated or just confused. Often, a conversation begins with a link and the question, "What do you think?"
When the New York Times published its extensive and much-discussed story of George Bell, the man who died alone in his apartment, the Community of Single People talked about it, too. Our conversation, though, was markedly different from all the pitying comments posted at the Times. We asked, for example, whether Bell may have been living the life he wanted to live, and whether he was really as lonely as so many had assumed. Some suggested that the idealized death bed scenario, with family and friends all gathered round, is not everyone's fantasy, and maybe it wasn't Bell's either.
The story also got many of us thinking and talking and planning. We discussed our estates, wills, burial decisions, and concerns about medical decision-making. We compared notes on the kinds of insurance that might be most important to us as single people. Some took actions that were better informed than they would have been without the group.
Community members have posted about worrying symptoms and they've reached out from their hospital beds. They've revealed profound losses. As Maysi Sem noted, "we get into some pretty deep discussions…it's one of the most intimate environments I've found on social media."
Still, not all of our interactions have been warm and supportive. For example, when some of us post about the slights and stereotypes and other instances of singlism we experience as single people, others chide us for airing such complaints when so many other people in the world live in fear for their lives. I discourage such scolding. I think the Community should be a place where single people can bring all of their experiences without fear of being shamed.
Some of our connections have made the leap from online to in-person. We've learned about other singles nearby and met them in person. Some of us have traveled together. Eileen Reilly, from Dublin, has written about her own single life in the Irish press. Now she is embarking on a wider-ranging project. Using contacts from the Community, she has already traveled to the U.S. where she interviewed single activists, educators, and writers.
It's holiday time so we have been discussing the experience of being single during celebrations that are supposed to be all about togetherness. Many of us spend the holidays with friends or family or make other special plans, so it is not an issue. Those who sometimes spend days like Christmas or New Year's Eve alone have our own take on the experience. The issue is not being alone – some of us savor our solitude; rather, it is the stigma of being alone. That's something we in the Community all understand.
It is different this year. We have our Community. In a virtual sense, now none of us is alone.
[UPDATE: Here's more about the Community of Single People, about a year later.]
[Notes: (1) Thanks to Lesley Williams for creating the logo for our Community, and thanks to all the Community members who let me use their comments about the Community in this article -- there were many more than the ones I quoted. (2) I hope you don't mind me sharing the news that my new book, How We Live Now: Redefining Home and Family in the 21st Century, has made the Kirkus list of Best Nonfiction Books for 2015. And sorry for the 2 copies of the Best Books badge -- can't figure out how to delete the duplicate!]
