14 Stereotype-Shattering Discoveries About Singles

For most of the past century, social scientists were interested in marriage, not singlehood. Single people were typically included in studies as the group to which married people were compared. Recently, that’s been changing.

When scholars put single people at the center of their studies, our understanding of what it can mean to be single is broadened and deepened, and we are more likely to transcend the deficit narratives of single life that have characterized so much of what has come before.

I’ve discovered that in my study of people who are single at heart, those who live their most meaningful, fulfilling, and psychologically rich lives by being single. They are happy and flourishing because they are single, not in spite of it. Hannah Tessler has also shown the value of reimagining singlehood in “The stability of singlehood: Limitations of the relationship status paradigm and a new theoretical framework for reimagining singlehood,” published in the Journal of Family Theory and Review.

Tessler describes four limiting assumptions about what “single” means.

1. If you are single, you are available for a romantic relationship. That’s not always true. A substantial number of single people are not at all interested in a romantic relationship.
2. Being single is just temporary. For many single people, that’s not true either. They are single, and they are not about to unsingle themselves. There are a variety of reasons for that. For example, some people, such as those who are single at heart, love being single. Others are religious leaders who have taken a vow to be single and celibate. Some who are asexual and/or aromantic do not wish to engage in romantic relationships.
3. Single means the absence of a romantic relationship, and by implication, it means you are alone and you don’t have anyone. In fact, though, research shows that single people are often more connected to more different people. They are often especially likely to maintain their ties with friends, relatives, and other important people in their lives.
4. You are either single or you are coupled; those are your only choices. That’s wrong, too. As Tessler points out, “the boundary between single and partnered can…be blurry.” Sometimes, two people disagree on whether they are a couple. Some kinds of relationships and courtship practices do not fit neatly into one of the two categories. Tessler mentions solo polyamory, situationships, friends with benefits, and hookup culture.

My studies of people who are single at heart affirm Tessler’s four points and shatter even more stereotypes of what it means to be single.

5. Being single is all about what you don’t have—a romantic partner. For the single at heart, especially, single life is about what you do have—freedom, independence, autonomy, opportunities for solitude and for spending as much time with as many different people as you want, without worrying that a partner thinks that time belongs to them. Freedom includes financial freedom, the freedom to curate your everyday life, to care for the people who need your help, to contribute to your communities, to learn and to grow, to choose your spaces and places and homes, to reimagine holidays, and to chart your own life course.
6. No one really wants to be single, not for the long term. Not true. The single at heart are powerfully drawn to single life by what it has to offer. They don’t want to give that up. To them, organizing their life around a romantic partner would be settling.
7. Single people are sad. In fact, the single at heart are happy they are single, and they are happy because they are single.
8. Single people get even sadder as they grow older. In fact, the reverse is true. For single people in general (not just the single at heart), as they pass midlife and head on to later life, they get happier and happier with their single lives.
9. Single people are lonely. People who are single at heart value the time they have to themselves. That appreciation of solitude means that they are less likely to feel lonely. The life experiences of people who are single at heart also underscore the important points that solitude and loneliness are not the same, and that living alone and feeling lonely are not the same either.
10. “Relationship” means “romantic relationship.” Lots of people use the word “relationship” that way. But to the single at heart and other open-hearted people, “relationship” is an inclusive word that can encompass the bonds we have with friends, relatives, colleagues, neighbors, mentors, many other humans, and pets.
11. “Love” means “romantic love.” For the single at heart and some others, love is a many-splendored thing. It can include love of friends, relatives, ancestors, spiritual figures, pets, and many others. It can include your passions that are not about specific other people, such as your love of, and commitment to, social justice or learning or artistic creation, and so much more.
12. Family means mom, dad, and the kids. That definition is way too limiting. Family can include nuclear family members and other relatives, but it can also include the people we choose to regard as family.
13. Intimacy means sexual intimacy. It can, but not only that. Emotional intimacy matters too.
14. Being single is abnormal, unnatural, and inferior to being coupled. So very untrue. Being single, by just about any definition, is commonplace. It can be a natural way of being. And for the single at heart, their lives are more expansive, more meaningful, and more fulfilling because they are single.

Facebook image: Asier Romero/Shutterstock