Community of Single People: 3,433 Members from 100 Nations

Do you love being single? Do you think that hardly anyone answers yes to that question? Wrong!

A new survey of single people in the U.S., the UK, and China, by the digital marketing group JWT Intelligence, produced this remarkable conclusion:

“…the majority of respondents – regardless of age, gender or nationality – say that they love being single, with upwards of 70% saying single is their choice. Across generations, more than 50% of Americans prefer being single to being in a relationship, and the vast majority report that they sometimes, rarely, or never date.”

Despite this trend, groups for single people are overwhelmingly about dating. That has always bothered me. I thought there should be a community for single people who embrace their single lives, a place where we can share our experiences and discuss everything about single life except dating. I never found such a place, so in July of 2015, I created one – the online Facebook group, “The Community of Single People” (CoSP).

Every year, sometime around the anniversary of the group’s creation, I write a happy birthday post, reviewing who we are and what has been happening. This is the fourth. You can find the previous ones here.

Our numbers, today and through the years

I initially announced the formation of the Community of Single People in July of 2015 on this blog, another blog, and my website. Within five months, we had 600 members. The numbers since then have been:

2016: 1,170

2107: 1,946

2018: 2,000+

2019: 3,433

Of the current 3,433 members, 68% (2,347 people) are active members, meaning that in the past 28 days, they have viewed, posted, commented on, or reacted to content in the group.

Number of new conversations started every day

Every day, there are about 15 new posts. Each one draws an average of 10 comments, though the specific numbers are quite variable. The most popular posts in the past month have attracted well over 200 comments each, while some have drawn no comments at all.

Some of the most popular conversation starters are the ones in which people ask for advice from fellow community members. People seem quite willing to do what they can to help.

Gender

Many more of our members are women than men, but more than a few of our most active members are men, so – at least to me – the conversations do not seem quite so disproportionate.

2,474 are women (73%)

867 are men (26%)

29 did not identify as either women or men (1%)

Age

In terms of age, our members range across the spectrum. Of those who indicated their age:

9 were under the age of 18

222 were between 18 – 24

779 were between 25 – 34

909 were between 35 – 44

719 were between 45 – 54

475 were between 55 – 64

251 were 65 or older

Countries and Cities

Facebook only lists the top 100 countries, so I don’t know the precise number of nations represented in the Community of Single People, except to say that it is at least 100.

The countries with at least five members are:

1,957 members: United States

213 United Kingdom

172 Canada

140 Australia

120 India

81 South Africa

61 Philippines

60 Kenya

47 Nigeria

22 Mexico

21 Indonesia

20 Ireland, New Zealand

18 Israel

17 Germany, Spain, Malaysia

16 Pakistan

14 China, Sweden, Netherlands

12 Brazil, Singapore

11 Ghana, United Arab Emirates

10 Romania

9 Egypt, Denmark, Poland, Italy

8 Zambia, Greece, Belgium, Morocco

7 Turkey, Portugal, Trinidad and Tobago, Thailand, Finland, Bangladesh

6 France

5 Japan, Norway, Guyana, Costa Rica, Vietnam

Again, Facebook lists only the top 100 cities. Here are the ones with at least 10 members in our group.

85 members: New York, NY

50 Los Angeles, CA

43 Melbourne, VIC, Australia

40 Nairobi, Kenya

38 London, UK

30 Sydney, NSW, Australia

27 Seattle, WA

25 Chicago, IL

24 Denver, CO

21 Toronto, ON, Canada

20 Philadelphia, PA and Phoenix, AZ

19 Washington, DC

18 Cape Town, South Africa

16 Houston, TX, and Cincinnati, OH

15 Portland, OR; Brisbane, QLD, Australia; San Francisco, CA and Mumbai, India

14 Auckland, New Zealand; Austin, TX and Minneapolis, MN

13 Delhi, India; Lagos, Nigeria; Kansas City, MO; Akron, OH; Jacksonville, FL; Bangalore, India; and Montreal, QC, Canada

12 Singapore, Singapore; San Diego, CA; Durham, NC; San Antonio, TX; Ottawa, ON, Canada; and Columbus, OH

11 Las Vegas, NV; Dublin, Ireland; Milwaukee, WI; Vancouver, BC, Canada; Oakland, CA; Tucson, AZ; and Detroit, MI

10 Calgary, AB, Canada; Toledo, OH; Indianapolis, IN; Edmonton, AB, Canada; Boston, MA; Tel Aviv, Israel; Durban, South Africa; Perth, WA, Australia; and San Jose, CA

What members are saying about the group

Before I wrote this blog post, I invited members to comment on their experiences in the group. You can read what the first 23 people had to say here. Their observations fell into these categories:

• Relief and gratitude that there is a place for single people who embrace their single lives
• The community started online, but many people have met other community members in person, too
• Although most members are from the U.S., it is a truly global community, with members from at least 100 countries
• Understanding and discussing singlism

What has changed since last year

The biggest change in the Community of Single people has been a very big increase in the number of people asking to join the group. In the past month, we received an average of 38 requests a day. We don’t know for sure why this is happening. Lesley Francis Williams believes that “for the most part it is Facebook's algorithms identifying us as a larger group and advertising us to more people.” Another member, Person 22, concurs, adding, the most likely reason that the group has seen an influx of new members recently is because of Facebook's constantly changing algorithms. Public groups are now advertised as "other groups you might be interested in".

Person 23, Lisa, thinks that “singles have recently been getting good publicity… I also think that asexual and aromantic people are getting more representation, and there's overlap with those groups and single/single rights/etc. For example, any work done for those particular groups also benefits us and vice versa. I also think increased acceptance of non-monogamy helps because it shows that other forms of connection are acceptable.”

Lisa is right about the good publicity, both for singles generally and for this group in particular. In my anniversary post from last year, I mentioned that the Community of Single People is starting to get mentioned in high-profile books. That continued this year – for example, we were mentioned in Elyakim Kislev’s important new book, Happy Singlehood.

Associated with the big increase in the number of people requesting membership is something else entirely new: now, fewer than 20% of requests for membership are accepted. More and more people are asking to join without understanding what the group is about, perhaps because Facebook recommended it to them and that’s all they know. We do not accept anyone who wants to use the group to find dates. We have some screening questions but as Lesley noted, sometimes the applicants “give us the right answers so they can get in, and then try to chat up members.” We block them from the group when they do that.

Until next year…

Happy birthday, CoSP, and thank-you to the 3,433 members who have made it what it is. Special thanks to the administrators, Lesley and Lisa, who have been fielding the 38 requests per day for membership and doing so much more to keep the group humming along.