Single at Heart: What It Is and Is Not

Recently, the experience of being “single at heart” has been the topic of many podcasts, radio shows, and TV shows, as well as articles, essays, and blog posts. The question that comes up most often is what it means, and what it does not mean, to be single at heart. The most comprehensive answers are in Single at Heart: The Power, Freedom, and Heart-Filling Joy of Single Life. Here, I provide a brief overview.

Single at Heart: What It Is

Definition

• For people who are single at heart, single life is their best life – their most joyful, fulfilling, meaningful, psychologically rich, and authentic life.
• The single at heart love being single and want to stay single
• They are happy and flourishing because they are single, not in spite of it.

The One Characteristic that Most Clearly Separates People Who Are Single at Heart from People Who Are Not

• They find single life joyful

Two Other Things that Everyone Who Is Single at Heart Has in Common

• They love their freedom
• They love their solitude

At the Heart of Living Single for the Single at Heart

• Authenticity is at the heart of being single for the single at heart. Single is who they really are.
• The risk to the single at heart is not what they would miss if they did not put a romantic partner at the center of their lives, but what they would miss if they did. They would not get to be who they really are. If they forced themselves to live a conventional coupled life (as some did for a while), that life would never feel truly fulfilling. It would feel forced or phony, even if they loved their romantic partner and their partner loved them.

A Life of Possibilities

• For the single at heart, single life is not a more limited life, it is a more expansive one. Within the limits of their resources and opportunities, they can use their freedom to pursue psychologically enriching experiences and to create a life that reflects who they really are, rather than following a conventional life path.
• To the single at heart, love encompasses far more than just romantic love.
• To the single at heart, intimacy means more than just sexual intimacy.
• To the single at heart, family can include more than just the people who are usually considered family; it can also include the people they choose to treat as family.
• To the single at heart, “relationship” does not just mean “romantic relationship.” There are many other kinds of relationships that are meaningful and fulfilling.

Single at Heart: What It Is Not

• It is not a phase. People who are single at heart are not going to outgrow it.
• It is not self-deception. People who are single at heart are not fooling themselves about their love of single life.
• It is not a pathology. People who are single at heart are flourishing. Their mental health is strong. They are especially likely to be open-minded and they are especially unlikely to feel lonely.
• It is not a recipe for disaster in later life. Older people who are single at heart are especially likely to be flourishing.
• It is not a smaller, narrower life. It is a more expansive life. (See above, “A Life of Possibilities.”)
• It is not about avoiding romantic relationships. The single at heart are not running away from romantic relationships or anything else – they are running toward their most authentic lives.
• The single at heart do not center their lives around a romantic partner. Some people who are single at heart do have romantic relationships, but they do not build their lives around them in conventional ways, and those romantic relationships are not always monogamous.
• To be single at heart does not mean having no sex, unless that’s what they want. It can mean having more sexual freedom, the freedom to have the amount and kind of sex they want, when they want it, including never.
• The single at heart cherish their solitude, but that doesn’t mean they don’t also enjoy companionship and socializing. Many who are single at heart invest more in their friends and the other important people in their lives and get more out of those relationships.
• To be single at heart does not mean having no children of your own or having no children in your life – unless that’s what you want.
• To be single at heart does not mean having no love in your life or no intimacy or no family or no relationships. It is a more open-hearted, expansive approach that can include more of all of those experiences rather than fewer. (See above, “A Life of Possibilities.”)