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Before COVID-19, being single was Maddie Southorn’s biggest fear. When the pandemic began and she was on her own, she berated herself with fatalistic thoughts: “It’ll never happen, I’m destined to be alone, old age will be terrifying because there will be no one to look after me.” She was 47 and her last romantic relationship had ended in 2019.
The pandemic could have been a disaster for Maddie and other single people who had always longed to be coupled or thought they should be doing more to escape their single lives. And in fact, plenty of single people have suffered during the past year. Sometimes, though, the biggest obstacle to living a fulfilling single life is never giving it a chance.
The past year has forced some people to spend long stretches of time on their own. As a result, they came to realize something they may never have discovered otherwise: Single life suits them more than they ever imagined it could. Now they will never settle.
I have been studying single people for many years, so I wish I could say that I knew the pandemic would transform some wannabe couples into secure single people. But I didn’t. In fact, I wasn’t even sure that the most enthusiastic single people, the “single at heart,” would survive the pandemic unshaken in their commitment to single life. When I asked them whether they still thought single life was their most authentic, meaningful, and fulfilling life, they said they did. (I wrote about their experiences for NBC News.) Along the way, on online forums such as the Community of Single People, I also asked other single people to share their pandemic experiences. That’s how I discovered that the pandemic could be positively transformative even for the most reluctant single people.
Maddie used to think that “having no plans, or doing things alone, equaled being a ‘loser.’” The pandemic, she said, “took so much of that away because everyone was in the same boat. It took away one of my biggest fears by forcing me to face it.”
She discovered that “the peace is blissful.” She has used her alone time to do things she had never tried, such as online open mics and online art classes. She opened an Etsy shop. Her new pursuits brought her great joy. “Despite being physically confined,” she said, “I feel very free. The heaviness, shame, and need fell away and now I feel genuinely cool with being single.”
Jane Charlesworth was mostly happy and confident as a single person before the pandemic, but always had “the nagging thought that I ‘should’ be making finding a partner more of a priority.” Jane is a 39-year-old genderqueer evolutionary microbiologist and life coach who lives on a boat in Warwickshire, UK, and prefers they/them pronouns. They have been alone during the pandemic and have an attitude similar to Maddie’s. “I used to think that being alone meant that something was wrong with me or that I was fundamentally unlikeable. I would often socialize to avoid being alone.”
When Jane says that they have been alone during the pandemic, they mean that they have spent lots of time alone and they do not have a romantic partner. What they do not mean, though, is that they are isolated or unloved. During the pandemic, Jane said, “I’ve deepened friendships and community and feel deeply connected to many beloveds, something I often didn’t feel when in the kind of romantic relationship I thought I should want.”
Living single during the pandemic has revealed Jane’s strengths and taught them the value of living a life that is most personally meaningful, rather than the one mandated by norms, pressures, and expectations. “Taking time for self-development has been a huge gift,” Jane said. “I know how resourceful and resilient I am and how good I am at caring for myself and working out what I really want, as opposed to what other people think I should want.”
Right now, finding a partner is not a priority for Jane. “I’m open to a romantic relationship in the future, but I’m done with settling.”
For people such as Maddie and Jane, their newfound confidence in their single selves will serve them well if they do look for a romantic partner, research shows. Stephanie Spielmann and her colleagues assess people’s fear of being single by their agreement with a series of statements that sound a lot like Maddie’s early pandemic self-talk: For example, “It scares me to think there might not be anyone out there for me” and “If I end up alone in life, I will probably feel that there is something wrong with me.” The researchers found that people who are unafraid of being single (they disagree with those statements) have higher standards. They give out their contact information to fewer people at speed-dating events, they are more discriminating in evaluating online profiles, and they are more likely to break off an unsatisfying romantic relationship. They are the Jane Charlesworths of the post-pandemic world: “I’m open to a romantic relationship in the future, but I’m done with settling.”
During the pandemic, people such as Maddie, Jane, and others who shared their stories with me faced their fears. They faced themselves. They found comfort in solitude, emotional closeness in relationships that were not romantic, wisdom in their self-reflection, and joy in the new opportunities they pursued and the strengths they never realized they had. Most significantly, they learned that single life was something they could handle, and maybe even relish.
