Why Do We Believe That No One Really Wants to Be Single?

I study people who love being single. They aren’t single by default because they just couldn’t find someone; they are not looking to put a romantic partner at the center of their lives. They are not living single grudgingly, spouting some cliché about how being single is better than being in a bad relationship, or how it is better to be single than to wish you were. No, for these people, the single at heart, single is simply better. I’m one of them. Single is how we live our best, most authentic, meaningful, and fulfilling life.

For many of us, myself included, it took a long time to understand ourselves as single at heart. In large part, that’s because people like us aren’t even supposed to exist. The conventional wisdom of our time is that no one really wants to be single. Sure, you might not mind it for a while, but then, like everyone else, you want to get on with your adult life, which is a coupled life.

As more and more people all around the world stay single, not just in their twenties, but into their late forties and beyond, it is getting harder to manipulate us all into believing that no one really wants to be single. Let’s look at some of the ways the gaslighting happens.

1. Pity the Singles: “You Poor Things”

Proclaim that single people are sad and lonely. Make it sound like a truth and not a stereotype or a claim in need of investigation. Declare it in the headlines of stories in the media. Slip it into scholarly articles. Drop it into casual conversations.

Professor Michael Cobb, author of Single: Arguments for the Uncoupled, thinks that “the language of singleness is really the language of couples who are pitying single people.”

I’ve been debunking demeaning claims about single people for nearly two decades. On average, single people are not miserable, and they are not lonely — not even close. No matter. The goal is to make single people seem pathetic. No one wants to identify with a group painted as a bunch of losers.

2. Deny Their Experiences: “Happy? You’re Just Fooling Yourself”

Some people are happily single and have the audacity to say so. That won’t fly. Other people will tell them they are just fooling themselves. They will put them down. Sometimes they even get angry at them.

I’m not just sharing anecdotes here — there are several studies showing that single people who are pining for a partner get much more positive reactions than single people who like their single lives.

3. Concede That They May Be Happy: "But It Won’t Last”

Tell someone you are happily single, thank you very much, and it is like you have put out a plea for reassurance rather than a statement of fact:

• “You’ll change your mind.”
• “You just haven’t met the right person.”
• “Aw, don’t say that!”

Imagine if someone told you they were so very happy with their spouse, and you said:

• “You’ll change your mind.”
• “You just think your partner is the right person.”
• “Aw, don’t say that!”

4. Concede That Singles May Be Happy but Just Wait Until Things Get Tough: “You All Got Destroyed by the Pandemic”

Think you are happy, you deluded single person? Maybe you are all carefree and fancy-free now, but you just wait. You are going to grow old alone. You are going to get sick and there won’t be anyone there for you. You will die alone.

The pandemic provided a great opportunity to put supposedly happy single people in their place. At Time magazine, a reporter with a history of writing effusively positive (and misleading) high-profile stories about married people, especially those who stay married, took a shot at singles. Before the pandemic, she said, single people who live alone could have full lives. But during the pandemic, they have been crushed. Now they’ve learned their lesson: “Although living alone had its merits, they didn’t want to do it forever.”

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Her story was based on five people. Nowhere in it did she acknowledge that some single people are doing just fine, even during the pandemic. After all, no one really wants to be single, right?

5. Turn Singles' Ordinary Feelings of Sadness Against Them: “Aha! You’re Sad Because You're Single”

Everyone feels sad sometimes, even single people who are happily single. There are lots of reasons single people could be sad that have nothing to do with being single. But it is the “single” explanation that sticks, and it can even get internalized.

In How to Be Alone, Sara Maitland explained it like this:

“If you tell people enough times that they are unhappy, incomplete, possibly insane, and definitely selfish, there is bound to come a grey morning when they wake up with the beginnings of a nasty cold and wonder if they are lonely rather than simply ‘alone’.”

That’s one of the ways people who are happily single can start to doubt themselves. Maybe they say to themselves, “Hmm, maybe it’s true that no one would ever really want to stay single.”

6. Suggest the Cure for Their Supposed Misery: "Just Get Married"

At the slightest hint that a single person may be at all unhappy, even if their unhappiness has nothing to do with the fact that they are single, well-meaning matrimaniacs will swoop in with a solution: Get married! It is not just your annoying relatives who think that way. Scholars, pundits, and reporters do, too.

It’s not true. As of 2012, there were already at least 18 long-term studies showing that people who marry do not become lastingly happier than they were when they were single. They don’t become reliably healthier, either. But maintaining that popular storyline despite the evidence against it is an important step toward maintaining the other fiction — that no one really wants to stay single. Why should they, when there is a magic potion that promises a long, happy, healthy life?

7. Tell Coupled People That If They Are Unhappy, Being Coupled Isn’t to Blame: “Relationships Take Work”

To succeed in maintaining the myth that no one really wants to stay single, it is important to maintain different practices and standards for single and coupled people. If single people are sad, it is because they are single. But if coupled people are sad? Well, that’s a different story.

They need to try harder; everyone knows that romantic relationships take work. Or maybe they are just with the wrong person. They need to try again with someone else. Maybe they were too young or too inexperienced or just hadn’t learned enough about partnering and life when they committed to their current partner; they’ll get it right next time. Or maybe the time after that.

8. Use Language That Equates Singlehood with Being Deficient: "Unattached"

Think of the words and phrases that are used interchangeably with “single,” as if they are definitions rather than demeaning stereotypes: Single people are “alone.” They are “unattached.” They “don’t have anyone.” (They are not any of those things.)

Want to instead say that someone should pursue a romantic relationship or get married? Here’s a popular way of doing so: “He deserves to be happy.”

9. If You Write Novels, Songs, or Movies, Don’t Feature Strong, Happy, Interesting Single Characters

Sometimes in the Community of Single People, we try to generate lists of songs, movies, TV shows, or novels featuring single people who like being single and want to stay that way. It is possible, but we have to put our heads together to try to figure it out.

Imagine the comparable question: “Can you think of any movies, TV shows, novels, or songs in which any of the characters want to be coupled?”

That’s the difference. That’s one of the reasons why so many people continue to believe that no one wants to be single, not really.

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