I find this article distressing because it paints a one-sided, misleading picture of aging solo. It’s ludicrous to show the life of one person in detail with the editorial note, “Here’s what it’s like.” The implication is that she’s typical, when in fact the millions of people who will age alone are extremely diverse.
The woman is recovering from two surgeries. That situation is temporary, although it may take a while. I’d recommend avoiding decisions while she’s in this stage of an illness. Who knows what she’ll be like in six months or a year?
And it’s hard to say whether this woman is joyously single by choice or what Bella De Paulo calls “single at heart.” The article says, “In her 40s, she considered adoption but ultimately decided against it. Then, in her 50s, after her own mother died, she went through a period of regret that she had decided against single motherhood.” Many single-by-choice people have no regrets.
Regarding the task of arranging her final documents, she says (or at least the WSJ reports she said), “It’s all on me.” We don’t know the context; lots of us don’t mind doing things ourselves with little or no help. Many single people pride themselves on being self-sufficient and don’t wish for a partner to help.
At 65, she’s not that old and she was fit before the surgeries. What should matter is, how does she feel about being single as she gets older? Does she welcome being alone or resent it? One clue is that she’s looking at moving into an over-55 community, which to me sounds like a nightmare: I don’t even like cruises. I hope she defers her decision till she’s recovered from surgery. This is no time to move.
The comments show that readers are shockingly unaware of the realities of single life. Some of them state unequivocally that marriage is better. Some allude to mysterious other cultures that provide for their elders, yet seem unaware that those cultures are changing.
There’s absolutely no understanding that some of us enjoy our solitude and have no regrets about being childless. For some people, it was a careful decision: “That’s not for me.” For some it was a matter of circumstance as they got derailed by career or caretaking.
I have never seen research on this, but my experience convinces me that some people are born to be single; I knew I’d be single from the time I was six and played “cats” instead of “house.” I can’t remember ever being drawn to children and babies. We now understand that being gay has a biological component; why not investigate singlehood?
I’m always suspicious af articles that focus on one version of aging and one version of singlehood. These articles can be hopelessly misleading.
More important, they can turn the focus away from understanding real truths, like why some people actually grow and heal from solitude and why it’s important (at least for some people) to have daily time alone. Instead, they focus on the common belief that being alone condemns you to loneliness. They reinforce stereotypes of single people as lonely and regretful instead of recognizing our strengths.
As a result, government policy and commercial services continue to support traditional marriage as “the norm.” Services are designed to support married couples and create disadvantages for singles. And for those of us who want to be single, that makes our lives even harder.
