From Depositphotos.
When someone says they’re single, you are only getting the tip of the iceberg of what they mean. They could be what Bella DePaulo calls “single at heart:” people who love being single and are not looking to get coupled.
“Single at heart” people might have been single their entire lives. They might have known they’d be single since the time they were six. They want to be single.
Or they may have been previously married or divorced. They like their newly-single status and are moving to being “single at heart.”
But they often are “reluctant singles,” who would rather be coupled and perhaps are actively looking. They do not want to remain single and very much wish they were coupled.
To be sure, all people who are single in the legal sense of “not married” face certain challenges in common, e,g., government tax classifications.
The issue isn’t that someone is coupled or not: it’s that some are grieving an old relationship and/or want to stay coupled. Others are enjoying being single. For others, being single is a deliberate choice, or a choice that feels inevitable: “I was born this way.”
This distinction matters.
When you lump the “at heart” and “reluctant” singles together, you get a distorted view of what it means to be single. And this distortion has implications for everything from policy decisions to health care interventions to commercial services. Here are three areas where the distortion can be especially misleading.
Loneliness vs. Solitude
In an article about “solo agers,” the AARP defines “solo” as “living alone.” The truth is, some married people technically live alone, maintaining separate residences. Some single people live with roommates or extended family.
The AARP goes on to say, “Two in 5 solo agers [in their survey] said loneliness and isolation were the worst parts of aging alone.”
They are referring to 40% of a population consisting of people who live alone by choice as well as people who are divorced or widowed.
But is it true that 40% of single people across the board, happily single or missing a partner, are lonely? We can hypothesize that people who are single at heart – especially those living alone – would be grateful for solitude rather than lonely. In fact Bella DePaulo’s small survey of single people found that nearly all wanted periods of “alone time” every day.
Efforts to find partners vs. Efforts to remain solo
The AARP also found that some people who lived alone had tried dating apps and other approaches to finding romance. It seems safe to say that none of these were in the “single at heart” segment: by definition, being “single at heart” means enjoying life as a single person, not chasing romantic interests.
People who are “reluctantly single” will go to great lengths to find partners. They invest thousands of hours in developing a profile, dating, and figuring out how to make a relationship “work.”
Yet we rarely hear about those who are wholeheartedly devoted to living a single life, making enormous efforts to create islands of solitude, sacrificing disposable income, and resisting intrusive attempts to make them change. Narratives about single life
There’s also a difference in the way these groups talk about singlehood. Those who want to replace their lost partners will talk about “coping” with their single status or “coming to terms” with not having a partner.
This language assumes coupledom is a superior state desired by everyone. It often comes as a shock when the speakers realize that not everyone sees this state as superior or desirable.
Imperfect but Necessary Distinctions
This division into “reluctantly single” vs “single at heart” may seem simplistic, arbitrary, and binary. After all, some scientific articles say sexual orientation is a continuum, not binary; I haven’t seen the same kind of approach directed to singlehood.
But as a bare minimum, it seems critical to avoid lumping “single at heart” with “single by circumstances” into one group.
Misleading data can lead to harmful or senseless prescriptions, e.g., prescribing solutions for “loneliness” or “susceptibility to romance scams” when the probability is zero percent in one group of singles and 100 percent in another.
In fact, it’s difficult to overstate the dangers of assuming the word “single” covers anyone who isn’t married or at least coupled. Even if the categories are perfect, we can correct many distortions if we don’t stop with one word. We can go on to ask the question, “But do they wish they had a partner? Or are they enjoying a rich, fulfilling life as a solo?” ,
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Please note: This article follows my earlier article: One word, three identities
And if you wonder why I use cat pictures on my articles, click here.
