In the decades that I have been writing about single people, single life, and singlism, I’ve had one rule: I don’t talk about dating or other attempts by single people to unsingle themselves. I don’t want to perpetuate the stereotype that what single people want more than anything else is not to be single any longer.
There are some exceptions. For example, when the Pew Research Center found that half of solo single people were not interested in a romantic relationship or even a date, I did write about that. It is about dating, but it does not communicate the message that single life is something just about every person wants to escape; in fact, quite the contrary.
Now I’m ready to make another exception. I just learned that a popular site, DatingAdvice.com, recently published an article with the title, “Being Single Isn’t a Problem.” That’s a promising start. I’d go even farther. For people who are Single at Heart (I’m one of them), single life is our most joyful, meaningful, and fulfilling life.
Beyond the title of the article, things get even better. The author, Chloë Hylkema, talks about how empowering her single life has been and how living single has transformed her and bolstered her faith in herself. Then, for the rest of the article, she draws from an interview with Craig Wynne to introduce readers to Unmarried Equality (UE).
As noted at the top of the UE website, Unmarried Equality is about “Standing up for fairness and equal treatment of all people regardless of marital status.” Craig tells readers about two important concepts, singlism, the stereotyping, stigmatizing, and discrimination against people who are single, and matrimania, “over-the-top, overhyped cultural obsession with marriage.”
He explains that single people are ensnared in whole systems of inequality that advantage married people and disadvantage single people. The systems include legal, cultural, and social components. In the legal system, there are hundreds of laws that benefit and protect only people who are legally married. Culturally, marriage is often celebrated, while single life is denigrated, in movies, TV shows, and other popular representations. Craig is especially accomplished at critiquing popular culture and exposing the singlism and the matrimania so often perpetrated there. Socially, singlism often rears its ugly head in casual conversations, as, for example, when single people are asked why they are not married but married people are not asked why they are.
Like Chloë, Craig also described what he loves about single life (such as meaningful friendships and the opportunity to “cultivate a variety of relationships”). These personal stories are not “just” personal. As Craig notes, when we tell our stories of the personal fulfillment we find in single life, we are upending stereotypes and promoting fair treatment of people who are single.
The site that published this article, Dating Advice, is obviously a platform that encourages dating and offers advice for dating success. That’s usually the kind of thing I would ignore. But I am delighted that the site did not ignore the joys of single life, or the systematic challenges single people face, but instead underscored them. The site attracts 3.4 million pageviews per month, so untold numbers of readers may now understand single life in a way they never had before. They will also know about Unmarried Equality. For that, I am grateful.
[Notes: (1) The opinions expressed here do not represent the official positions of Unmarried Equality. (2) I’ll post all these blog posts at the UE Facebook page; please join our discussions there. (3) Disclosure: Links to books may include affiliate links. (4) For links to previous columns, click here.]
About Bella DePaulo
