I turned 70 this year and am so grateful to have achieved something many people can never imagine: remaining single for life. And as I get older, single life gets better and better.
I didn't know that it was possible to be happily single as an adult. I just knew what people believed: that no one really wants to be single, at least not for long; that anyone who thinks they want to be single is only fooling themselves; and that if they are truly single, they'll get sadder and lonelier as they get older.
Now I know better. I'm not just single. I'm also a researcher of singlehood. As a social scientist, I've spent decades studying single people, sifting through the work of others, and rewriting what it means to be single. I've found that people I call “single at heart” (and I count myself among them) are deeply drawn to the single life. It's the most fulfilling way for us to live.
I learned about the joys of singleness from dozens of people who genuinely identify as single and share their life stories in interviews, from hundreds who talk more casually about single life, and from thousands who respond to online surveys.
I have found that those of us who are single at heart thrive. because We are single, but being single does not mean we are single. Single people can be successful if they wish to be in a couple, but there are unsung strengths and great advantages to be had by single people who embrace singlehood and don't want to organize their lives around a partner. Key to our fulfillment is our freedom, our love of solitude, and our open-minded approach to friends, family, intimacy, and love.
When we asked people who shared their life stories what they liked about being single, they all mentioned freedom. For those who are truly single, freedom is a door to the life we want to live, an authentic life that reflects our interests, values, and true selves. We use our freedom to learn and grow, creating spiritually enriching lives full of new experiences and fresh perspectives.
We like to control our own money and how we spend it, create our own haven in our home, make our own holiday traditions, and have complete decision-making power over when we sleep, what we eat, what shows we watch, whether the toilet seat is up or down, and so on.
People who are single at heart are more likely than those who are not to choose meaningful work over lucrative work when they can't have both. I've used my freedom to study and write about single people from a research-based perspective that recognizes their strengths rather than characterizing them as a mountain of flaws.
Even though I'm retired, I still work almost every day. I know what people think of a single person like me who loves his job. We are married to our work, but not in a good way. Our work doesn't love us. But I value my spiritual life. And while much of my work is done in solitude, it has also sowed the seeds of community.
Because of my job, I've been contacted by single people I wouldn't normally know and I've met people I would never have been involved with in my life. I started a “singles community” on Facebook where we celebrate single life and discuss all aspects of singleness outside of the dating and escaping singlehood that single people seem to obsess over.
Although people who live traditional couple lives enjoy many of the same freedoms as single people, freedom does not seem to play as central a role in their lives as single people. In a survey of more than 200,000 people in over 30 European countries, both married and unmarried people said that individualistic values such as freedom, creativity, and trying new things were important to them. But single people valued these values more than married people, and derived more happiness from embracing these values.
Photo by Bella DePaulo
I have been blessed to have lived alone for my entire adult life. I spend a lot of time alone and am rarely bored. I enjoy wandering around the house, preparing meals with produce fresh from the farmers market, or plopping down on the couch and saying, “Inheritance“Alone time is relaxing,” I say, and I also find that I work best when I'm completely alone and no one is competing for my attention.
Solitude was comforting to me, even in the worst of times. When my father died suddenly and unexpectedly, my mother, hundreds of miles away, called one of her friends after I heard the news so that someone would be there for me. But that wasn't what I wanted. I was shocked, devastated, and just wanted to be alone. It wasn't until much later that I found comfort in the company of friends and relatives.
I thought in my heart that other single people would also value solitude. Until the last one Many of the people who shared their life stories with me said it was important to have time for themselves. They thrived in solitude. This is not the story we often see in the media, in which people who live alone or spend a lot of time alone are isolated and lonely.
As scholars look into the psychology of alone time, they're finding that for those who choose and value it, it can have positive effects on creativity, spirituality, and self-reflection. In fact, people who don't have as much time for themselves feel just as stressed, sad, and frustrated as those who spend more time alone than they'd like.
For those who are single at heart, loving solitude is a superpower. The comfort of being alone has sustained us during the COVID-19 pandemic and will continue to serve us well in the future. We rarely feel lonely because we value our own time.
But we don't just like solitude. Most people value company and enjoy socializing. Single people, especially those who are single at heart, are, on average, more connected to others. Compared with married people, we socialize more with friends and neighbors, and we're more reliably in touch with our parents. We exchange more moral, emotional, and practical support with friends, siblings, parents, colleagues, and neighbors.
While people who are in relationships or want to be in relationships are generally soul mate focused, single people tend to be soul mate focused. Those of us who are single at heart are grateful to be able to include as many or as few people in our lives as we like without worrying that the person in our relationship might want more of our time or attention for us.
When I was teaching at the University of Virginia, a newly hired colleague invited me to dinner at her house. She was planning to invite a man and hinted that I might be interested in him. I wished she hadn't invited me. I wanted to get to know her better. I hoped that we could become friends.
Being truly single means not doing what couples do: neglecting your friends in favor of your partner. It means being genuinely present when you're with your friends, without glancing across the room at a potential lover or thinking about your current spouse.
As single people at heart, we have a broad and inclusive approach to intimacy and love. We may love those who are generally considered family, such as our parents, siblings, and children (if we have them), but we also cherish those who we consider family, such as our close friends and confidants. We know that love is a great and big emotion that goes far beyond just romantic love.
One of the most persistent misconceptions about single people is that what they want more than anything is to get out of singlehood and get into a relationship. When my colleague Wendy Morris and I asked college students how they thought they'd feel if they got married, they predicted they'd be happiest. In contrast, they thought they'd be miserable if they remained single. Another survey found that older single people are perceived to be even more dissatisfied with their lives than younger singles.
That myth is over: In a survey of more than 3,000 single adults, researchers found that single people were significantly more satisfied with their single lives in every age group between 20 and 96.
Photo by Bella DePaulo
Of course, there were single people who were not satisfied with their single life, but they were the exception. Moreover, over the decades after turning 40, single people became increasingly satisfied with their single life.
I could have been much less fortunate than I am now. I could have lived in a time or place where it was harder to remain single forever. It might have been nearly impossible to become financially independent without a spouse. Attitudes toward single people might have been even more derogatory than they are now.
That would have been a huge loss. For people like me who are single at heart, the risk isn't what we lose by not organizing our lives around a romantic partner, but what we lose by doing so. By living someone else's view of life instead of our own, we miss out on living our most meaningful, fulfilling, spiritually enriching lives. We miss out on being our true selves.
Bella DePaulo (PhD, Harvard University) has always been single and will always remain single. The Atlantic magazine calls her “America's foremost thinker and writer on the single life.” She is “Single at Heart: The Power, Freedom, and Soul-Fulfilling Joy of Single Living.” Her TEDx talk “What No One Told You About Single People” has been viewed over 1.6 million times. To learn more about her, please visit her website. Vera de Paulo.
Do you have a compelling personal story you'd like to see featured on HuffPost? See what we're looking for here and submit your suggestion.
