SinglesByChoice.com

We all have a deep seated need for belonging: we want to be a part of something larger than ourselves. One option our society gives us is marriage. And in recent years, with the glorification of marriage, it has morphed into a panacea for all of our troubles. Marriage is supposed to meet all our needs for belonging and community. Of course, what nobody seems to acknowledge is that one person cannot possibly meet these needs. Yet, culturally, we seem to be trained to expect that we’ll find The One who will solve all our problems and meet all our needs, especially the need for belonging. I wonder how much disappointment is generated through this unmeetable expectation. It might even be part of the increase in divorce.

Of course, as singles, we already know - somewhere if not explicitly - that our needs for belonging are better met through a variety of channels: friends, family, neighbors, and organizations to name a few.

Singlism has been in the news quite a bit lately. Check out these articles:

• Being Single Isn’t What It’s Cracked Up to Be: The AARP chimes in
• Stop Singlism!: An article in Forbes
• The Unrecognized Stereotyping and Discrimination Against Singles: An article by Bella DePaulo and Wendy Morris

And the term made it into at least one online dictionary: The Double-Tongued Dictionary, which records undocumented or under-documented words from the fringes of English, with a focus on slang, jargon, and new words. It’s a start!

If you don’t feel like reading, you can listen to DePaulo here:

• Interview with Patt Morrison (it was on September 14, just search the page for “DePaulo”)
• Video clips about DePaulo and her research at Video Jug (note the box “Our Expert in…)

Please let us know if you run across any other articles by posting them in the comments (if you include more than 2 links, I will have to moderate your post, so it won’t show up right away). Also, please share your ideas for getting singlism into more dictionaries…

Bella DePaulo defines singlism in her groundbreaking book Singled Out as

People who do not have a serious coupled relationship are stereotyped, discriminated against, and treated dismissively. This stigmatizing of people who are single - whether divorced, widowed, or ever single - is the twenty-first century problem that has no name. (P. 2)

Singlism is pervasive: it is everywhere in our culture from attitudes toward single people to the tax code.

The flip-side of singlism is the glorification of marriage (or being coupled). DePaulo calls that matrimania (p. 10). Both are very much intertwined, if you are nothing without a partner, you instantly become someone when you are partnered.

As single people, we have to become aware of what I call internalized singlism: Our inner voices that tell us that there is something wrong with us because we are single. Since everybody around us seems to be coupled, since that seems to be the standard for being a mature adult, we must somehow repel potential partners and we certainly are not fully grown up. These are very deep seated myths that are a direct result of singlism and matrimania.

To counter these myths, reading DePaulo’s book is a good start. It will arm you with plenty of research that says that you’re not childish and that there’s nothing wrong with you. After that, it is time to move on to the positive. There are an increasing number of books available now that talk about how to live a single and happy life. Kay Trimberger presents stories of several single women in her book The New Single Woman. The book goes far beyond story-telling, though. She uses the experiences of these women and her own to distill six supports that lead to a satisfying single life:

1. Fulfilling work,
2. Connections to the next generation,
3. A home (though we don’t have to own a house)
4. Intimate relationships with a network of friends and extended family,
5. A community, and
6. Acceptance of our sexuality whether we have an active sex life or are celibate. (P. 65)

Using Trimberger’s research to craft supports for our single lives goes a long way toward overcoming internalized singlism. Finally, though, we will need to embrace the fact that there are (at least) two valid life paths: the Single Adulthood path and the Married Adulthood path, as Karen Gail Lewis suggests in With or Without a Man as I have already mentioned on our welcome page.

Armed with these three things - research refuting the myths, research showing how to build the supports, and a new life stage model - we can overcome internalized singlism and then fight singlism in the rest of society.

Although I am still a little skeptical, singelringen might be a tool to show our pride in being single. Why the skepticism? There are some things on the Website that just sound like the ring is a dating tool… I have decided, however, that we can ensure it is a symbol of pride rather than availability if enough of us singles by choice wear it. I do like the idea because it is important to have conversations about being single, especially when we’ve made that a lifestyle choice. So, at a minimum, the ring is a nice conversation starter.

That is the title of an article written by Andrew Adam Newman for the New York Times’ New Year’s Eve edition. It profiles SingleEdition.com. As Newman puts it, this is a site “unlike dating sites that treat being single as a predicament, this one celebrates flying solo, and offers shopping, financial and other advice to help them do so with pride.” To read the whole article, wander over to here.