70-year-old Social Scientist Bella DePaulo on what it means to be “single at heart.” PLUS: an Oldster Magazine Friday Open Thread about positive experiences of living solo and unattached.
I’m 36, I’ve been single for over a decade. The longer I’m single the more I realize getting involved in a relationship is probably not in the cards for me. I do have two kids (teenagers, now), but I’ve raised them alone since they were babies and I’ve loved it. I’m a terrible co-parent. I don’t enjoy sharing decision making. When I think about the great joys of my life, raising my kids by myself is one of them, and not being involved with anyone during that time is a close second. Even when things have been difficult, even when my daughter went through treatment for leukemia, I still felt a relief that I get to do all of this alone.
I’ve built a life that I feel happy and safe in, and it feels good to know it’s mine- it can’t be upended by anyone else’s choices or whims. I love traveling solo, I have wonderful rich friendships with people who have been involved in my and my kids lives for over a decade, I go to restaurants I enjoy and see movies I want to see. I can’t remember the last time I felt lonely.
When my kids were little I got a lot of ‘kids need a father’ and I still hear a lot of ‘the right person will come along’ and I just think, ‘the right person has come along. I feel like the right person for me.’ I’m looking ahead to my kids going to college and, for the first time in my adult life, being a bit more on my own, living in my home alone, and it doesn’t feel daunting, it feels exciting. At no point have I thought, ‘I wish someone else were here for this,’ I’m always in a state of, ‘I’m so glad I’m here for this.’
Great insight about "the right person"! And I greatly appreciate your perspective on raising your kids. When I talked to single parents for my "Single at Heart" book, they made some of the same points you did. I think that's so important, esp with all the bashing of single parents and their children. That is so unfair and uninformed.
Oh I’ve been run through it, I wrote a piece about taking a week away to take a break when my daughter was a year into her cancer treatment and let me tell you, the messages I received! I was like, welp, guess breaks for single parents are against the rules! 🫠🫠🫠
I don't enjoy sharing decision making, either! This is such a great point. I was married for 25 years, and have three adult children. I have now been single for 15 years, and I'm perfecty happy to remain single forever!
Yay! I’m 65 and have been single for the past 25 years. I love solitude. I love the quiet spaciousness of it. I taught kids for 30 years & grew up in a rambunctious family. The quiet is my favorite aspect. I can focus. It is peaceful. I love the gift of self-determination, the opportunity to explore what I please without compromise & to take responsibility for choices made entirely by myself. In dropping a myth of the romantic couple I’ve allowed myself to love myself, to trust myself. It’s been the greatest liberation.
I am newly divorced at 54 and had been with my husband half my life. I was the one who called the end of our marriage. There were a lot of issues, but for me, in the end, my life had become so small and it felt the box I was living in got smaller and smaller with each passing day. I looked into my future and I saw a lonely old woman living a minuscule life with a husband that was more of a habit than a partner. I felt at a crossroads, accept this existence and diminished self, or find the courage to embrace something different. I am still working through what this means for me, but essays like this make me want to weep with joy. This is what I am striving to embrace in this latter third of my life. It is difficult as uncoupling all parts of my life is still happening but I know I am able to be my full self as a single lady living her best life. Thank you for this essay.
Thank you, Jeannine! Your insight that married life can be a smaller life, and single life more expansive, is so important and so opposite from the storylines we are sold all the time.
Great post, Jeannine... your courage is shining through and will light your way! Your best, most vibrant years are ahead of you as you retool your life and discover what really matters for your own evolution. The "third act" , while perhaps challenging, is a magical time of transformation and self-discovery. You're just beginning the journey.👏
I love this description, new to me, “single at heart!” Yes, I think I am. I’m 63, and unattached for 17 years now, with rich friendships and no strong pull to become un-single. I like living on my own and am comfortable traveling on my own.
What’s challenging? the small errands and larger potential health items, when it is nice to have someone nearby to help with a car repair drop-off or surgery pickup (“you must have someone waiting for you”). But, I try to be a generous helper to friends, knowing I may need to ask for help one day. Learning to ask for help!
I am already planning to move and simplify by the age of 70, and hope to live somewhere with great transportation options so that I can eventually stop driving.
As a happily single person I’m often met with pity and, “don’t worry you’ll find someone,” pats on the shoulder. That may be true, but I adore my single life. To read this essay is so validating, even reassuring. Interestingly enough, a friend’s mother was widowed a few years ago; while she certainly grieved, within weeks she was truly living her best life: taking pairing classes, going for cocktails, yoga retreats. Every time he called to make sure she was ok, she couldn’t talk as she was on her way to do something. When everyone expected her to shrink, instead she found new zeal for life. It was incredible.
yes, I saw that with my mother when she was widowed, too. she definitely grieves my father, and misses their life as a couple, but! she has come to life in other ways, able to take part in so many activities and social events he would not have wanted to do
Jun 7·edited Jun 15Liked by Sari Botton, Bella DePaulo
I am 33 and have never had the desire to date. As a kid, I never dreamed of getting married. When my friends started to date, I felt bored and disinterested. In my early 20s, I told myself I was still young, and that I would find someone eventually. In my late 20s, I thought my perpetual singleness was a result of my traumatic upbringing, and that my desire would change as I continued to heal. But it hasn't. I love being alone. I love travelling alone. I am a writer and I need colossal amounts of solitude to think and create. And, I love spending time with my friends and chosen family. I get to be a different kind of friend because I am single. I can be flexible. I can be anywhere I want or need to be without having to consult someone else. Soon, I'm going to be taking care of my childhood best friend's toddler while she returns to work after her maternity leave. I adore him and consider him my nephew, and I love that I have the freedom to offer my energy to caring for him. Freedom is at the top of my list of values, and I feel immensely grateful that I get to live a life that aligns with those values.
I feel seen. At 54, I'm as happy as I've ever been. I'm not closed off to having a life partner, but lately, I've been more reluctant to try dating again - every time I do, it seems, I find myself feeling out of balance. Unfortunately, I've had a series of bummer experiences where as soon as I saw the possibility with someone and showed enthusiasm, he withdrew, and I was left feeling like there was something undesirable about me or that I was 'missing' something. (Cue the phrases: "Oh, it wasn't meant to be." "It'll happen when you least expect it." Friends mean well, but... please don't.) When I get myself back in balance, I live a life full of joy: fulfilling work, loving family, good friends, outdoor running, solo travel, new experiences. Creates a complicated reaction to my singledom, weirdly. Am I happy because I just like being single? Or is my happiness really aversion to what it feels like when I try not to be? Whatever the answer really is, I do know that finding a few communities I enjoy being part of has been important, and wonderful.
The dating app experience is spectacularly uninspiring, which doesn't help. And I've gotten so tired of asking friends to introduce me to people - the worst is when they say "oh I know someone perfect for you!" and then you don't hear from them about it again, forcing you to ask about it, which makes you vulnerable.
An important part of this for me is that I wanted to have children and was very fortunate to be able to. I was married, divorced about fifteen years ago, and while we had our ups and downs we were always in sync on parenting our sons together -- we never had to "divide up" graduations and birthdays, we did it all together. I got to enjoy the wonderful parts of parenting but could live my own life, too. My ex and I are friends now, and we will always have the bond of having created these two wonderful humans.
Thank you for sharing your stories. That question you ask about whether your happiness is about liking being single is something I discuss in Ch 9 of "Single at Heart." Why don't married people question their happiness in the same way?
"Or is my happiness really aversion to what it feels like when I try not to be?"
Great observation! I've reflected on this too. Trying to partner is so challenging. Wonderful at times - but I found I wasn't allowing myself to enjoy being single enough. When I did, my life changed for the better in such profound ways. There is a LOT I wasn't doing to allow myself to feel great because I felt I was supposed to be partnered in order to be happy. Not true!
you have just succinctly written my story. i am now 66 and am still desultorily dating, in part, because the last 2/3 of my lovers have come through the odious dating apps. that said, i am rarely lonely; i have a really rich social circle of both men and women and feel wonderfully supported by them.
i don't love traveling alone, but have found some wonderful companions with whom to travel and when i have gone alone, it has been OK. on my last solo travel trip to Portugal, i noted that the times i most feel the absence of a partner when i am traveling is at meals and when something unusual, good or bad, happens--no one to share it with. it is not worse than just not traveling though, so i persist.
what i DO find missing in these narratives about being single are both sex and particularly affection. sex is accessible through masturbation, or possibly finding a casual sex partner, but i would miss the learning to know another person sexually, that casual sex might not afford (unless you are lucky enough to find a very part-time partner). truly, once another person is in the mix, one of them wants more than what the other is willing to give and the cycle begins again. affection is even more difficult and, i find, impossible to get by myself alone. so what do single folks do about it?
I wrote about that in the chapter, "Intimacy," in my Single at Heart book, https://belladepaulo.com/single-at-heart/ . You are wise in recognizing that finding a partner can come with its own problems.
This is fantastic — and people everywhere need to read this. Though it has taken me a while to realize this, I, too, am very happily single (and 54). Live your best life.
I’ve been single for long periods in my life - with two serious relationships before I was married at 36, for 17 years, then divorced. Whenever the given relationship ended I felt a mix of “Just haven’t found the right person yet” and “What is wrong with me?” And felt what I thought was loneliness when I was single. Actually it was me feeling like crap about myself because I was buying into the idea that losers were single and that there must be something wrong with me if I couldn’t make a relationship stick. I only realized a few years ago, after my marriage ended that I wasn’t lonely at all on my own. The pain I was feeling was my stubborn belief that I could only be happy and healthy if I was partnered. One day I read a person talking about how she had decided to have a relationship with herself. Take herself out on dates. Care for herself. Listen to herself. Sleep with herself. And then it clicked because I found that very exciting and something I really wanted, badly. So I started doing it let go of the negative associations with singledom and it’s been amazing. Now, one of the things I do like doing - in this same state - is meeting new people to engage in common interests and yes, there are dates. And there’s intimacy. But it’s not casual - I’m only intimate with people I really am interested in - it’s an expression of that. Recently I met someone like-minded; she doesn’t want to live with someone, she loves the life she’s created since her divorce with friends, activities, and autonomy etc. but she wants a connection, not just a lover, but not a “partner” in the typical way. Yesterday she told me she bought a ticket for a movie she wants to go to on the weekend, by herself. I get it! I support it! I love it! She doesn’t want to give that up. And she doesn’t have to tell me or check in with me about it. She does it like she was single. And I do the same. So, whatever, your ideal ‘state’ I believe you can have it by dropping the limiting beliefs about what is happy and healthy.
My dream relationship has always been, since the fourth grade, a romantic partner who lives somewhere else, and doesn't need to be with me every day. Once a week or so, max. I've always thought of myself as single, even when I was married (briefly). Being married felt like I was working undercover. Right now, even though technically I'm a widow, I think of myself as a happy spinster.
I have always been happiest when alone, though I don't regret trying couplehood (albeit almost reluctantly, as a matter of economics, mostly) with my (late) spouse. But the whole seven years I lived with him, I just kept thinking, "never again." Not that it was awful, but it just wasn't me.
When I was nine years old, I swore I'd never get married until I was 50. I got married at 51, mostly for legal reasons and because, sadly, I felt like a dying boyfriend wasn't going to be taken as seriously as a dying husband. It always annoyed me that before we shacked up I had to fake having a husband when it came to plumbers and repairmen because they didn't take me seriously unless I said something like, "my husband says..." That always worked better than just telling them whatever the problem was. What does a woman know about electricity or plumbing, right? (I know plenty. I was the handyman around the house.)
I fondly remember every time I broke up with someone and woke up feeling free again. Heavenly!
After my husband died, I tried to date one last, disastrous time, and when it was mercifully over someone actually said, "I hope this won't make you close your heart to love." I just rolled my eyes. I have love! I live my life with love, and everything I do, I do with love. A partner is just someone to witness and share that, and they don't necessarily have to move in with me. They don't even have to be my partner forever. I've been single again since 2016, eight great years, and have not wished it otherwise for a moment. I feel like a kid again.
It’s not just that I can make wild and daring solo plans for any reason I want, but also that I can change my mind for whatever seems fitting as well. I’m not obligated or letting someone down.
I'm 47 (nearly 48) and have been single for more than 25 years. I still sometimes think about being partnered but it feels like that idea comes from a very societal/normative place rather than an innate desire. If I follow my relationship thinking, I start to imagine it in ways where I still get to live alone and basically am single So I have come to understand that being single is my true preference and that I am very happy.
My friendships (especially my female friendships) have therefore become the most important relationships in my life. But one thing I do struggle with a bit is the inequity of those relationships. For example, my best friend is the most important person in my life. She is my in case of emergency, the beneficiary of my will and the first person I call. But she is in a happy and wonderful relationship, so I'm not that person to her. I find the supremacy of coupledom sometimes makes me feel like I'm nobody's priority in the way they're mine. I wonder does anybody else identify with that?
That said, I am my own priority and I've learned to embrace that as a healthy thing (rather than the selfishness single people are often accused of). I more keenly feel the responsibility to advocate for my happiness and wellbeing because there's nobody else whose "job" it is.
Overall, the benefits outweigh the challenges for me (and let's face it there is no one slam-dunk happy way to live life). I really value the relationship I've built with myself by being single. I'm curious about myself—aging, choices I'll make. I look forward to surprising myself. Life feels very unconstrained and I love that.
Yes, life feeling unconstrained ...feeling free - this is such a benefit that to me it's worth the inequities that may come along with it. The fact is, YOU are your priority and this is wonderful for you, is it not? Many people in couples make their partner a priority and it's not reciprocated.
I found it liberating, not lonely, granted I have pets so I don't come home to an empty house and I'm sure that made a difference for me. In fact, that aspect was rather telling when I did go out (in an effort to meet expectations of friends that set me up) I would think "I'd rather be home with my pets". Now 6 years free of those friends too. I don't miss being made to feel like I was less for not being with someone, I'm enough. I am enjoying recently retired status, early 60's, for the first time in 45 years I have no accountability to anyone and it is awesome! Thank you for this opportunity to share the joy!
That is absolutely key. There isn’t a person on earth with the right to boss me now. Some deluded fools try, like idiot landlords, etc.
also… My diurnal clock is very clear to me and I respect it. I know when best to schedule things. But it’s hard for those with other clocks to fathom. Same thing as co-dependents, I guess.
When I get some significant trips done, I’ll be rescued by pets again and will be quite content. The love of my life 🐾🐾 passed in 2020, and it’s a pure form of love, no games. Reasonable demands too. Pet me feed me. No lawyers.
I loved reading this, and the Ted Talk. I'm 67 and single. Not long ago - maybe ten years ago - I had a therapist insisted I should be dating. He asked about it every week. He said it wasn't normal. But, I wasn't lonely, I didn't like who I became when I dated, or when I was in some kind of romantic relationship. Never married, never been in a stable, long-term relationship, although there have been lovers who have come in and out of my life for periods that span twenty years.
When I was a kid, growing up in my parents' bad marraige, I had two plans for life:
One: I wanted to be divorced, and vowed to write lovely monthly thank you notes for my monthly alimony checks.
Two: I wanted to marry a very old, rich man, figuring if he didn't have a heart attack on the honeymoon, I could push him down the stairs and no one would be suspicious and I would inherit all the money. (I was Anna Nicole Smith before Anna Nicole Smith was born).
Somewhere I'd picked up the feeling that you needed a man for money. Eventually, I saw that the breadwinners in my family had always been the women and vowed, again, to never rely on a man or his money. I enjoy their company, but I hate having roommates or overnight guests. I lived alone for 40 years and loved that. When I wanted company, I went out. When I wanted my own company, I stayed in.
It was not until reading this that I realized that I am not as unusual as I'd imagined.
This is wonderful! I am appalled (though not surprised) by your therapist. I've been trying to reach mental health professionals so more of them will understand that for some people, single life is their most meaningful and fulfilling life. The therapists are doing a real disservice by pushing clients into dating when that is not who they really are.
Same one who refused to adjust my meds (which were killing my libido and ability enjoy sex) until I was in a relationship! I lost it, I’m in a sexual relationship with myself, I yelled. Needless to say he’s no longer my therapist
Jun 7·edited Jun 7Liked by Bella DePaulo, Sari Botton
lol. I wish more people would realize they don't need the other for so many things that they think they do. It would really unclutter the dating apps! I don't want to meet someone who has errant ideas about what they believe they can only get from other people... it's such a massive barrier to a real connection with someone.
I could never bother with a male counselor. The BS they accept as normal in this culture is too ingrained to be surpassed in an unequal relationship like therapy. Are they actually from Mars? 😉
Yeah. I was hoping to work on Daddy/intimacy issues, but it was really counterproductive. One male therapist before this one sat uncomfortably close and told me that men only got married to guarantee themselves readily available sex. No suprise that neither therapist was helpful, or that I didn’t stay long with either one. I was really surprised by the second one, however. It seemed so out of character for him to stress dating/romance as essentially required. It may be the norm, numbers wise, I don’t know, but there is certainly nothing wrong with a single life unless it makes you unhappy. And it wasn’t then and it isn’t now.
Some revelations simply come with age, I think. Getting to the point where you know yourself well enough and are less concerned with what “everyone” else is doing.
I am in the midst of writing an essay about being the third woman in three generations to end up single and raising a daughter outside of a partnership and then remaining single by choice after the daughters grew up. When I first began thinking about how odd it was that history had repeated itself in this way in my family, the word "curse" crossed my mind, in part because both my grandmother and my mother were widowed suddenly and tragically when their children were young. (My story involved divorce, not being widowed, but there were many parallels.) As I thought about it more, I realized that neither my mother nor my grandmother ever sought out a second husband or even a partner, and I believe both of them were very content ... despite the tragedies and hardships they experienced as single parents, I know they would never have considered their long solo chapters to be a curse in any way. Three generations in, I am 'happily divorced' and trying to ensure that my 20-something daughter knows that being content comes via many configurations.
I imagine that our distant ancestors lived that life by default, before paternity was understood in any way. Takes a village bla bla bla.
I still bristle at the phrase women “get pregnant”, like getting the flu. No. Someone must impregnate them. It’s a blind spot of responsibility still rampant in the language. Now that it can be a death sentence in some states, when are men going to realize how they’ve shot themselves in the uh… foot?
My maternal grandmother, then in her 80s or 90s, spoke of her childhood with an air of disgust about her mother’s plight; she had 13 children, and my grandmother once told me that her mother would give birth and then have to take the latest baby out on the farm with her while she got back to work. My grandmother didn’t seem to think much of her father both for this and other things she didn’t speak of directly (alcohol). I’m surprised she married at all, but thankfully my mother says that my grandfather was a good man. Not surprisingly, my mother was an only child!
Yes, it's mind-boggling that we are facing this idiocy. I never dreamed that my daughter would be facing a rollback of her rights in her 20s ... and with female politicians complicit in that. Despicable.
At 71, I have truly "come to terms"-- my terms-- about my solo life. From age 30-52, I had what I considered a great marriage, a loving husband, and a comfortable, meaningful life with two amazing daughters to prove it. At 52, I discovered that the loving husband was in fact a serious serial philanderer. (Details best left for a memoir.. ) It took me nearly 15 years to recover and finally embrace the fact that being single was an extraordinary gift. (Dating is a nightmare.) I could never imagine being tied again to one partner, committed relationship, or sharing my home with another warm body. I am so grateful to have my solo life! (with my Ginger-dog. She's the partner for me.) I do think about the aging factor, obviously, but whatever happens, I'll somehow figure it out on my own, and I'm lucky to have two girls who will step up to help if they ever need to.
I'm 66, and here to tell you that there are a lot of shades of grey (intentionally used) between "woe is me" and the current narratives about how awesome and fabulous and happy people are to be single and old. Making it into simplistic binary narratives doesn't do anyone any favors. And the financial reality of having lived a lifetime of underearning as a woman and being single and having to wear every hat - it is legitimately frightening and exhausting on many fronts and it doesn't mean I'm pathetic and sad. And yes, sometimes it's great that I don't have to please anyone but me, but with many caveats to that. I didn't "choose" to be single and childless; it worked out that way and there are reasons. I hate that people make any assumptions based on seeing only those qualities of my life, as it only makes me feel completely misunderstood. Demanding that any dimension of aging be either terrible or absolutely unassailably fantastic isn't helping our incredibly ageist culture, either.
Thank you. To be honest all these current cheerleader-y "It's so great to be old! And alone! Having the time of my life!" stories feel so forced, and I feel like I'm being gaslit in the worst possible way by my own people. I mean, if you really feel that way, acknowledge your privilege, which probably includes wealth. And if not, then be honest about the varied textures and real difficulties of getting and being old in America.
I live below the poverty line in my late 50s, forced to live in a room in someone's house over an hour commute to work yet I love being single. While you are asking for acceptance of various circumstances, you are negating mine.
You said that if I felt this way, it's because I have wealth and privilege. I'm pointing out that I have neither. It has nothing to do with your experience, only with your assumptions of others.
I’m 36, I’ve been single for over a decade. The longer I’m single the more I realize getting involved in a relationship is probably not in the cards for me. I do have two kids (teenagers, now), but I’ve raised them alone since they were babies and I’ve loved it. I’m a terrible co-parent. I don’t enjoy sharing decision making. When I think about the great joys of my life, raising my kids by myself is one of them, and not being involved with anyone during that time is a close second. Even when things have been difficult, even when my daughter went through treatment for leukemia, I still felt a relief that I get to do all of this alone.
I’ve built a life that I feel happy and safe in, and it feels good to know it’s mine- it can’t be upended by anyone else’s choices or whims. I love traveling solo, I have wonderful rich friendships with people who have been involved in my and my kids lives for over a decade, I go to restaurants I enjoy and see movies I want to see. I can’t remember the last time I felt lonely.
When my kids were little I got a lot of ‘kids need a father’ and I still hear a lot of ‘the right person will come along’ and I just think, ‘the right person has come along. I feel like the right person for me.’ I’m looking ahead to my kids going to college and, for the first time in my adult life, being a bit more on my own, living in my home alone, and it doesn’t feel daunting, it feels exciting. At no point have I thought, ‘I wish someone else were here for this,’ I’m always in a state of, ‘I’m so glad I’m here for this.’
Great insight about "the right person"! And I greatly appreciate your perspective on raising your kids. When I talked to single parents for my "Single at Heart" book, they made some of the same points you did. I think that's so important, esp with all the bashing of single parents and their children. That is so unfair and uninformed.
Oh I’ve been run through it, I wrote a piece about taking a week away to take a break when my daughter was a year into her cancer treatment and let me tell you, the messages I received! I was like, welp, guess breaks for single parents are against the rules! 🫠🫠🫠
sorry to hear that -- but not surprised
I don't enjoy sharing decision making, either! This is such a great point. I was married for 25 years, and have three adult children. I have now been single for 15 years, and I'm perfecty happy to remain single forever!
Yay! I’m 65 and have been single for the past 25 years. I love solitude. I love the quiet spaciousness of it. I taught kids for 30 years & grew up in a rambunctious family. The quiet is my favorite aspect. I can focus. It is peaceful. I love the gift of self-determination, the opportunity to explore what I please without compromise & to take responsibility for choices made entirely by myself. In dropping a myth of the romantic couple I’ve allowed myself to love myself, to trust myself. It’s been the greatest liberation.
Beautifully stated and wonderfully captures what it means to be single at heart.
Quiet spaciousness!! I love the way you phrased that.
I am newly divorced at 54 and had been with my husband half my life. I was the one who called the end of our marriage. There were a lot of issues, but for me, in the end, my life had become so small and it felt the box I was living in got smaller and smaller with each passing day. I looked into my future and I saw a lonely old woman living a minuscule life with a husband that was more of a habit than a partner. I felt at a crossroads, accept this existence and diminished self, or find the courage to embrace something different. I am still working through what this means for me, but essays like this make me want to weep with joy. This is what I am striving to embrace in this latter third of my life. It is difficult as uncoupling all parts of my life is still happening but I know I am able to be my full self as a single lady living her best life. Thank you for this essay.
Thank you, Jeannine! Your insight that married life can be a smaller life, and single life more expansive, is so important and so opposite from the storylines we are sold all the time.
Great post, Jeannine... your courage is shining through and will light your way! Your best, most vibrant years are ahead of you as you retool your life and discover what really matters for your own evolution. The "third act" , while perhaps challenging, is a magical time of transformation and self-discovery. You're just beginning the journey.👏
I love this description, new to me, “single at heart!” Yes, I think I am. I’m 63, and unattached for 17 years now, with rich friendships and no strong pull to become un-single. I like living on my own and am comfortable traveling on my own.
What’s challenging? the small errands and larger potential health items, when it is nice to have someone nearby to help with a car repair drop-off or surgery pickup (“you must have someone waiting for you”). But, I try to be a generous helper to friends, knowing I may need to ask for help one day. Learning to ask for help!
I am already planning to move and simplify by the age of 70, and hope to live somewhere with great transportation options so that I can eventually stop driving.
thank you for normalizing this …
Thank you! I love hearing from other single at heart people.
HURRAH!!!
As a happily single person I’m often met with pity and, “don’t worry you’ll find someone,” pats on the shoulder. That may be true, but I adore my single life. To read this essay is so validating, even reassuring. Interestingly enough, a friend’s mother was widowed a few years ago; while she certainly grieved, within weeks she was truly living her best life: taking pairing classes, going for cocktails, yoga retreats. Every time he called to make sure she was ok, she couldn’t talk as she was on her way to do something. When everyone expected her to shrink, instead she found new zeal for life. It was incredible.
yes, I saw that with my mother when she was widowed, too. she definitely grieves my father, and misses their life as a couple, but! she has come to life in other ways, able to take part in so many activities and social events he would not have wanted to do
Exactly! There’s something quite liberating in that power. 💝
great to hear that!
Great stories -- thanks. You anticipated some of the themes of my "Single at Heart" book.
I am 33 and have never had the desire to date. As a kid, I never dreamed of getting married. When my friends started to date, I felt bored and disinterested. In my early 20s, I told myself I was still young, and that I would find someone eventually. In my late 20s, I thought my perpetual singleness was a result of my traumatic upbringing, and that my desire would change as I continued to heal. But it hasn't. I love being alone. I love travelling alone. I am a writer and I need colossal amounts of solitude to think and create. And, I love spending time with my friends and chosen family. I get to be a different kind of friend because I am single. I can be flexible. I can be anywhere I want or need to be without having to consult someone else. Soon, I'm going to be taking care of my childhood best friend's toddler while she returns to work after her maternity leave. I adore him and consider him my nephew, and I love that I have the freedom to offer my energy to caring for him. Freedom is at the top of my list of values, and I feel immensely grateful that I get to live a life that aligns with those values.
Fabulous -- thank you!
Love this!
I feel seen. At 54, I'm as happy as I've ever been. I'm not closed off to having a life partner, but lately, I've been more reluctant to try dating again - every time I do, it seems, I find myself feeling out of balance. Unfortunately, I've had a series of bummer experiences where as soon as I saw the possibility with someone and showed enthusiasm, he withdrew, and I was left feeling like there was something undesirable about me or that I was 'missing' something. (Cue the phrases: "Oh, it wasn't meant to be." "It'll happen when you least expect it." Friends mean well, but... please don't.) When I get myself back in balance, I live a life full of joy: fulfilling work, loving family, good friends, outdoor running, solo travel, new experiences. Creates a complicated reaction to my singledom, weirdly. Am I happy because I just like being single? Or is my happiness really aversion to what it feels like when I try not to be? Whatever the answer really is, I do know that finding a few communities I enjoy being part of has been important, and wonderful.
The dating app experience is spectacularly uninspiring, which doesn't help. And I've gotten so tired of asking friends to introduce me to people - the worst is when they say "oh I know someone perfect for you!" and then you don't hear from them about it again, forcing you to ask about it, which makes you vulnerable.
An important part of this for me is that I wanted to have children and was very fortunate to be able to. I was married, divorced about fifteen years ago, and while we had our ups and downs we were always in sync on parenting our sons together -- we never had to "divide up" graduations and birthdays, we did it all together. I got to enjoy the wonderful parts of parenting but could live my own life, too. My ex and I are friends now, and we will always have the bond of having created these two wonderful humans.
Thank you for sharing your stories. That question you ask about whether your happiness is about liking being single is something I discuss in Ch 9 of "Single at Heart." Why don't married people question their happiness in the same way?
"Or is my happiness really aversion to what it feels like when I try not to be?"
Great observation! I've reflected on this too. Trying to partner is so challenging. Wonderful at times - but I found I wasn't allowing myself to enjoy being single enough. When I did, my life changed for the better in such profound ways. There is a LOT I wasn't doing to allow myself to feel great because I felt I was supposed to be partnered in order to be happy. Not true!
Yes, that pressure to be coupled is what I have been trying to push back against for decades!
you have just succinctly written my story. i am now 66 and am still desultorily dating, in part, because the last 2/3 of my lovers have come through the odious dating apps. that said, i am rarely lonely; i have a really rich social circle of both men and women and feel wonderfully supported by them.
i don't love traveling alone, but have found some wonderful companions with whom to travel and when i have gone alone, it has been OK. on my last solo travel trip to Portugal, i noted that the times i most feel the absence of a partner when i am traveling is at meals and when something unusual, good or bad, happens--no one to share it with. it is not worse than just not traveling though, so i persist.
what i DO find missing in these narratives about being single are both sex and particularly affection. sex is accessible through masturbation, or possibly finding a casual sex partner, but i would miss the learning to know another person sexually, that casual sex might not afford (unless you are lucky enough to find a very part-time partner). truly, once another person is in the mix, one of them wants more than what the other is willing to give and the cycle begins again. affection is even more difficult and, i find, impossible to get by myself alone. so what do single folks do about it?
I wrote about that in the chapter, "Intimacy," in my Single at Heart book, https://belladepaulo.com/single-at-heart/ . You are wise in recognizing that finding a partner can come with its own problems.
This is fantastic — and people everywhere need to read this. Though it has taken me a while to realize this, I, too, am very happily single (and 54). Live your best life.
Thank you, Heather! I love hearing from happy single people.
I’ve been single for long periods in my life - with two serious relationships before I was married at 36, for 17 years, then divorced. Whenever the given relationship ended I felt a mix of “Just haven’t found the right person yet” and “What is wrong with me?” And felt what I thought was loneliness when I was single. Actually it was me feeling like crap about myself because I was buying into the idea that losers were single and that there must be something wrong with me if I couldn’t make a relationship stick. I only realized a few years ago, after my marriage ended that I wasn’t lonely at all on my own. The pain I was feeling was my stubborn belief that I could only be happy and healthy if I was partnered. One day I read a person talking about how she had decided to have a relationship with herself. Take herself out on dates. Care for herself. Listen to herself. Sleep with herself. And then it clicked because I found that very exciting and something I really wanted, badly. So I started doing it let go of the negative associations with singledom and it’s been amazing. Now, one of the things I do like doing - in this same state - is meeting new people to engage in common interests and yes, there are dates. And there’s intimacy. But it’s not casual - I’m only intimate with people I really am interested in - it’s an expression of that. Recently I met someone like-minded; she doesn’t want to live with someone, she loves the life she’s created since her divorce with friends, activities, and autonomy etc. but she wants a connection, not just a lover, but not a “partner” in the typical way. Yesterday she told me she bought a ticket for a movie she wants to go to on the weekend, by herself. I get it! I support it! I love it! She doesn’t want to give that up. And she doesn’t have to tell me or check in with me about it. She does it like she was single. And I do the same. So, whatever, your ideal ‘state’ I believe you can have it by dropping the limiting beliefs about what is happy and healthy.
Wonderful -- thanks for sharing!
Thank you for sharing this!! LOVE!
That's the kind of relationship I want!
My dream relationship has always been, since the fourth grade, a romantic partner who lives somewhere else, and doesn't need to be with me every day. Once a week or so, max. I've always thought of myself as single, even when I was married (briefly). Being married felt like I was working undercover. Right now, even though technically I'm a widow, I think of myself as a happy spinster.
I have always been happiest when alone, though I don't regret trying couplehood (albeit almost reluctantly, as a matter of economics, mostly) with my (late) spouse. But the whole seven years I lived with him, I just kept thinking, "never again." Not that it was awful, but it just wasn't me.
When I was nine years old, I swore I'd never get married until I was 50. I got married at 51, mostly for legal reasons and because, sadly, I felt like a dying boyfriend wasn't going to be taken as seriously as a dying husband. It always annoyed me that before we shacked up I had to fake having a husband when it came to plumbers and repairmen because they didn't take me seriously unless I said something like, "my husband says..." That always worked better than just telling them whatever the problem was. What does a woman know about electricity or plumbing, right? (I know plenty. I was the handyman around the house.)
I fondly remember every time I broke up with someone and woke up feeling free again. Heavenly!
After my husband died, I tried to date one last, disastrous time, and when it was mercifully over someone actually said, "I hope this won't make you close your heart to love." I just rolled my eyes. I have love! I live my life with love, and everything I do, I do with love. A partner is just someone to witness and share that, and they don't necessarily have to move in with me. They don't even have to be my partner forever. I've been single again since 2016, eight great years, and have not wished it otherwise for a moment. I feel like a kid again.
Was waiting for you to chime in! Love this. <3
haha, you know me too well! :)
😘
It’s not just that I can make wild and daring solo plans for any reason I want, but also that I can change my mind for whatever seems fitting as well. I’m not obligated or letting someone down.
What an adventure. Or… not today.
🙏🏻Thanks for sharing this from another happy spinster!!
I'm 47 (nearly 48) and have been single for more than 25 years. I still sometimes think about being partnered but it feels like that idea comes from a very societal/normative place rather than an innate desire. If I follow my relationship thinking, I start to imagine it in ways where I still get to live alone and basically am single So I have come to understand that being single is my true preference and that I am very happy.
My friendships (especially my female friendships) have therefore become the most important relationships in my life. But one thing I do struggle with a bit is the inequity of those relationships. For example, my best friend is the most important person in my life. She is my in case of emergency, the beneficiary of my will and the first person I call. But she is in a happy and wonderful relationship, so I'm not that person to her. I find the supremacy of coupledom sometimes makes me feel like I'm nobody's priority in the way they're mine. I wonder does anybody else identify with that?
That said, I am my own priority and I've learned to embrace that as a healthy thing (rather than the selfishness single people are often accused of). I more keenly feel the responsibility to advocate for my happiness and wellbeing because there's nobody else whose "job" it is.
Overall, the benefits outweigh the challenges for me (and let's face it there is no one slam-dunk happy way to live life). I really value the relationship I've built with myself by being single. I'm curious about myself—aging, choices I'll make. I look forward to surprising myself. Life feels very unconstrained and I love that.
You are right. And I'm trying to push back against the supremacy of coupledom.
Yes, life feeling unconstrained ...feeling free - this is such a benefit that to me it's worth the inequities that may come along with it. The fact is, YOU are your priority and this is wonderful for you, is it not? Many people in couples make their partner a priority and it's not reciprocated.
I can relate to the people that are my first port of call and I am not the same to them. I just do the best I can to be there when they call.
HARD yes on those thoughts of being coupled coming from society and not the inner self.
My friendships (especially my female friendships) have therefore become the most important relationships in my life.
Lovely.
I found it liberating, not lonely, granted I have pets so I don't come home to an empty house and I'm sure that made a difference for me. In fact, that aspect was rather telling when I did go out (in an effort to meet expectations of friends that set me up) I would think "I'd rather be home with my pets". Now 6 years free of those friends too. I don't miss being made to feel like I was less for not being with someone, I'm enough. I am enjoying recently retired status, early 60's, for the first time in 45 years I have no accountability to anyone and it is awesome! Thank you for this opportunity to share the joy!
That is absolutely key. There isn’t a person on earth with the right to boss me now. Some deluded fools try, like idiot landlords, etc.
also… My diurnal clock is very clear to me and I respect it. I know when best to schedule things. But it’s hard for those with other clocks to fathom. Same thing as co-dependents, I guess.
When I get some significant trips done, I’ll be rescued by pets again and will be quite content. The love of my life 🐾🐾 passed in 2020, and it’s a pure form of love, no games. Reasonable demands too. Pet me feed me. No lawyers.
Best wishes for a safe & wonderful journey!
Thank you for sharing your joy!
So sweet, Thank you, truly my pleasure!
The Long Goodbye
The Long Goodbye
26 mins ago
Liked by Sari Botton
I loved reading this, and the Ted Talk. I'm 67 and single. Not long ago - maybe ten years ago - I had a therapist insisted I should be dating. He asked about it every week. He said it wasn't normal. But, I wasn't lonely, I didn't like who I became when I dated, or when I was in some kind of romantic relationship. Never married, never been in a stable, long-term relationship, although there have been lovers who have come in and out of my life for periods that span twenty years.
When I was a kid, growing up in my parents' bad marraige, I had two plans for life:
One: I wanted to be divorced, and vowed to write lovely monthly thank you notes for my monthly alimony checks.
Two: I wanted to marry a very old, rich man, figuring if he didn't have a heart attack on the honeymoon, I could push him down the stairs and no one would be suspicious and I would inherit all the money. (I was Anna Nicole Smith before Anna Nicole Smith was born).
Somewhere I'd picked up the feeling that you needed a man for money. Eventually, I saw that the breadwinners in my family had always been the women and vowed, again, to never rely on a man or his money. I enjoy their company, but I hate having roommates or overnight guests. I lived alone for 40 years and loved that. When I wanted company, I went out. When I wanted my own company, I stayed in.
It was not until reading this that I realized that I am not as unusual as I'd imagined.
This is wonderful! I am appalled (though not surprised) by your therapist. I've been trying to reach mental health professionals so more of them will understand that for some people, single life is their most meaningful and fulfilling life. The therapists are doing a real disservice by pushing clients into dating when that is not who they really are.
Same one who refused to adjust my meds (which were killing my libido and ability enjoy sex) until I was in a relationship! I lost it, I’m in a sexual relationship with myself, I yelled. Needless to say he’s no longer my therapist
😮😮
lol. I wish more people would realize they don't need the other for so many things that they think they do. It would really unclutter the dating apps! I don't want to meet someone who has errant ideas about what they believe they can only get from other people... it's such a massive barrier to a real connection with someone.
LOVE!!!
Nice!
Just curious, Sari -- what does it mean when a comment is shaded (beige instead of white)?
I don’t know. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that.
I think I figured it out: they are the comments I haven't Liked or responded to
I could never bother with a male counselor. The BS they accept as normal in this culture is too ingrained to be surpassed in an unequal relationship like therapy. Are they actually from Mars? 😉
Yeah. I was hoping to work on Daddy/intimacy issues, but it was really counterproductive. One male therapist before this one sat uncomfortably close and told me that men only got married to guarantee themselves readily available sex. No suprise that neither therapist was helpful, or that I didn’t stay long with either one. I was really surprised by the second one, however. It seemed so out of character for him to stress dating/romance as essentially required. It may be the norm, numbers wise, I don’t know, but there is certainly nothing wrong with a single life unless it makes you unhappy. And it wasn’t then and it isn’t now.
Some revelations simply come with age, I think. Getting to the point where you know yourself well enough and are less concerned with what “everyone” else is doing.
I am in the midst of writing an essay about being the third woman in three generations to end up single and raising a daughter outside of a partnership and then remaining single by choice after the daughters grew up. When I first began thinking about how odd it was that history had repeated itself in this way in my family, the word "curse" crossed my mind, in part because both my grandmother and my mother were widowed suddenly and tragically when their children were young. (My story involved divorce, not being widowed, but there were many parallels.) As I thought about it more, I realized that neither my mother nor my grandmother ever sought out a second husband or even a partner, and I believe both of them were very content ... despite the tragedies and hardships they experienced as single parents, I know they would never have considered their long solo chapters to be a curse in any way. Three generations in, I am 'happily divorced' and trying to ensure that my 20-something daughter knows that being content comes via many configurations.
I imagine that our distant ancestors lived that life by default, before paternity was understood in any way. Takes a village bla bla bla.
I still bristle at the phrase women “get pregnant”, like getting the flu. No. Someone must impregnate them. It’s a blind spot of responsibility still rampant in the language. Now that it can be a death sentence in some states, when are men going to realize how they’ve shot themselves in the uh… foot?
My maternal grandmother, then in her 80s or 90s, spoke of her childhood with an air of disgust about her mother’s plight; she had 13 children, and my grandmother once told me that her mother would give birth and then have to take the latest baby out on the farm with her while she got back to work. My grandmother didn’t seem to think much of her father both for this and other things she didn’t speak of directly (alcohol). I’m surprised she married at all, but thankfully my mother says that my grandfather was a good man. Not surprisingly, my mother was an only child!
I marvel at the resources women have found for contraception over the ages. Just getting the information, finding the safe herbs…
I’m only 70 and my own mother described using vaseline on her cervix for birth control for six years. This was in the early 1950s!
Medically vetted birth control was available in my college years. I could decide, not just hope.
It’s so important for women to have immediate agency over their family (or not) planning. So basic to civilization.
And yet here we are, under attack yet again.
Wow!
Yes, it's mind-boggling that we are facing this idiocy. I never dreamed that my daughter would be facing a rollback of her rights in her 20s ... and with female politicians complicit in that. Despicable.
Be prepared.
The things that belong in first aid kits these days: Narcan, plan B (several), emergency travel money, and what else? Fake mustaches?
Such an important insight -- I would say that your family is blessed, not cursed!
Thank you!
At 71, I have truly "come to terms"-- my terms-- about my solo life. From age 30-52, I had what I considered a great marriage, a loving husband, and a comfortable, meaningful life with two amazing daughters to prove it. At 52, I discovered that the loving husband was in fact a serious serial philanderer. (Details best left for a memoir.. ) It took me nearly 15 years to recover and finally embrace the fact that being single was an extraordinary gift. (Dating is a nightmare.) I could never imagine being tied again to one partner, committed relationship, or sharing my home with another warm body. I am so grateful to have my solo life! (with my Ginger-dog. She's the partner for me.) I do think about the aging factor, obviously, but whatever happens, I'll somehow figure it out on my own, and I'm lucky to have two girls who will step up to help if they ever need to.
Coming to terms -- YOUR terms: I love that! And seeing single life as "an extraordinary gift" -- I see it that way too.
I'm 66, and here to tell you that there are a lot of shades of grey (intentionally used) between "woe is me" and the current narratives about how awesome and fabulous and happy people are to be single and old. Making it into simplistic binary narratives doesn't do anyone any favors. And the financial reality of having lived a lifetime of underearning as a woman and being single and having to wear every hat - it is legitimately frightening and exhausting on many fronts and it doesn't mean I'm pathetic and sad. And yes, sometimes it's great that I don't have to please anyone but me, but with many caveats to that. I didn't "choose" to be single and childless; it worked out that way and there are reasons. I hate that people make any assumptions based on seeing only those qualities of my life, as it only makes me feel completely misunderstood. Demanding that any dimension of aging be either terrible or absolutely unassailably fantastic isn't helping our incredibly ageist culture, either.
Good points. Thanks.
Thank you. To be honest all these current cheerleader-y "It's so great to be old! And alone! Having the time of my life!" stories feel so forced, and I feel like I'm being gaslit in the worst possible way by my own people. I mean, if you really feel that way, acknowledge your privilege, which probably includes wealth. And if not, then be honest about the varied textures and real difficulties of getting and being old in America.
I live below the poverty line in my late 50s, forced to live in a room in someone's house over an hour commute to work yet I love being single. While you are asking for acceptance of various circumstances, you are negating mine.
Nope. I'm saying it doesn't have to be one or the other. You're negating the complexity of my lived experience.
You said that if I felt this way, it's because I have wealth and privilege. I'm pointing out that I have neither. It has nothing to do with your experience, only with your assumptions of others.