"What's wrong with being 'single' for life?"

“In a world full of married people, it is hard to stay true to the person you are,

without changing beyond comparison.

But it is all good, do not fret for your prince is coming, he is coming quite soon.

Stay true to yourself, and be who you are,

if no one will take you just as you are it is all their lost and none of yours.”

For generations, living happily ever after usually meant getting married. If you found

your perfect match and tied the knot, you would be happier, healthier, and less lonely.

Meanwhile, single people are often stereotyped as being isolated, self-centered, and

unhappy.

Bella DePaulo (Ph.D., Harvard, 1979) a social psychologist coined the phrase to

describe a person that is living their best, most authentic self as a single person.

Single-at-heart people see themselves as self-sufficient, don’t need a plus-one for

every occasion, and generally have a sense of personal mastery.

This isn’t a person who is single because they have had horrible experiences in other

relationships or faced issues; it’s a way for people to identify positively by saying, ‘this

way of life works for me’.

It is believed that you don’t have a life, you don’t have anyone, no one wants you, and

that single people are selfish and self-centered when research actually shows that

single people are more kind and likely to volunteer and so on,

There are ways when single people are ‘less than in the workplace if you’re

single, there’s this assumption that you can work at the times that no one wants, and

you can come in on holiday. As believed by our society and as individuals, we ‘must’ urgently prioritize investing in building and maintaining good relationships and tackling the barriers to forming them. Failing to do so is equivalent to turning a blind eye to the impact of smoking and obesity on our health and wellbeing.

While it is true that good-quality relationships can help us to live longer and happier

lives with fewer mental health problems, but at the same time one cannot deny the

fact that a lack of good relationships and long-term feelings of loneliness have been

shown by a range of studies to be associated with higher rates of mortality, poor

physical health outcomes and lower life satisfaction.

It is the quality of our relationships that matters. In seeking to combat loneliness and

the isolation we need to be aware that poor-quality relationships can be toxic and worse

for our mental health than being alone.

---