Why are Some People Single?

Excepting those who live alone on a lonely island, we all live surrounded by other people. Humans are not made to be alone – we hear this all the time.

Though people seem to gravitate towards relationships, a surprising many are not in one. 43% of Americans over 15 are single.

In the UK, only 50% of the population are couples.

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What does it mean for you to be single?

• Is being single a living arrangement? – You chose to or are forced to live alone. Living alone doesn’t mean that you are single. Sometimes people date for years before moving in or may never live together.
• Single for social reasons – You do not socially acknowledge another person as a partner. Maybe you are afraid of social disapproval, coming out or being stoned to death, like these young lovers in Iran.
• Is it a relationship arrangement? – You do not have a conjugate partner relationship with another person although you might have lots of sex buddies, exes and friends. Sometimes people in open relationships choose to appear single in order to be free to attract new partners.
• You have consciously decided that you want to live a chaste, celibate quasi-monastic life.

Telltale signs of Singlehood

People, who have been reluctantly single for a long time, start showing certain telltale behaviour signs. Tick as you read along to discover if you have been single too long.

1. You have more contact with Facebook and social network site ’friends’ than with people you physically meet and talk to.
2. You seriously doubt that anybody would find you attractive in that way.
3. You don’t find other people very attractive in that way; if you do, they are either already taken or you believe they wouldn’t bother a second glance at you.
4. You imagine all couples to have perfect rapport, hilarious fun and earth shattering sex all the time. This is reinforced every time one person in a relationship says ”We think” or ”We decided” etc.
5. Looking at the profiles of available singles on dating sites is a mission of finding faults with them – another reason why you can’t find a compatible soul mate.
6. All singles in your circle who are not moaning their loneliness out aloud are either sex addicts, one-night stand junkies or widows/widowers over ninety-five.
7. Notice that another day has gone after yet another bout of obsessive video gaming or online surfing in your spare time.
8. You can’t go out or travel because the pet can’t be left alone. If you have no pet, the house or apartment can’t be left alone.
9. You wonder how on earth did your parents manage to find a partner. How could they have produced someone like you with no success at finding a partner if they had great people attracting skills in their gene pool?
10. You get a headache every time you try to imagine fitting a new person into your daily routine of vacillating between the dull despair created by work, comfy sloth of sloppy habits, persistent negative thoughts, occupation of finding faults with other people, constant internal dialogue with self-loathing and the euphoric delight of identification and glimmering hope from self-help books as you read them describe your solitude and despair.

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Myths About Singles

There are many myths about singles.

• Singles are unhappy.
• There must be something wrong with a single because he/she can’t keep a relationship going or find the ‘right’ person.

Look around and you will discover that they are all myths. Many of the people in steady relationships seem to manage with horrendous people skills.

• Everyone living alone is single. 

Everyone living alone may not be single. There are “concealed households” – people living with parents or adult children but they are not single. Lone parent – adult parent living with children may not be seen as single. Then there are “sharing households” where two unrelated and non-cohabiting adults share accommodation and may not be single at all.

Why are you single?

Here are some questions to ponder.

• Is it the way you look? Look around – Are all people in relationships really that pretty?
• You don’t have the skills for attracting partners? What people see in others is a source of perpetual wonder. People fall for all kinds of seductions and delude themselves often but not always.
• You lack skills for keeping a relationship going? – Next time you hear people fighting or complaining, observe them carefully and you’ll be surprised by how little relationship skills they have.
• Not any more after that last relationship! – Well, You don’t have to make the same mistakes. You can make fresh new ones.

How many percents of the population of any American city are single? Find out here.

Singleness or singlehood? Which is the better term in English?