, , , If You're Choosing to Live Alone, You're not A

Oreen Scott - After twenty-two years in the newspaper business, three years ago Oreen sold her house, car and almost everything she owned. A Canadian by ...

Some choose living alone - Dion Silva

You might think that the nuclear family, depicted in such 1950s television programs as Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best, was always the way people lived.

Fundamentalists and right wing conservatives, pleading with America to return to conventional family values, may believe that the sanctity of the nuclear family goes back to the time of Abraham, but it doesn't.

The idealized Post-World War 11 family was but a blip in the history of the world and focused only on a small part of the world.

People in All Cultures and of All Ages are Choosing to Live Alone

It's unlikely, at least in any of our lifetimes, to see the likes of the idealized nuclear family again. What's trending today is the rapid emergence of the huge number of people choosing to live alone. It's cross-cultural, India, China and Brazil have the fastest growing population of singles. And, it's a phenomenon that is irrespective of age.

How is the life of a single person different than the life of a married person? Are single people lonely, sitting around with their life on hold waiting for the right person to come along and make their life complete?

People who choose to Live Alone form Urban Tribes

Just as television programs like Father Knows Best reflected the idealized nuclear family, shows such as Seinfeld and Friends, reflected the culture that Ethan Watters defined, in his book Urban Tribes: A Generation Redefines Friendship, Family and Commitment. Although Mr. Watters is now married, and saw his urban tribe as a temporary part of his life, he also saw it as significant and capable of replacing the traditional nuclear family.

Bella DePaulo, Ph.D. is a social psychologist who writes extensively on singleness. She adds to Mr. Watter’s concept of urban tribes by noting that groups form around special interests, hiking, vegetarian dinners, weekly bridge, or whatever activity brings mutual enjoyment. She also makes note of how women have always formed groups, think of the pioneer women's sewing circle. The important thing about an urban group is that they meet consistently and regularly.

Ms. DePaulo has coined the word "singlism" and defined it as "the stigmatizing of adults who are single, and includes negative stereotyping of singles and discrimination of them." In her bias in favor or single people, she refers to the "greedy marrieds", who don't make time to connect into the broader world. When we're single, our attention is on ourselves and the world as a whole, not on a partner.

To Live Alone Means to Control Your Destiny

Barbara Feldon in her book Living Alone and Loving It: A Guide to Relishing the Social Life writes: "Living alone makes us entrepreneurs of our destiny. Once we've established our individual interests and closeness to others, the silent spaces between events no longer feel empty." In other words, don't sit around waiting to couple, design your life as a single person.

If you're unhappy being single and are longing for a partner, you might ask, "How do you happily live life as a single person?" First of all, according to Alex Lickerman, writing in Psychology Today, how happy we are doesn't depend on whether we're married or not. Marriage may bring a temporary happiness boost, but that quickly wears off. Happiness is an internal mechanism. Some of us are naturally happy; others aren't.

People who choose to remain single, even when the opportunity to marry is open to them, frequently make the choice because being single gives them freedom to self-actualize, and they have fewer obligations and more free time.

To Live Alone or To Live in a Marriage is a Choice

Older women who are widowed or divorced are particularly happy living a single life. Perhaps this is because they've spent a great deal of time catering to the needs of others and want to spend the latter part of the lives catering to their own needs.

Mind you, embracing life as a single person doesn't mean you've given up on marriage. What it means is that you're able to enjoy the here and now to its fullest, and are not particularly anxious to risk today's happiness for possible unhappiness.

Alex Lickerman, states that some people are constitutionally better at marriage, others at being single. Thank goodness today we have the choice.

Sources

In My Tribe; New York Times Magazine; Ethan Watters; October 14, 2001.

Women Single and Loving It; WebMD; Jeanie Leche Davis, accessed February 11, 2012

Bella DePaulo (2006); Singled Out: How Singles are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After; New York; St. Martin's Press.

Living Alone: Why Marriage Isn't the Key to a Happy Life; Psychology Today; Alex Lickerman; October 9, 2011

Barbara Feldon (2003); Living Alone and Loving It: A Guide to Relishing the Social Life; New York; Fireside