How should we talk about happy and unhappy singles?

When does avoiding “deficit narratives” turn into toxic positivity?

Last week I wrote about a new paper from my lab that I think provides pretty good evidence that getting into a romantic relationship causes well-being to go up on average, especially in domains that are strongly tied to relationship status like sexual satisfaction. I argued that this means that we should put aside the notion that relationships causing higher well-being is a myth. But at the same time, I think this new research leaves questions about how best to talk about well-being in singlehood, especially given the growing number of people who say that singlehood is an essential part of what lets them live their best life.

In part, it’s why in that paper we argued for a domain-specific approach – sure sexual satisfaction goes way up if you get in a relationship, but if sex isn’t a particularly high priority for you (or you have access to the sex you want as a single person) that might be one reason singlehood could be the better choice. Similarly, I talked about other research from my lab showing that satisfaction with work-life balance goes down when people get in relationships, so maybe if you’re focusing on your career now would not be a good time to start dating.

Avoiding “deficit narratives”

But some voices in singlehood studies go further than that, saying that we shouldn’t talk about single people as missing anything in their life at all (also known as avoiding “deficit narratives”). As I understand it, the idea behind discouraging deficit narratives is that a major source of suffering for single people is stereotypes (i.e., “singlism”), such as saying that single people are lonelier than partnered people. By saying that singles are missing something in their life by not being partnered, the idea is that we reinforce the notion that people should be partnered and set up the assumption that single people are lesser than. This translates into justifications for discriminating against single people, and makes single people’s lives worse.

Nobody wants single people to suffer unnecessarily; the motives here are obviously noble. And although research on singlism is in its infancy and it’s not clear how big of a force singlism is (more on that in future), there are absolutely times when single people are made to feel bad about being single for unfair reasons.

The problems with “deficit narrative” discourse

But I have concerns. If I am understanding this correctly, this logic rests on the assumption that singles, on average, do not actually experience a sense of deficit in their lives as a result of being single. Presumably nobody would suggest that we should avoid pointing out real differences between singles and partnered people even if there is good evidence they exist? Is it wrong to say that singles are lonelier if the data show that singles (on average) actually are lonelier? Presumably even singles (maybe especially singles) would want to know about these differences?

And here’s where we need to go back to the study I talked about last week, where getting into a relationship appeared to cause things like higher sexual satisfaction and lower loneliness. How do we square improvements - in some cases dramatic improvements - in well-being when people go from single to partnered with the idea that singles don’t, on average, feel like anything is missing in their lives?

How do we put these pieces together?

Personally, I think the answer is that some people don’t typically feel like anything is missing from their life by being single. A good example might be people who are aromantic. By one recent estimate 15% of singles aren’t interested in a relationship. But 85% of singles were either actively looking for or open to a relationship, suggesting they feel like they would rather be in a relationship if they could find the right one (these are numbers I jotted down at a conference talk so don’t consider these precise). In fact, I’ve taken a look at data from my own studies and on average singles report that they do desire a partner (slightly above the midpoint, so to me the average single is saying they want a partner but are not desperate for one).

I definitely understand that people who don’t want a relationship sometimes feel hurt by people suggesting there’s something wrong with them for that. For some people being single is their best way to live. Every now and then I get an email from my second cousin Rick, a lifelong single who lives in a monastery in India who – upon seeing some of my research in the news – makes sure to remind me what a happy single life he is living. So I’m not here to throw shade at happy single people. I admire how Rick lives his life.

When overseeing “deficit narratives” turns into toxic positivity

But if we have the goal in singlehood studies of developing understanding of all singles, not just the singles who never want a relationship, how can we do that while simultaneously avoiding discussion of the experience of wrestling with unmet romantic desire? It’s such a normal experience, such a mainstay of many people’s adult single lives.

In reading about deficit narratives, I’ve seen much discussion of the harm such narratives can do. But I’ve never seen that discussion entertain the possibility that policing deficit narratives can itself do harm. If a normative experience for singles is to feel some sense of lack of romantic fulfillment, what harm do we do singles, as well as the credibility of singlehood studies, to try to portray that experience as unusual or not worth talking about? I always think of romantically lonely singles now feeling like there is something wrong with them for the very human experience of feeling lonely. An eloquent exposition on this theme is Faith Hill’s recent piece in The Atlantic.

And if it is true that romantic partnering can improve a lot of people’s well-being, what are the ethics of shutting down discussion of its benefits? At the very least, there is an ethical obligation for everyone participating in this conversation to make measured claims that rest on the absolute highest quality evidence (more on that next week).

My story, sort of

Last November, I got married after 18 years of being single. I’m not really eager to get into the details of what my life as a single person was like because I’m not comfortable sharing that part of my private life publicly. But suffice it to say that my experience as a single person is not reflected in this “deficit narrative” ethos. That, combined with my opinion as an experienced social scientist that the quality of research in singlehood studies was not high enough, was a big part of me getting involved in this research.

In fact, as I’ve tried to share my perspective in some professional settings I’ve had to put up with multiple instances of what it might be fair to call public shamings for being a supposed peddler of deficit narratives (we’ll get to that in future too). I don’t think those responsible for these instances were aware that they were denouncing a single person (which I was at the time) for sharing what are in part reflections on my own experience of singlehood that show up in my work. But it certainly hasn’t felt like an atmosphere that was about giving voice to all single experiences, and that’s why I think the term toxic positivity is fair. It’s felt like some people want singlehood studies to just be the study of people who don’t want relationships.

Threading the needle

At the end of the day, my sense is that the way to bring all of the threads together on the singlehood and well-being front (I haven’t figured out what this means for the public policy front) is to acknowledge that most singles want a romantic partner and feel better when they find a good one. Valid lives have deficits in them, that’s just being human.

But there’s also a smaller percentage of singles for whom this is not their experience (hi Rick!). I’ve said before that if your goal is singlehood advocacy, particularly advocacy for people who don’t want romantic relationships, the most sustainable strategy is to emphasize variability in singles’ experiences. Trying to tell the majority of singles that the data denies their experience of wanting a partner is neither accurate nor a good way to build up credibility for your movement. But telling people that partnership is not for everyone is something I have found a lot of people to be quite open to.

Overall, the key for me is that I think singlehood studies has been confusing happy lives with valid lives. In advocacy, it’s easy to see the harm that others might be doing to you, but a bigger challenge is to recognize how your own work might be doing harm, even to the people you want to help. I really hope singlehood studies learns how to broaden the tent.