Vicki Larson's OMG Chronicles

It’s the era of The Single.

New York University sociologist Eric Klinenberg’s new book, Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone, which arrives next week, is getting a lot of buzz.

Why?     

As Klinenberg points out in an article in Fortune magazine (adapted from his book):

Only 51% of adults today are married, according to census data. And 28% of all households now consist of just one person — the highest level in U.S. history. That second statistic may appear less dramatic than the first, but it’s actually changing much faster: The percentage of Americans living by themselves has doubled since 1960.

That’s a lot of single people. And many of them are like me — women, and as hard as it is for me to write this, older women. Older divorced women, who seem to be enjoying life solo, or so Klinenberg notes:

They reported that living alone has become intensely social — not only because of the Internet and online dating, but also because they live in places filled with people in the same situation who are eager to be with each other. They were also the most likely to say, as one woman in her sixties put it, “There’s nothing lonelier than being in the wrong relationship.” In the abstract, they prefer to live with a romantic partner. But in real life they’re unlikely to compromise on a companion.

(And I’ll address the “abstract” versus “real life” momentarily.)

Others say, not so fast. Maybe the people who are embracing being single just haven’t been shown what a happy, healthy loving marriage is like. As psychiatrists and Harvard Medical School professors Jacqueline Olds and Richard Schwartz (and husband and wife) note in their book The Lonely American, we’re raised a generation of individualists who don’t know how to compromise. Plus, the ridiculous expectations we’ve placed on marriage — he can’t be just your husband; he has to be your best friend and soul mate, too! —  is too intimidating for many, and so they end up believing that no relationship will ever be good enough so they withdaw. Better to stay single.

Bella DePaulo, a somewhat permanent visiting professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, would probably dispute that. She has long written about the joys of being single, and those who embrace it, calling themselves quirkyalones, singulars, onelies or spinsterellas.  She also writes about how singles are “singled out” and face stereotyping and discrimination she calls “singlisim” in today’s society. Klinenberg calls her “the minister of truth for the solo nation.”

I think everyone benefits from living alone, even for part of their life. And, there certainly are benefits that come with living with someone, too. But there’s a difference between people who are willingly choosing to be alone and those who are alone by default — either because their spouse left and they’re just trying to get by and raise their kids and having a love life just doesn’t seem to fit into the equation, or because they can’t find someone to love (and who’ll love them back).

Some middle-aged women who are divorced feel a sigh of relief when they’re finally solo — after caring for the kids and a husband, they relish getting to care for just themselves. For the first time in many years, they feel somewhat “selfish” — and it feels good. As I wrote before, studies indicate divorce can often be liberating for a woman.

But many don’t want to stay that way forever. From what I’ve seen of my middle-aged divorced friends, most want to live with someone again — some already do — and a few of us even want to marry again. As Klinenberg notes, we aren’t so willing “to compromise,” but that doesn’t mean that we are passionately embracing being single (even if we are enjoying the “selfish” freedom living alone offers). Many of us aren’t — we’re just fearful of making a bad decision that will end up in divorce. And divorce isn’t something we want to repeat too many times.

I enjoyed living alone in my youth and I enjoy living alone now (although, with a teen who lives with me every other week, I’m hardly alone). But I also enjoyed being married. I’m not too eager to live with someone again, but it’s something my boyfriend and I talk about. We may even do it — one day.

Are you living alone and loving it? Or would you rather live with someone — on your own terms?