Harvard PhD Bella DePaulo spills their
secrets.
Producers of shows such as The Bachelor
don't want you to know this. Peddlers of
dating guides try to keep it a secret.
Some of my fellow scholars pretend it's
not true. Even some of your closest friends might contort their faces into
expressions of disbelief if you were to
suggest it to them. But it is true.
Plenty of single people are leading happy
and successful lives.
They are not pining for "The One" or
crying into their beer. Instead, they are
living their single lives fully, joyfully,
and unapologetically — whether they plan to do so for one month, for one year,or for the rest of their lives.
What are the secrets of these happily single people?
I've been studying singles for well over a
decade, and I think that the happiest and
most fulfilled single people have a strong
sense of self. They know themselves and
trust themselves. Stuck in a matrimaniacal culture — one that is laden with over-the-top hyping of marriage, weddings, and coupling — they are secure enough to know that they can live meaningful and rewarding single lives if they choose to do so — even if they're open to finding a partner, but just not actively looking.
It can seem so much easier to follow the
prescribed path that is supposed to lead
to happiness: finding your soulmate as
soon as possible and then investing just
about all of your time, energy, wishes
and dreams into that one person. But what if you decided to forge your own
path? What might your life look like
then?
Strong, happy, successful single people
who resist the relentless matrimania and
listen to their own hearts practice these
habits:
1. They observe themselves. That's an important step toward knowing yourself. Take, for example, the issue of "finding someone." Do you tell yourself and others that you are interested in finding The One — yet, somehow, take specific steps to do so seems to rank somewhere below cleaning out your sock drawer and deleting old emails? Maybe you just think you should "find someone"because our culture is teeming with such messages, but it's not really what you want to do. Mabe not now. Maybe not ever.
Know yourself. Then honor your sense of what kind of life is the best life for you.
2. They decide for themselves who counts as special. Maybe they have one special person in their life, but that person is a close friend or a sibling and not a romantic partner. Or maybe they have a whole convoy of important people in their lives, including friends and relatives, mentors and neighbors.
3. They recognize that not everyone wants to be with another person all the time, no matter how special that person may be.
4. They know that all of us want to spend some time alone and some time with other people, and that the preferred mix of solitude and sociability is different for different people. If they crave plenty of time alone, they give themselves the gift of solitude. If they like lots of time with other people, they create a life filled with togetherness.
4. They know whether they like being self-sufficient. And if they do, they go ahead and deal with things and make decisions, mostly on their own. A study of more than 100 Americans who were over 40 and had been single all their lives found that self-sufficiency was linked to their well-being. The more self-sufficient they were, the less likely they were to experience negative feelings. For married people, it was the opposite: The more they liked dealing with things on their own, the more likely they were to experience negative feelings. Self- sufficiency does not necessarily imply a
lack of interest in different perspectives
or opinions. Instead, I think it means
that after considering whatever input
you find valuable, you ultimately make
the decision that feels right to you.
5. They realize that some people are
single at heart. People who are single
at heart live their best lives, their most
meaningful lives, and their most authentic lives as single people.
6. Single people who do want to
marry are wise about what marriage really means. They do not expect marrying to transform them into something they are not. Studies that
have followed the same people over
many years of their lives, as they stay
single or get married, have produced
some remarkable, myth-busting results.
For example, 18 long-term studies have
shown that getting married does not
make people lastingly happier or more
satisfied with their lives than they were
before. Sometimes there is a honeymoon
effect — when you first get married, you
feel better about your life than you did
before. But that feeling dissipates, and
eventually, people feel about the same as
they did when they were single. A study
of American marriages found that people
who had been married more than three
years were not any happier, they were
not any less depressed, they were not
healthier, and they had no higher self-
esteem than when they were single.
7. They know what the purveyors of conventional wisdom do not –for many people, single life gets even better with age. By studying the stereotypes of single people, my colleagues and I learned that most of society tends to think that single people are not very happy, and as they get older,they become even more miserable. In fact, though, many single people become more secure about their lives over time,and they are less buffeted about by the opinions of other people. They may not even think all that much about being
single; they are too busy living their lives.
Bella DePaulo (PhD. Harvard) is the author of Singled Out: How Singles Are
Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored,
and Still Live Happily Ever After and Singlism: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How to Stop It .
www.trueheart2love.diydating.com
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