It’s safe to say that almost all of us have thought about staying single for the rest of our lives with a hundred dogs to keep us company. However, the single life is still pretty prevalent in the modern world (minus a couple of dogs here and there).
According to Bella DePaulo, there are nearly 107 million Americans who remain unmarried. Despite this large fraction, many individuals face discrimination and miss out on opportunities based on their marital status.
Dr. Justin Lehmiller states that Singlism is basically “the technical term for holding negative beliefs about single people or treating them unfairly because of their marital status.”
The truth is, if an individual doesn’t fall into the expected pattern of a committed relationship, their value immediately decreases. This is the problem. In a world where we try to reach equality on all bases, we are starting to forget about those who simply choose to remain uncommitted.
Singlism often implies that those who choose to remain single are unreliable, have high expectations or simply have issues.
Some of us may have put our expectations pretty high when we set out to become best friends with Trevor Noah (by ‘we’ I mean ‘me’), but our fundamental needs and wants will stay constant regardless of our relationship status.
This concept creates an ‘us v. them’ mindset that creates an unnecessary divide between whose who are single and those who aren’t. But this type of prejudice is completely legal in many parts of the United States. There is no federal law banning discrimination based on marital status. The main and if not only reason that Singlism exists is because we allow it to.
Singlism is more widespread than you may think. It affects individuals of all races, sexual orientation, and genders. It’s not just their problem, it’s ours.
