Content provided by Sarah Cummings
Falling in love and getting hitched, that’s everyone’s dream, right? Wrong. That’s just the narrative that’s constantly being fed to us. In reality, more and more of us are choosing the single life and are perfectly happy with our choice.
Image by Frank McKenna, Unsplash
Almost all singles have experienced it, being discriminated because you are not married. It is everywhere, from the media, advertisements, your workplace, even your friends and family. You know what they are thinking “Aw, poor thing cannot even find a husband/wife. There must be something wrong with her/him.” And how many times do you have to hear your mother or father say, “When are you going to get married and give me some grandchildren?” Why? What is wrong with choosing to be single? Not everyone wants to be married. Nothing wrong with that at all.
The Community of Single People (CoSP) is an online Facebook group started in July 2015. It is a place for discussing all aspects of single life except dating or other attempts to escape single life. It is a closed group, so you need to ask to join. As long as you are not trying to use the group to find a date, getting admitted should not be a problem.
The summer is here, and with it come all the best parties and the best music festivals. Get your friends and head out to whatever event caught your attention. However, getting to these parties and festivals can be a bit of a drag. Spending hours on end in a boring bus or a train can really dampen your enthusiasm. And flights are potentially even worse, with the wait and the cramped seats. Chances are you are going to be physically separated from your friends for the duration of the trip, too. What you need is a way to keep the party spirit alive even during the trip. There’s no better way to do that than with a party bus.
On March 25, 2017, I gave a TEDx talk in Belgium, “What no one ever told you about people who are single.” Here I’ll tell you about it, give you a link to the talk, and also provide some references and bonus materials that were not included in my talk.
According to the prevailing cultural narratives, single people in later life have two big things going against them: They are single and they are old. Now focus on the older single women and you have the trifecta: They are single, they are old, and they are women! If conventional wisdom got its way, they would be doing terribly. But guess what? They are not. There are real challenges, for women and men, to aging in an ageist and singlist society. Considering what they are up against, it is remarkable how well older single people are doing.
