New Things and Favorite Things

“What no one ever told you about people who are single”

TEDx talk

By Bella DePaulo
Hasselt, Belgium

From New York magazine: “I haven’t come across many psych researchers who are better and more engaging at discussing their research than DePaulo is“.

New and Noteworthy

Bella DePaulo’s new book, SINGLE AT HEART, will be published in 2023. It will also be translated into Spanish and sold in Spanish-speaking countries.

Bella DePaulo was interviewed for this CNN podcast. Find her at minutes 24-31.

On this Atlantic podcast, Bella DePaulo talks about being Single at Heart with a skeptic, Olga Khazan. Made it onto the most Popular list soon after it was posted.

On the TODAY Show, Bella DePaulo talks to Maria Shriver about single people and some of the discrimination against them. Her book, Singled Out, also gets a shout-out.

Bella DePaulo was featured in this very popular article in the Atlantic, The hidden costs of living alone.

 Professor DePaulo was quoted in this AP story, picked up by many publications.

Reflections on 50 years of living single and why anniversaries and other celebrations are not just for couples: It’s my Golden Anniversary!

NBC News published Bella DePaulo’s article about how people who are single at heart have been doing well during the pandemic, contrary to all stereotypes: Singles are supposedly miserable and lonely. Actually, some of us are thriving.

ABC’s Good Morning America quoted Bella DePaulo extensively in a story about Vice President Kamala Harris staying single until she was 50.

Professor DePaulo gave the keynote address at a landmark online conference, “Singles Studies: Global Perspectives,” on October 10, 2020. Here it is: Changing Thinking, Changing Language, Changing Lives: The Power and Promise of Singles Studies. 

Bella DePaulo’s TEDx talk, “What no one ever told you about people who are single,” has now been viewed more than a million times.

For the cover story of the March 2020 issue of the Atlantic magazine, David Brooks wrote about the nuclear family. As a follow-up, the magazine invited Bella DePaulo to discuss the many different ways we live now: If the nuclear family has failed, what comes next?

Professor DePaulo focuses primarily on her singles work these days. But a chapter she wrote years ago, that was supposed to appear in an edited volume, was just published as a very brief book: Big-Time Liars and the People Who Enable Them

Bella DePaulo is working on a new book, “Single at Heart.” If you think of yourself as single at heart, she would love to hear about your life, in your own words. You can find the questionnaire in this blog post. Fair warning: there are a lot of questions.

Bella DePaulo’s “Singled Out” has been singled out by Amazon. Out of the gazillion books on its site, Amazon has chosen “Singled Out” as one of the books to include in its Kindle Monthly Deal for April 2019. The deal means that the Kindle version is discounted to $2.99 for the entire month of April.

Professor DePaulo will be the keynote speaker at the Psychology Research Fair at Cal State San Marcos on Friday May 3, 2019.

Bella DePaulo spoke at the Women’s Literary Festival on Saturday March 2, 2019 in Santa Barbara, CA.

Check out Bella DePaulo’s 2019 article for Bustle, Is there a script for your life if you choose to be single?

“New careers, big trips, caring for family: What singles get to do because they are single” is Bella DePaulo’s 17^th article for the Washington Post. Most have been contributions to the Solo-ish blog. A Post article or hers that was not about single life, “I study liars. I’ve never seen one like President Trump,” has probably been read more times than anything she has ever written.

Alone for the holidays? Don’t expect Bella DePaulo to feel sorry for you. She thinks it is great, as she explained in this November, 2018 essay for Slate, “Thankful to be alone: If I had surrendered to society’s expectations, I’d have a life I never wanted.“

Bella DePaulo published this myth-busting article in the Atlantic in 2018, “Single People Aren’t to Blame for the Loneliness Epidemic.”

Bella DePaulo was a featured guest at the London festival of philosophy and music, “How the Light Gets In,” on September 22, 2018. She gave a talk, “Single people are doing so much better than you realized: Is it because they are free?” and participated in a debate, “Love, life, and being free.” The videos have not yet been posted online, but you can read the text of parts of her talk and her contributions to the debate here.

Named one of the best “Ideas” articles at Quartz in 2017, by Bella DePaulo: “Single workers aren’t there to pick up the slack for their married bosses and colleagues.” (Also check out this Quartz article, written with Joan DelFattore, “No, I’m not married. Why do you ask?”)

NPR gave this the Best Sociology Segment Award, chosen from the “Academic Minute” segments: “Single,” by Bella DePaulo

“6 New Things Researchers Learned about Single People in 2017” was a very popular article at “The Cut, Science of Us” at New York magazine. It was republished at CNN as “There’s never been a better time to be single,” and began trending immediately.

On May 25, 2017, Bella DePaulo’s op-ed, “Get married, get healthy? Maybe not,” was published in the New York Times.

“I study liars. I’ve never seen one like President Trump.” is Bella DePaulo’s op-ed, published in the Washington Post on December 8, 2017. (It is probably the most popular article she has ever written. It also attracted the most hate mail.)

Bella DePaulo’s invited address at the meeting of the American Psychological Association in August 2016, “What No One Ever Told You About People Who Are Single,” attracted a standing-room-only crowd and “caused something of an internet earthquake.”

On October 11, 2017, NBC News launched a new opinion page, called THINK. Bella DePaulo was invited to write this article for the day of the launch: Why we thought marriage made us healthier, and why we were wrong

“ALONE: The Badass Psychology of People Who Like Being Alone” is Bella DePaulo’s latest collection of 62 blog posts and essays. It was published in October 2017 and is available in paperback or as an e-book.

“More people than ever before are single — and that’s a good thing” is an article Bella DePaulo wrote for The Conversation on April 23, 2017. It immediately shot to the top of the list of “Most Read” articles and stayed there for days. It was republished by dozens of magazines and newspapers, in the U.S. and around the world. (It was particularly popular in Australia.)

Stories in the media about Bella DePaulo and her writings on single life are here.

These are some favorites:

The TED blog: “The price of being single: One researcher’s quest to end discrimination against single people”

New York magazine: “The new science of single people”

The Huffington Post (shared on Facebook more than 50,000 times): “Research says single people – wait for it – live rich, meaningful lives”

Fusion (notes that Bella DePaulo “caused something of an internet earthquake” with her recent talk): “Meet the people who want to be single forever“

Atlantic Magazine (describes Bella DePaulo as “America’s foremost thinker and writer on the single experience”): “All the single ladies”