My favorite books for long-term single folks
Hey all,
Research is my love language, and over time I’ve assembled a tidy little library of books about Being REALLY Single that you might find useful as well. There are others, but these are my top go-tos.
It’s Not You - 27 (Wrong) Reasons You’re Single - Sara Eckel. This is the sweetest, most compact, perfectly written, soothing little book that I want all of my single folks to read. It distills all of the (sometimes contradictory) ways that well-meaning friends and family say you MUST be “doing it rong” (You’re too desperate; you’re too picky; you’re too needy; you’re too independent, etc) and debunks them in short, soothing chapters. A necessary antidote to all the single shaming, subtle and not, that happens out there. This isn’t the book about what you might actually need to look into in therapy if you have trouble forming desired relationships, but it doesn’t eliminate that possibility — it just doesn’t focus on it, it tends to these other wounds instead. God bless it.
All the Single Ladies - Rebecca Traister. Contextualizes autonomous singledom for women in historical terms (spoiler alert: it’s relatively recently even possible. Some women over time would have LOVED the option of staying single!) and political terms (single women get shit DONE) as well as celebrating what makes being single actually great and the phenomenon of women Best Friends. This book includes perspectives about the ways women of color experience singleness similarly and differently from white women, and how some discrimination against single folks is rooted in racism.
Singlism - Bella DePaulo. She’s, I’d say, the foremost researcher into the socioeconomic marginalization of unmarried people and solo people, and speaks especially well to and for those who are single by choice. She’s written a ton, and here’s her TEDx Talk. If you read her work, caution, you might get really pissed off about all the ways the law and civil code privileges couples in ways you don’t usually think about. I also love that DePaulo doesn’t just talk about single women — she’s gender inclusive in thinking about how our culture marginalizes and stereotypes single folk.
The New Single Woman - Kay Trimberger. This is a deep cut from 2005 that not many people know about (it’s out of print, but you can find it used), but I love it. Trimberger did 49 case studies of long-term single women and narrowed down what qualities in their lives are essential to their well-being. Spoiler alert: it’s not different than what’s essential to well-being for partnered folks. This is a great book for those who lament that there aren’t models for what life looks like if you end up staying single — you get an in-depth peek at the different ways long-term single women structure their social, home, and financial lives. Note: I don’t see why its lessons don’t apply to men, too.