Single Does Not Mean Bad - On Embracing One's Lone Wolf Tendencies

This essay was presented at the Northeast Modern Language Association Conference in Boston, Massachusetts on March 8, 2024.  It is a first draft of a personal essay I hope to submit to a publication.

“Being single as an adult” were the words I typed into that Google search bar that humid Tuesday afternoon.  I had recently been broken up with, yet again, and the anger perforated throughout my body.  I was thirty-six, had completed my first year in a tenure-track position at a university, and had never been married.  Basically, there was something wrong with me.  “You need to find someone.”  “When are you getting married?”  “Don’t you even have a dog?”  As I reflect now, those comments had motivated me to get on Match.com, stick it out through bad dates, and stay in relationships that just didn’t fill my cup.  And this one was no different – but, I just HAD to be with someone.  And I wasn’t.  And it seemed like everybody else was.  They were good, and I was bad.  The academic year had just ended, so I technically had more “time” on my hands to brood about these things.  This brooding led me to a Google search, which led me to an author named Bella DePaulo.

​I saw articles like “Are Unmarrieds Singled Out for Discrimination,” “How Singles are Celebrated and Stereotyped and Shamed,” and “The Many Ways Singles Are Treated Unfairly at Work.”  As I read about the privilege bestowed into people who “tie the knot” (i.e., Social Security benefits, higher salaries, and just general social acceptability), my brooding turned into a combination of righteous anger, solidarity, and the feeling of “being seen.”  

My plans for reading articles about composition pedagogy and writing anxiety were thrown into the trunk as I spent much of the summer devouring the work of DePaulo, in her particular, her 2006 book, Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After, brought to my surface every slight and injustice I’d ever felt when I was single.  Friends leave you when they get married or couple up.  And, even if they invite you along, the coupled make all the decisions.  And there are the stereotypes perpetuated in the media: if you’re a woman, you’re a “crazy cat lady” or a “promiscuous slut.”  If you’re a man, you suffer from “Peter Pan” syndrome, or you’re a slob who uses pizza boxes as furniture.  Even if you do perform the celebratory act of being a parent, you’re “irresponsible” if you dare to do it as a single person.  I marked that book up with notes and highlights, all the while thinking, “Yes.  Yes.  Yes.”

I started my second year on the tenure-track determined to combine my love of writing with my newfound love of what I’d come to learn what was the developing field of Singles Studies.  I started a blog, Soldiering for Singles, in which I wrote musings about single life.  Examples included the unfairness of “solo supplements,” the hypocrisy of “rules” around dating and romance, and, on a more positive note, the value of my platonic friendships.  One thing I’ve also learned: “single” does not mean “alone.”  Around the time I was experiencing this rebirth, Bella had started a Facebook group called Community of Single People (or CoSP for short), a group of single people “who want to live their single lives fully, joyfully, and free of stereotyping and stigma.”  The first sentence on the page’s “About” section is “This group has nothing to do with dating.”  I shared my blogs on that page, and they were met with “likes” and laudatory comments.  I had found some likeminded folks.
 
On a spring break trip to Winnipeg to see a friend, I had the privilege of touring the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, where I learned about the injustices that face marginalized groups.  I got the brainstorm: write a letter suggesting an exhibit devoted to the plight of singles, who face micro-levels of marginalization, such as exclusion from social events, and macro-levels, such as that Social Security law mentioned earlier.  I never received a response from the museum, but I was able to use it as an example of how to write persuasively (even if it didn’t necessarily persuade the museum).

I continued writing, and with the encouragement of a department chair, I themed one of my courses around Singlehood and Marriage, during which students read Singled Out, along with some unfortunately written book that argued marriage was the only way of living (but we did have fun poking at the fallacies made by those authors.  Students were more engaged in this class than they’d been in any other. 

At the same time, I was developing a global network of friends and colleagues through CoSP.  I’d published a series of articles in Singular, an online magazine published by one of its members. I had been teaching myself how to conduct Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), which had led me to write an article breaking down the films Crossing Delancey and Trainwreck, both of which gave the “couplehood is the only way” argument.  Through a friend I had made, I was able to publish this piece, “There Is No Wrong Romance Can’t Right: Heteronormativity in Our Romantic Comedies,” in a journal entitled Feminista Revismos.  I’d also connected with Spark: a 4C4 Equality Journal, where I’d published another, which read “Awww, You’re Not Married?  Why We Need a Singles’ Rights Movement,” during which I interviewed a group of single academics to see how singlism affected their experiences. 

My work grew toward writing books.  One afternoon, a representative from Kendall-Hunt Publishing met with me and my department chair to discuss the possibility of a customized textbook for our first-year writing courses.  During our conversation, I discussed my themed course on Singlehood and Marriage and mentioned an idea I’d be tinkering with: a book for men on how to be single and happy without searching for a partner.  So many books had been written on this subject, but they were all for women.  I was going to address the gap.  And the representative was going to publish it.  As that initial feeling of euphoria lapsed, I got up at 5:30 every morning to spend an hour writing.  And, to me, the feeling of seeing my name on a published book was way better than pinning a wedding ring on someone’s index finger.
That’s not to say I haven’t developed meaningful connections.  During the pandemic, I had monthly Zoom chats with Ketaki Chowkhani, a sociology professor from the Manipal Academy of Higher Education in India.  Through our conversations, we developed the idea to facilitate the world’s first ever Singles Studies conference: a virtual gathering of academics in different disciplines who study singlehood.  And on October 10, 2020, I had the privilege of “meeting” writers whose work I’d studied and admired.  Three years later, Ketaki and I released a collection of essays from these writers; we called it Singular Selves: An Introduction to Singles Studies.

This past August, I rode an Amtrak from Washington, DC to Philadelphia to meet up with Elyakim Kislev, a noted Singles Studies scholar who wrote a book, Happy Singlehood: The Rising Acceptance and Celebration of Solo Living, which I used in a course I taught, “How to be Single and Happy.”  Our discourse lasted three hours and took place in the Philadelphia Convention Center and nearby Reading Terminal Market.  At the end of our conversation, I walked away with an idea for a new project: a book in which I break down and analyze the tropes found in romantic movies and how they reflect couplehood as a hegemonic force.

Becoming immersed in the advocacy of singlehood as a valid lifestyle choice has not only benefited me professionally, but personally as well.  In 2020, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, I moved from Newport News, Virginia to Washington, DC; such a diverse city fits me way better than the rural environments in which I had spent time.  As an introvert, I was one of those folks who, when they told us to stay home, I said “What’s the catch?”  I’ve always liked my space.  Singles and couples had different benefits and challenges throughout lockdown; speaking strictly for myself, I would not have wanted to be stuck in a house with another person, no matter how amazing they might be.

Of course, I was ecstatic when things start opening up, because I could finally develop the kind of social network we singles tend to cultivate.  As Bella put it, “Married people have the one, single people have the ones.”  First, I joined our local Childfree group, DMV Childfree.  The organizer had enough space to allow me to host a Childfree group specifically for Singles.  The rules: 1) you must be single, legally and socially; 2) if you couple up, you can stay in the group, but please don’t sign up for events; and 3) it is not a “meet market.”  If you meet someone you like in the group, great, but don’t use it as a dating app.  As of this presentation, the group has been active for one year, and I’ve made a few close, happily single friends in my local area.  These friendships have meant more to me than a romance ever could.

The CoSP group has also been a recent source of friendship.  I currently have two separately monthly Zoom chats with Kevin and Kamran, two happily single men who’ve I met through the page.  We discuss a variety of topics, such as spirituality, philosophy, and classic movies.  To me, this beats talking about lawn mowers, strollers, engagement rings, and juice boxes with the other married Dads. 

Washington, DC is known for its diverse population.  One thing I always tell others is, “No matter who you are or what you’re into, there’s something for you here.”  On September 17, 2023, I got together with seven of my CoSP tribespeople for brunch at a restaurant called Medium Rare.  As I enjoyed a meal of steak, poached eggs, and fries, we talked about being single.  We talked about the freedom with which it comes.  We talked about how policies that currently favor the married will more than likely become more equitable toward singles, as more and more people go the “singlehood route,” whether by choice or by circumstance. 

Three months later, Bella DePaulo came to Busboys and Poets in the Shaw neighborhood of Washington, DC to give a reading from her latest book, Single at Heart: The Power, Freedom, and Heart-Filling Joy of Single Life.  I hosted a Meetup around this event, during which other Childfree singles would gather to hear her read and discuss these ideas with two other scholars before answering questions from the audience.  Kevin drove down from Wrightsville, Pennsylvania, so he’d share the couch with my cat/son, Chester.  And the other CoSPers would pack the room.
My Facebook moniker is “Chazz Pop,” used so my students don’t find me.  “Chazz” is short for Chester, and “Pop” is Dad.  Chester’s Dad.  And once inside the reading, I kept getting the question, “Are you Chazz?”  “Are you Chazz?”  In addition to seeing friends, I had the privilege of meeting those on CoSP I only knew by post, as well as folks on the Childfree group I’d never seen before.  It was validating.

After the reading, about twenty of us took over the back room at nearby Shaw’s Tavern.  The conversation about singlehood, and even some non-singlehood related topics, like movies, what is a real Buffalo wing, and the places we’ve traveled to, flowed.  For that night, in a world that privileges marriage and coupledom, the singles dominated, and the euphoria I felt lasted at least a week.

Current situation: after thirteen years of moving around the country to pursue that tenured professorship, I achieved it this past summer.  And CoSP was the first place I went to announce; if I had been married with a child, for me, that would have been much more difficult to achieve.  And I’m now in the place where I’m ready to “plant some roots” (as opposed to the matrimaniacal phrase, “settle down”).  So I’m venturing into the world of real estate.  And the first place I went to for advice was CoSP.  After all, solo homebuying is different.

While I have considered myself a “lone wolf,” I haven’t been doing life alone.  Again, “married people have the one, single people have the ones.”  The team of people I’ve built through my journey through singlehood has given my life way more meaning than a romantic partnership ever could.  And I’ve had the pleasure of being part of others’ teams, functioning as moral support on others’ journeys and even helping one friend move into her newly bought condo.  And I date sporadically, although I don’t approach or navigate it in a way that is societally accepted.  It is my hope that as more and more people discover happy lives outside of what is considered “normal,” our society, and laws, will reflect these trends.