BOOK TALK

When Living Single Is the Real Prize, Not a Consolation Prize

I want way more than mere tolerance of people who are single

Bella DePaulo
Fourth Wave
Published in
5 min readApr 23, 2024

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Photo by juan boche on Unsplash

Ever since my new book, Single at Heart: The Power, Freedom, and Heart-Filling Joy of Single Life, was published in December, something magical has happened: more and more people have let it be known that they want to be single at heart. They want to fit the profile. That includes people in committed romantic relationships who perhaps had never before considered the possibility that being single could be a way of flourishing — and for some people, the single at heart, the best possible way.

After a lifetime of hearing people say things like, “It’s OK to be single,” and thinking they are being kind rather than patronizing, I’ve turned the tables. In Single at Heart, I make the case that people who are single at heart are happy and flourishing because they are single, not in spite of it. For the single at heart, the risk is not what we would miss if we did not put a romantic partner at the center of our lives, but what we would miss if we did.

People who are single at heart are happy and flourishing because they are single, not in spite of it.

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Bella DePaulo
Fourth Wave

“America’s foremost thinker and writer on the single experience,” according to the Atlantic. SINGLE AT HEART book is a gold medal winner. www.belladepaulo.com