Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After

By Bella DePaulo
St. Martins Press

Despite the fact that in today’s world, the majority of people living in America spend more of their adult life single rather than married and more people live in single households than in households with married parents and children, there is still a stigma about singlehood. Bella DePaula, a social psychologist with a PhD from Harvard, discusses the reason for this stigma and stereotype and turns it on its head in her book Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After.

One by one, chapter by chapter, DePaulo breaks down the image of singlehood in the modern world, particularly in present-day America. She looks at issues facing both men and women with one chapter devoted specifically to the image the different sexes face. This gives the book a balance and makes it readable and pertinent to everyone. She shows how single people are not all looking to get married, single people aren’t just refusing to grow up by not getting married, and single people are not doomed to die alone.

Her analysis is based in a great deal of research, and never feels like a single woman complaining about how the world sees her. She presents her argument clearly and in an engaging manner. She brings the reader to her way of thinking quickly and easily and makes us rethink what it means to be single in today’s society. She offers a way that the world should be in a chapter at the end, but she is very clear about the complexities of the issue and doesn’t present any “easy” fix.

Review by Kristin Conard

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Singled Out