There are very few things that I can rely on with 100% certainty in life, but my Hispanic grandmother is one of them. I don’t rely on my grandmother for cookies or care packages, but for her ability to steer any conversation, any at all, to my love life.
Admittedly, my grandmother is in the throes of dementia and has a limited conversational repertoire, but she has always fixated on my future husband. For the past decade, my grandmother has sprinkled lines and lines of unprompted advice and commentary of my love life.
There was the time where she told me that the only thing she was living for was my wedding. She has mentioned, multiple times, how she hoped she would live long enough to hold her great-grandchild in her arms. She always says this while looking pointedly in my direction, and I always pretend to be thoroughly engrossed in the upholstery of the couch I am sitting on.
But don’t worry: my grandmother is full of sage advice. She once told me that I needed to take iron so my “uterus would be strong enough to have babies.” She’s advised me to marry rich, so I could stay at home and take care of the kids. And if I ever wondered what to name my children, she graciously allowed me to bestow her own name upon my firstborn — Consuelo.
If my life were a rom-com, I would be played by a young Julia Roberts (because we both have fluffy, curly hair and have been called “toothy” on multiple occasions), my grandmother would be played by modern-day Rita Moreno and the movie would be entitled “Singles Awareness Day.”
With Singles Awareness Day upon us, one might think that my fellow singles and myself will be wallowing, sobbing and altogether questioning the life path that took us to staying single in 2023. And if that’s how you choose to celebrate the holiday, that’s just fine!
But one could argue that wallowing is not the best way to celebrate Singles Awareness Day. One could even argue that Singles Awareness Day doesn’t need to exist at all. Let’s get into it.
When is Singles Awareness Day 2023?
To dismantle Singles Awareness Day, one must understand Singles Awareness Day. While some may argue (my grandmother included) that virtually every day of my life is Singles Awareness Day, it falls on Feb. 15.
What is Singles Awareness Day?
Singles Awareness Day is a day for all singles to celebrate (or mourn) their romantic un-attachment. According to National Today, Singles Awareness Day was allegedly created by a man named Dustin Barnes.
Barnes decided to create a day where he and his other single friends could enjoy being single, instead of lamenting their single status on Valentine’s Day. Barnes carried on the tradition from high school to college and copyrighted Singles Awareness Day in 2005.
Who celebrates Singles Awareness Day?
More people are staying single. According to Pew Research Center, 3 in 10 adults are single. To break it down further, 41% of those ages 18 to 29 are single and 36% of those 65 are single.
It might be easy to assume that those who are single want to remedy their relationship status. But half of singles aren’t actively looking for a relationship, to even go on dates. Meanwhile, a quarter of singles said that they’re either looking for a committed relationship or casual dates.
We are seeing a rise in singles. In 1990, 29% of those between ages 29 and 54 were single, according to Pew Research Center. If the above stats are any indication, some singles today are choosing to stay that way.
Should Singles Awareness Day exist?
Singles’ Awareness Day feels almost condescending. Do we really need an entire day that’s focused on someone’s relationship status? It almost perpetuates negative stereotypes about single people — stereotypes that might not even be true.
Are single people more happy being single?
In an article for Psychology Today, social psychologist Bell DePaulo cites a study she completed where she polled 950 undergraduates and asked half of them what they thought of singles.
She found that 49% of those polled “spontaneously suggested that married people are kind, caring or giving.” Meanwhile, only 2% of those polled described single people the same way. 32% of those polled described married people as loving, and none of those polled described single people as the same way.
That is an oversimplification, and condescending, outlook on singleness. To boil down one’s entire existence to their relationship status is unfair, whether or not they’re married. And it’s also, one could argue, kind of creepy.
DePaulo cites another a set of studies by German social psychologist Tobias Greitemeyer. He found that single people were perceived as “being less satisfied with their lives, lower in self-esteem, less attractive, less socially skilled, less satisfied with their relationship status, more interested in changing their relationship status, lonelier, more neurotic, less agreeable, and less conscientious,” but more open-minded.
But Greitemeyer found that single people were just the opposite. They were just as satisfied with their lives as those in relationships, as well as being just as attractive, “socially skilled,” agreeable and had just as high self-esteem.
With that said, studies show that, while few in numbers, some Americans believe that marriage is the key to happiness. A General Social Survey shows that 36% of those who have been married are “very happy,” while only 11% are “not too happy.” This is in comparison to single people, who came in at 22% and 15%.
But as the Institute for Family Studies said, married people can be happier but not because of marriage itself, while citing empirical evidence supporting this view. They cite a specific paper that “compared cohabiting and married people, and found that higher happiness in marriage was due to other contextual factors, not marriage itself.”
Being single is just a small part of a person’s life
But being single is not a problem to be solved, but simply a state of existence. Just like how both Julia Roberts and I have fluffy brown hair. Or how my grandmother has an unhealthy obsession with my relationship status. Some things can’t be helped. For some people, being single is one of them.
So with all this in mind, and all the reasons why people may stay single, do single people need an entire day to be reminded of something as trivial as their relationship status?
In an article for Insider, relationship expert April Masini chatted about the necessity of Singles Awareness Day. “If we’re going to have Singles Awareness Day, why not have National Marrieds Day, National Couples Day, or National Divorced-Persons Day?” Masini said.
“It seems like a holiday with no real meaning behind it — just an excuse to spend time, energy and money celebrating singles,” Masini said.
Perhaps this all feeds into a larger, necessary conversation: how we discuss, and perceive, being single. In an essay for Repeller, Haley Nahman wrote, “Does the idea that people have to ‘love’ — or simply feel any specific way about being single — give the concept of romantic attachment too much power?”
“After all, most of us know that relationships don’t solve problems, but rather they change them,” Nahman continued. “If most of us have moved on from the idea that marriage necessarily represents fulfillment, means happiness or signals success, why haven’t we stopped talking about being single as some kind of unfortunate or temporary state that ideally ends?”