Single at Heart: What if You Don't Need Someone Else to “Complete” You | with Bella DePaulo, PhD

0:00So bizarre fact, if you tell people you're genuinely happy being single, many won't believe you. In fact, they'll often call you a liar. And if not to your face, then behind your back. And if you fight them on it, they'll tell you you're lying to yourself. And by the way, if you are a coupled person, you may in fact be among the doubters when it comes to your single at heart friends. Can you really be genuinely deeply satisfied with your life without a partner? That's what we're digging into today with Harvard-trained researcher Bella DiPaolo, author of Single at Heart, The Power, Freedom, and Heart-Filling Joy of Single Life.

0:40Bella has spent more than three decades studying what happens when someone is genuinely, unapologetically happy being single. And here's a little bit of a sneak peek. One thing that just keeps showing up in the data, people just don't believe them. This data is wild. She'll dive into it. In this conversation, you'll also discover why when people are shown identical descriptions of a single person or a married person, they assume the single one is exaggerating their happiness. We'll talk about how one single sentence, clips from a newspaper in 1992, set off three decades of research. We'll explore what actually separates a nourishing solitude from a harmful loneliness, and it isn't a personality thing.

1:24We'll explore why married people tend to actually grow more isolated over time and what that quietly costs them years later, and how people who focus more on finding the ones, not the one, often end up living more connected, enjoyable lives. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project, and we'll jump right in after this short break.

1:52This episode is brought to you by Choiceology, an original podcast from Charles Schwab, hosted by Katie Milkman, an award-winning behavioral scientist and author of the best-selling book, How to Change. Choiceology is a show about the psychology and economics behind our decisions. Hear true stories from Nobel laureates, authors, athletes, and everyday people about why we do the things we do. Listen to Choiceology at schwab.com slash podcast or wherever you listen. Good Life Project is sponsored by Square. So there's this coffee shop near me, small, always busy, run by people who clearly care about getting the details right.

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4:22So let's take a step back in time. Um, December 17th, 1992, you clipped one sentence out of a newspaper. The line was, and tell me if I'm getting this right. Remember that one is a whole number. And that started for you kind of a secret folder. What was set in motion at this moment? Yes. So that was from an advice column that was published in my local newspaper. And the person who wrote into the advice columnist said that she was recently widowed and Christmas was coming up. And she was just so distraught that she didn't understand how she could ever enjoy Christmas again. And the advice columnist wrote a long answer to her.

5:16And the sentence I underlined was, remember that one is a whole number. Now, that was not because I didn't think I was a whole person because I was single. But it was interesting to me that somebody would need to be reassured that if they're single, they're a whole person. And that started me off into thinking about all the different ways in which single people are just assumed to be sad and lonely. and how that didn't fit my own life story. So I want to dive into this beautiful and deep exploration of what you describe as single at heart and how that's also different than a lot of other terms that sometimes we wrap around the word single.

6:15Widen the lens. Tell me a little bit about you and your personal journey. Yeah. Yeah, so I'm 72. I've been single my whole life, by which I mean I've never been married. I don't have kids. I live alone, all very happily. And I did have some romantic relationships when I was very young, because I thought that's what I was supposed to do. And I have no horror stories from my dating life. You know, when I think back to those men, I still kind of smile. I kind of like them. But that wasn't my life. In fact, even though I like these guys and had a nice time with them, when those relationships ended, I felt relief and almost joy that I got to go back to my one true life, my single life.

7:12And that's what felt authentic to me. that's who I felt that I really was. And for a long time, I thought that maybe that would change because as I grew older, other people around me are looking for a partner or they're settling in with someone. And I thought, well, maybe I'm just slow in getting there. And I thought, well, maybe wanting to get married was like getting bitten by a bug. I hadn't gotten bitten yet. And after a while, I realized, no, self, this is who you are. You are never going to want that life. And once I realized that, it was transformational because there was no holding back.

8:07There was no thinking like, oh, well, maybe I should wait a few years to buy a house, or maybe I should wait about this or that and just see what happens. No, this is who I am. And then once I understood that, then I could totally invest in my single life and become my Jew to myself. you coined this phrase single at heart yes what's the difference between somebody who's single or and you can probably append a dozen different like words before single or after single and someone who's who's single at heart what what what are you trying to tease out here yes so people who are single at heart for us obviously i'm one of them single life is our best life.

9:02It's our most meaning, fulfilling, and psychologically rich life. Most importantly, it's our most authentic life. Single is who we really are. And we are happy and flourishing, not despite being single, but because of it. So the threat to us, the risk, is not what we would lose if we did not put a romantic partner at the center of our lives, but what we would lose if we did. So single at heart is a very affirming way of being single. It means embracing your single life for what it has to offer. So it's not a default. You know, it's not something we're just stuck with. It's not a phase. We're not single because we're fleeing from romantic life, because we're afraid of bad, or we're worried about bad relationship experiences we had.

10:11I mean, we may or may not have had bad relationship experiences, But at the core, at the heart of single at heart is being powerfully drawn to single life and all that single life has to offer. one of the single at heart people who shared her story with me said that when you're single at heart you can try to live a different kind of life but it all kind of feels like an uncomfortable pair of shoes I would imagine that metaphor applies to a lot of people for a lot of different ways that they think they're supposed to live yeah but somehow when When they try it, it doesn't fit. Yeah, right. But then with this particular choice, you tend to be judged by those around you for making that choice.

11:06Right. And, you know, of course we're judged as having lives that are not as fulfilling, not as meaningful, all of that. But also, people don't believe us when we say that we're happy and that we want to stay single, which is really amazing. I mean, can you imagine someone who's married telling somebody else, oh, I'm happily married, and they say, oh, you just think you are. You just haven't given single life a chance. Why don't you get divorced and see what it's really like? And it's ridiculous. of us, nobody would say that and nobody should say that, but they say it all the time to people who are single.

11:49In fact, my colleague Wendy Morris and I did a series of studies where we showed people brief biographies of people who are single or married, and we asked them how happy they thought they were and how happy they would say they were. and people consistently thought that the single people were exaggerating their happiness. So if they said they were really happy, they were just saying that, you know, they weren't really happy. And they didn't do that to married people, or at least not as much. So you literally showed people, and let me make sure I'm getting this right, like identical bias. Yes. Jobs.

12:34Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much everything's the same. The one difference being this person is single and this person is partnered. And then people who looked at those judged the one who is single as being less happy, less content. Right. And as exaggerating. When they said they're happy, they're just exaggerating. So it's almost like you're then also saying, oh, they're just kind of lying to themselves. They're deluding themselves. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And again, can you imagine telling a married person you're just fooling yourself? You're not really happily married. Where does, in your mind, where does this judgment come from?

13:12Oh, well, I think that we have been shown relentlessly this worldview, this mythology that insists that if you find the one, commit to that person, organize your life around that person, you really will live happily ever after. The worldview, the ideology is that that's not a myth. It's true that get married or at least get committed to one person and you will be happier, you'll be healthier, you'll even be morally superior to people who don't do that. And that is a powerful promise. And with it comes this other part of the mythology that once you find your person, you found your everything. You know, your best friend, your partner in intimacy, your person who co-parents if you have kids, your financial partner, your co-vacation planner and all the rest.

14:32And so if you believe in that mythology, which is rarely questioned, then as a person who has done that, if you've gotten married and you think, well, I did it. You know, I'm happy because I'm married and that people who haven't followed my path are not going to have the same deeply fulfilling life. And so when you come across someone who is single, if they're unhappily single, that's fine. You can fit that into your worldview because that makes sense. But what doesn't make sense, what's threatening to the mythology that says that if you get married, you're a better person, you're happier, healthier, is a single person who says that they are happy, that they don't want to unsingle themselves.

15:41And in fact, there are several studies in different nations showing that when people judge single people in the kind of study we just described, where they see identical descriptions of a single person and a married person, those descriptions are exactly the same, except that one person is described as single and the other as romantically coupled or married. And then in these studies, they vary whether the single person is someone who wants to be single, is happily single, or someone who really doesn't want to be single. And the happily single people are judged more harshly than the unhappily single people.

16:31There's judges not really as happy as we've seen before. They're judged as, you know, not sociable, as having all these flaws. And what I thought was most interesting, the people judging them actually express some anger toward them. What's that about? I think it's about the way that happy single people threaten this worldview that many people are so invested in, including some single people who don't want to be single. They really want to believe that if only they find that one person, build their life around that one person, their life is set. All the pieces of their life come together and they're happier and healthier.

17:27And happy single people threaten that. It perpetuates the idea that no one really wants to be single. Because if you keep hearing as a single person, oh, you can't possibly be happy. You're going to change your mind. I'm 72. I don't think I'm going to change my mind. But what happens is that some single people who really like their single lives, like the single at heart, feel reluctant to say so. And so then other people think, oh, I don't know anyone who's single at heart. I had a reporter from a prestigious paper come and spend some hours with me, interviewing me. And she wrote this write-up of other happy single people, too.

18:17And she wrote up in her published piece that as she was driving back to the airport, she was thinking to herself, Huh, I don't know anyone who's happily single. None of my friends are. And this is someone who wrote about weddings. So, you know, I think maybe that was true, but maybe her friends knew that if they told her how they really felt, she wouldn't believe them. So it's almost like there's this social pressure to not own the fact that you're actually really content with the way things are. Right. So if somebody asks you in public, you're always trying to figure out how to shapeshift and tell the story in a way that will make everyone around you comfortable.

19:06Yes. In fact, one of the people who shared her life story with me for my single at heart book said that she was on lunch break at work one time and she was talking to one of her colleagues. And her colleague said, so you don't want to get married? and she said she was totally fine saying, no, I don't want to get married and reasons for that and it's institutionally problematic and all the rest. But she couldn't bring herself to tell this co-worker that she also didn't want a romantic relationship, that she loved living single. And here is someone who's in my book. talking to me about what she loves about single at heart.

19:55She's deeply single at heart, and she can't tell her coworker. Oh, here's something else that really gets to me. I sometimes get emails out of the blue from people, and they'll tell me, oh, I love this about my single life. I love that. I like my solitude, my freedom. I have a place of my own, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And then they'll say, what do you think is wrong with me? It's just... Like the assumption is just that you must be broken. Yes, that if you like being single, there's something wrong with you. And what's so astounding about that is that these people have what everyone wants.

20:43They have a life that they love. And yet imagine that the question that comes to your mind when you have a life that you love, if you're single, is what's wrong with me? It's amazing. And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Good Life Project is sponsored by Skylight Calendar. So our executive producer, Lindsay, told me the first week back to school, it just used to be total chaos in our house. Pickups, drop-offs, who got who. But since she got her Skylight Calendar, that same week, it wasn't chaos at all. Everything was just in one place and it was just clear. Skylight Calendar is designed to bring families together for more time.

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22:06Families are better when they're working together. Right now, Skylight is offering our listeners$30 off their 15-inch calendars by going to myskylight.com slash goodlife. Go to myskylight.com slash goodlife for$30 off your 15-inch calendar. That's M-Y-S-K-Y-L-I-G-H-T dot com slash goodlife. Good Life Project is sponsored by Drip Drop. So, you know, I talk a lot about what it actually takes to feel good in your own life. And one thing keeps coming up. A lot of what we chalk up to stress or a bad day can also be related to dehydration kind of like in disguise. I notice it most often on hike days.

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24:01Good Life Project is sponsored by BetterHelp. So, you know, I ask a version of this question to guests sometimes and to friends even, but let me turn it on myself for a second. If I could wake up tomorrow and be better at one thing, I think for me, it would probably be comparison. Even doing work I love, even after all these years, I still catch myself measuring my chapter, my days against someone else's highlight reel. And I'd love to be better at just kind of running my own race, doing my own thing. I think that's probably true for most of us. Better isn't one fixed destination. It's a feeling and it's defined by you, nobody else.

24:39And for BetterHelp, it's about BetterHelp therapists who really get you. It's a focus on global emotional well-being and thousands of therapists and millions of members in over 100 countries. It's progress. And it's getting better at sitting with the hard stuff instead of rushing past it. If that resonates, if there's some version of better that you've been circling around, sign up and get 10 % off at betterhelp.com slash goodlifeproject. That's betterhelp.com slash goodlifeproject. so we pathologize being single and happy. Yes, and people internalize that. In fact, one of the most common reactions I get to people who read Single at Heart is that they wish they had understood this much earlier in their lives.

25:34and they say that they would have lived a different life. Some of them, even some of them who got married and are in a way happily married still aren't living their best life. I remember this one man telling me that he has no issues with his wife at all. She's a wonderful person. but he wishes he never got married because it's single life that he found fulfilling and he thinks back to his single days and how fulfilling they were and how he wishes he could have that again but he wants to honor the promise he made to his wife. Which brings up a weird question in my mind that you share that example.

26:31Can someone be married and still be sort of like healthily, functionally, constructively single at heart? Yes. This is something I had to be persuaded of because I started out thinking, no, no, no, no, no. But then I kept collecting these stories and people who fit that description were adamant that they counted as single at heart. And what I found about those people is that they did not follow a conventional script of being totally interconnected with their spouse or their romantic partner if they weren't married. And so typically they had more of a separation. So they had an understanding about spending time by themselves or time with their friends or the people who matter to them without judgment or pressure.

27:31And some of them, actually most of them, also had separate living arrangements. They either lived in a place of their own, what's called living apart together, or they had separate sides of the place that they lived in. They had separate spaces. So they were people who appreciated lots of what the single at heart appreciated. So they liked their independence, their freedom, their solitude. and so you know they're not they don't score as high on the single at heart quiz as people who who are not partners but but they score high enough and you know they persuaded me they count and again people who don't follow the yellow brick road are at risk of being judged so people will say, oh, you really aren't that committed to your partner, or you just want to be able to cheat and not get caught.

28:38And, you know, for most of the people, that's not it. They really do flourish when they can have their time to themselves, their solitude, their separate friends. And I think that is a really healthy thing. I think whenever you're being true to yourself, it's a healthy thing. But when being true to yourself means going against the expectations and the norms and what gets rewarded and celebrated, then, you know, you're in the category that's not getting rewarded and celebrated. Instead, you're getting second-guessed. Yeah. I mean, it's a shame, right? Because then you're put in the position of moving through each day, having to defend your choice if you choose to be open and honest about it, which is not a comfortable way to live.

29:36Right. Yeah. Yeah. And in fact, I think about what I'm trying to do with changing the story of what it means to be single as part of a long evolution of freeing people to be their more authentic self. And what I hope will happen with this single at heart concept and more positive framings of single life more generally, even if you're not single at heart, but you enjoy being single for a while. I want that to be reframed so that it's not something you have to defend against. It's something you can commit to and embrace without being judged. We should also just share a bit of context here. you have surveyed over, and tell me if I'm getting this number, over 20 ,000 people, over 100 countries, three decades.

30:46So you're drawing not just from your personal lived experience and a small number of people that you have had the chance to talk to. You're drawing from a massive data set that is, in fact, global when you share these things. Yeah, so that gave me confidence, too. Although they're not representative samples. They're people who found the quiz. But still, yeah, and the quiz answers or the survey answers, they correspond with what the people who shared their life stories told me. So one example is when I started this work, I thought, well, people who are single at heart are going to mostly appreciate solitude.

31:31But what I didn't realize was just how central that was. So in this survey of more than 20 ,000 people from all around the world, just about everyone who identified as single at heart said that they saw solitude, time alone as sweet solitude, not as something to fear or to worry about being lonely. And then when I asked the people who shared their life stories with me in much greater detail, every one of them said that solitude was deeply important to them. Three people said it was like breathing. And I think that really reassured me about both the survey findings and my own experiences and the experiences of people who identify as single at heart.

32:35Is there a line between a nourishing solitude and a harmful loneliness? Yes. And the big turning point, the key to that is choice. So if you're alone because you were ostracized or excluded or nobody invited you and you're home by yourself, that's painful. But if you're alone because you relish the time you have to yourself, that you savor it and you find that it's good for feeling relaxed and at peace or creative or spiritual, or if you find that it's good for focus or it's good for expansiveness, All of those are positive ways of experiencing solitude that we should respect and value rather than fret about.

33:42It sounds like what you're describing, one of the greatest things if you are single at heart and then you choose to and surround yourselves with people who welcome you living as that person is the ability to step into everyday living more authentically, which for so many of us is so powerful and so important to our well-being. What are some of the other benefits that you found of people living this way? Yeah. You know, when you ask people, oh, what would be good about being single? You know, someone who's not enmeshed in this topic. You know, they'll say, oh, you get to have your own schedule and eat what you want and when you want and keep the house as warm or as cold as you want if you live alone.

34:32And all that is true. And I appreciate all that every single day. But it's much bigger than that. It's about being able to be the captain of your own ship and to make big, life-changing decisions that are true to yourself. In my own life, I used to be at the University of Virginia. So I did what was supposed to be a one-year sabbatical out here. at the University of California at Santa Barbara. And when the end of the year was drawing near, I was thinking, oh, I don't know. I wish I didn't have to go back. And I remember walking the beach with someone who said, so don't. It was like, oh, wow, yes, I can do that.

35:30I can pick up and leave this life I developed on the east coast my whole life. I lived there my whole life and moved to this place that now really felt like home, like who I was. And I did that, pulled up this life that was totally rooted and moved to a new place without having to be concerned about, well, would a romantic partner want to do that? And is it fair to ask them to? And so there's a certain freedom that is beyond just what's in the refrigerator gets to stay there. And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Good Life Project is sponsored by Wild Alaskan Company. So I think about how disconnected most of us have become from where our food comes from.

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37:26That's wildalaskan.com slash goodlife for$35 off your first order. Thanks to Wild Alaskan Company for sponsoring this episode. Good Life Project is sponsored by Ernesta Rugs. So you know that spot in your house that's kind of this close to being right? For us, it's the front porch. Good light, chairs I absolutely love, and a rug that I bought years ago, too small, kind of floating out there like it never quite committed, and it's been bothering me ever since. That's the project Ernesta finally talked me into finishing. So here's the idea with Ernesta. Instead of guessing a size off a shelf, you send them your spaces, dimensions, and your style, and their design team helps you land on the exact right fit completely free.

38:09And then you start with the$10 test, five oversized samples held up against your own chairs and your own light, watching how the color shifts from morning into afternoon before committing to anything. Ours is cut and finished now and it's on its way. I cannot wait to be out there with people I love, coffee in hand, and finally have the porch feel finished instead of almost finished. Visit Ernesta.com and order five samples for only$10 and you'll get$50 toward any rug of your choice. That's E-R-N-E-S-T-A dot com. Good Life Project is sponsored by Whatnot. So I literally just earlier today went down this rabbit hole on whatnot.

38:51I was looking for a charger for some of the battery powered yard tools that I use, like my hedge trimmer. And I found this seller who was selling them in real time for so much less than I could get them at full retail. And it was also fun too. Everyone's just chatting with the seller and a bunch of other people who love tools as much as I do. It felt like a room full of people just kind of geeking out together. That's whatnot. The largest dedicated live shopping platform out there. and it's not just art supplies. It's beauty, collectibles, electronics, fashion, even cookies. So much other stuff.

39:22Real people building real thriving businesses. Whatnot tells me that sellers there sell 10 times more than on other major marketplaces because they're building relationships, not just listing products. So if you've got something to sell or you just want to see what this is all about, check out Whatnot. Search Whatnot, that's W-H-A-T-N-O-T in the App Store. Download and you can start selling right away. I guess part of my curiosity around this is I think a lot of people would nod along and say, wouldn't it be amazing to be able to make the choices that I want to make and only I want to make without needing to consider anyone else in those choices?

40:04And I think a lot of people would say, well, yeah, that sounds incredible. I'm wondering, do we lose anything by never having to consider how our choices will impact others that we care deeply about in striving for that freedom. So like, do we regain something, but are we losing anything by not having that internal negotiation? Yeah. Well, it's not like, oh, this is another, that brings up another really interesting point about people who are single and not even people who are necessarily single at heart is that single people in general are more connected to more different people. So, they are more likely to exchange practical, emotional support with other people in their lives, and that includes friends, siblings, parents, coworkers, neighbors, and research shows that when people get married, they become more insular.

41:15Now, not everybody, but on average, they talk to their friends less, they call their parents less often. And so, in a way, we're more connected. So, to go back to your question of, aren't we considering everyone else and don't we lose by doing that? I had a special advantage in that I was moving to a spectacularly beautiful place. So, it wasn't hard to persuade people to come out and visit. So I do see the people that matter to me. And I have been there for the people who need me. So before I moved to Santa Barbara, California, I was living in Charlottesville, Virginia. That's where I was a professor of psychology.

42:14And during that time, my mother, who was in Pennsylvania, 377 miles away from me, to be exact, she at one point was dying of pancreatic cancer. And every time I could, I would drive 377 miles to be there with her and then come back. Occasionally, I took a flight if I had to balance classes or something like that. And that too, that was nothing special about me because there's research that shows that when aging parents need help, they are more likely to get it from their adult children who are single than from those who are coupled. And that's true of their sons as well as their daughters, black as well as white, just about every demographic that was included in the research.

43:22So part of what I hear you saying is

43:29we think that we will give so much of what we give, we'll learn so much of what we need to learn, we'll have the negotiations and make the sacrifices or compromises. and then also give support to and find support from and love to and love from this one other mystical being that we somehow anoint and find and anoint in our lives to be the partner. But you're saying like single at heart doesn't mean that you don't have all of those things. It means that it's probably coming from a community of people who you may be profoundly and deeply connected to. Yes, yes. So the way I like to put that is that people who are married or in a committed romantic relationship have the one, but people who are single often have the ones.

44:22And there is science behind the advantages of that. For example, there are studies that ask people, who do you go to when you're sad or when you're angry or when you're happy? And they find that people who go to different people to fulfill different needs are in general more satisfied with their lives than people who invest all of their emotional needs in one person. And as you were just describing, there's a risk in also investing all of your emotional needs in one person. We like to think when we found the one, they're the one, and they're the one for life. And the data tells us, especially in the Western world, a very different story.

45:20That very often they are the one for a season of time. It may be a few years, it may be decades.

45:29And there's a risk in structuring your relationships that way, too. Yes. So if you count on your romantic partner to be your best friend and your co-vacation planner and your co-parent and your everything, your sex and everything else partner, as I sometimes call them, then it's fine. You know, if your relationship is going fine, that's great. But then if they walk away or if they die or if you get sick and they walk away, then you don't have anything. You don't have a close friend because you put your friends on the back burner. And so what some studies show is that the people who have been single their whole lives are doing especially well in later life.

46:23And that's really an amazing affront to the scare stories that have permeated our lives where we get told, oh, you might be happy now, but wait till you get older. Well, people, especially people who are single at heart, have invested in their single lives. So they've invested in their friends. They didn't put them on the back burner to put a romantic partner at the center. They invested in themselves. They learned lots of different skills or they found people who could help them with skills. So when people are married and living together, they do have an advantage that they don't have to do everything themselves.

47:07They split up the tasks, right? Usually in ways that are sources of great conflict, but whatever. But then when that relationship ends with divorce or death or separation, then the person who's left behind either doesn't know how to do what their partner used to do or they're out of practice. Whereas the person who has been single for a long time and never counted on having a spouse has learned how to either do those things or find someone to hire or someone who would help. And another thing about growing older as you're single, especially single at heart, is you're not going to be that stereotype of the isolated, lonely single person because you like your solitude and you've been nurturing your friendships.

48:10Yeah. One of the things that comes up, I think, just along this line of conversation is this notion that people kind of say, well, okay, so if I am blessed to get old, and at some point, certain parts of me are going to start to fail, and I'm going to need to be taken care of, or somebody else is going to need to be taken care of. Wouldn't it be better to have that one person there to do it? And what I'm hearing you say is not necessarily. Yeah. And I wish that single people who have had the experience of needing a lot of care and received it, I wish their stories got more attention instead of the story of, you know, a person who dies alone and isn't found for how many weeks or whatever.

49:02So what I found in the life stories of people who are single at heart were several people who did have life-altering experiences. So one person was bicycling and hit by a distracted driver and was so torn up that they thought she was dead. And she spent months in the hospital, months in rehab. And what happened was that her friends and family rallied around her. Well, mostly her friends because her family lived farther away. And she found that so many people wanted to come to visit her that they actually had to, the nurses had to have a schedule. And then another person who I interviewed for a book that's called How We Live Now, no romantic partner, no kids.

50:11Her family lived 800 miles away. And when she was diagnosed with cancer, she found that 49 people came forward and wanted to help her. she called them her angels and they coordinated care in ways that are much easier to do now with you know those online platforms that let you do that and i'm not saying every single person has that of course they don't but i think it may be more common than we realize and we also don't realize that when married people have a life-threatening issue, their partner may not be there in the way they want them to. Maybe they can't because they are dealing with their own physical or emotional problems, or maybe it's just too hard for them emotionally to deal with this illness.

51:25And so we think that being married is this magical solution where you have somebody who's there for you and takes care of everything, but it doesn't always work out that way. And I have actually had people say to me, you know, well, why don't you get married so that And when you do get sick and need help, you'll have someone who's obligated to help you. And it's like, really? I'm supposed to live my whole life in a way I don't want to, just so there'll be somebody there? I mean, I think that's called using people. And I've had people email me and say, you know, I love being single, but should I get married so that I'll have someone to take care of me?

52:12No, that's so mean. Yeah. Have you studied or noticed or seen the difference in living the single at heart life based on gender? Oh, this was a surprise, yes. If you look at single people more generally, not just the single at heart, the people who are most likely to thrive when being single are women. If someone has a hard time, it's more likely to be men. But in this single-eyed heart survey, it was the men who were more likely to identify as single-eyed heart. Now, again, it's not a representative survey, so we have to take that with a grain of salt. But that was fascinating to me. But when you think about it some more, why wouldn't they?

53:05Why wouldn't men enjoy their independence and their freedom and their solitude and their opportunity to hang out with however many people they want rather than just one person? And so I think it's a possibility for whatever gender you identify with, which I think is encouraging, too. I loved finding that. Yeah, because intuitively I would have probably made assumptions also. So it's interesting to hear that maybe that's not entirely correct. I mean, if we zoom the lens out, a lot of what I'm hearing you invite us to explore. The really big picture here is that being single at heart can deepen your relationships and expand your community.

54:02Oh, absolutely. Yes. because you aren't expected to put one person at the center of your life. And, you know, it's more than just not being broken. It's about being fulfilled and in some ways having a bigger life because you can pursue what is meaningful to you and have a variety of interesting experiences and points of view, which is what psychological richness means. I love that. Feels like a good place for us to come full circle in our conversation as well. So in this container of Good Life Project, if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? Oh, I think it means being true to yourself.

54:53And for me, that has meant living single my entire life and living single fully, joyfully, and unapologetically. And I try to encourage other people to do the same. And I guess in everyday life, living a good life means savoring even the small things. So I live in this beautiful place near the Pacific Ocean, and I never take it for granted. So every day I look out the window and I think, I can't believe I get to live here. It also means that when I wake up, I appreciate if the sun is shining and the warm ocean breeze is there. I appreciate that. I appreciate going to the farmer's market and picking out just picked produce and making dinner with that.

56:00I enjoy staying in touch with my friends. And all of those are simple things. You don't need money to appreciate the sun and the ocean. and I also, I guess my passion as you can probably tell is rewriting the story of what it can mean to be single so transcending all those deficit narratives that characterize single people as a pile of problems and deficiencies and instead pointing out the strengths of single people and the wonderful possibilities of single life That's been a good life for me. Thank you. Thank you. So let's talk about some of the big action ball insights from this conversation.

56:53One thing I'm really exploring from this conversation is how much of what we assume about being alone actually turns out to be pretty backwards. The idea that happy single people are lying to themselves. The idea that you need one person to be your everything, your best friend, your co-parent, your emotional home base. When Bella's research says the people who thrive are actually very often the ones who spread that across several different relationships. And the idea that getting older single means getting older alone. When the data says something closer to the exact opposite, if there's one thing to actually maybe do with this, it's this.

57:33Think about who's on your the ones list right now. not your one person your ones plural and reach out to somebody on that list this week for no reason at all just to bring them back into your life and hey before you leave next week we're sitting down with best-selling novelist Jodi Pico to talk about how she steps inside the minds of people whose lives look nothing like her own and why that kind of empathy might be one of the most undervalued skills we have be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss that conversation or any upcoming episodes. Doing a quick personal favor, a seven second favor, share this conversation with just one person, maybe one single at heart person who's been feeling pretty judged or leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts.

58:22It really helps us get discovered and reach more people. This episode of Good Life Project was produced by executive producers, Lindsay Fox and me, Jonathan Fields, editing help by Troy Young, Chris Carter crafted our theme music. And of course, if you haven't already, Please go ahead and follow us wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss a conversation. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields signing off for Good Life Project.

58:53Good Life Project is sponsored by Kohler Smart Toilets. So here's something I find genuinely fascinating. The places where exceptional design shows up where you least expect it, where someone decided that an everyday object, something completely ordinary, deserve the same level of intention and craft as anything else in your life. That's exactly what Kohler is doing with their smart toilets. Their Veil smart toilet doesn't look anything like what you'd picture when you hear the word toilet. It's sculptural, considered the kind of design that makes you do a double take. And the experience is designed to match.

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1:00:03Bella DePaulo, PhD: week to assist with your banking needs. Yep. Even on weekends, it's pretty much all he talks about in a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See CapitalOne.com slash bank. Capital One N-A member FDIC. This episode is sponsored by Aerie. If you know me, you know that my philosophy is all about looking good and feeling good every single day. And that honestly comes down to the first layer. I'm talking about bras. If your bra is digging into your shoulder or maybe it's riding up in the back or you are dying to take it off at the end of the day, then that bra is not the right fit. And what I love about Aerie is that they have 59 different sizes in really soft fabrics and really good fits.

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