How can I create a fulfilling social life as a single person?
Most people think singles are lonely and that they don't have anyone. In fact, the opposite is often true. As a single person, you can become friends with the people that you care about, the people you are compatible with and you enjoy being with, and the way that is different from couples, especially the couples who do all their socializing in twos, is that sometimes when a couple goes out with another couple they really only like one of the other persons and the other one is just attached as a spouse. Whereas when you're single, you can create friendships with the people you actually do want to be with and you can nurture those friendships. You can pay attention to the people that you care about without having to say, "oh, let me see what my spouse thinks" or "let me see if we're busy this weekend." You have your own life, and so you can pay attention to your friends, to your extended family, to neighbors, to colleagues, to mentors, to the people in your life who are important. Something that just got published in the past year is a set of sociology studies that found that if you look at people's connections to friends, neighbors, parents, and siblings, it's single people who are more connective and more likely to be there to help them, and to be involved in their lives than are people who are married or even previously married. It's exactly the opposite of the stereotype of the single person as isolated, and alone and lonely. It's the single people more so than the married people who are creating connections in society.
