I need your help! I’m writing a book about people who are “single at heart” and I would love to get your suggestions for what to call 4 groups of people who identify to different degrees with being “single at heart.”

First, some quick background info. The single at heart are people for whom single life is their best life – their most fulfilling, authentic, and meaningful life. They are not single because they have “issues” or just haven’t found a partner yet. (“Single at heart” is a mindset and a set of preferences, so even people who are in committed romantic relationships or married can identify as single at heart.)

The online quiz, “Are you single at heart?”, includes 14 items assessing the degree to which you qualify as single at heart.  (There is also a questionnaire for people who want to discuss their lives, in their own words, in much more detail.)

After answering the 14 items in the quiz, people are asked:

Do you think you are single at heart?

        1. Yes
        2. In more than a few ways, yes, but not all
        3. Maybe in a few ways, but mostly not
        4. No

In my book, I will be referring to people from these four groups fairly often. I would love to come up with 4 great names for the 4 groups, but I’m having a hard time.

I’m looking for labels that are short and clear. In group #1, the “Yes” group, are the people who identify most strongly as single at heart. Most of them answered all 14 questions in the “single at heart” direction. So what’s a good name for them? One that came to mind was “purists,” but I’m not sure I like the connotations of that. “All In” came to mind, too. I’m hoping someone out there can do better.

Here’s an example of how I might talk about the results if I did not have better labels for the four groups:

In the first quiz item, people were asked, “When you think about spending time alone, what thought comes to mind first?” The two choices were, “Ah, sweet solitude” and “Oh, no, I might be lonely!”

Among the people who answered “Yes,” they think they are single at heart, an astonishing 99% said they anticipated sweet solitude. The people who said they were single at heart in more than a few ways but not all, were not far behind at 92%. Among the people who identified as single at heart in just a few ways, 71% associated time alone with sweet solitude.

But now look at the answers from the people who said “No,” they do not think they are single at heart: Only 41% thought about the sweetness of solitude when anticipating time to themselves. The majority, 59%, were worried that they might be lonely.

I love the findings, but see how awkward it is to refer to the 4 different groups? I’d love to have some great labels. Let me know if you think of any.

I get very few comments posted directly to this blog, so probably most of our conversations about this will be at the Community of Single People.

More writings about “single at heart” and what it means are here.

The People Who Took the Quiz: Where Are They From?

By the way, the people who responded to the quiz are not in any way a representative sample of adults in the U.S. or anywhere else. But more than 8,000 people have responded, and they come from every state in the U.S. and more than 100 countries, and all continents except Antarctica.

Here’s my current list. (Not everyone answered the question of where they are from, so there could be other places represented as well.)

  1. Albania
  2. Algeria
  3. Andorra
  4. Angola
  5. Argentina
  6. Australia
  7. Austria
  8. Bahamas
  9. Belarus
  10. Belgium
  11. Bermuda
  12. Brazil
  13. Bulgaria
  14. Cambodia
  15. Canada
  16. Chile
  17. China
  18. Colombia
  19. Costa Rica
  20. Croatia
  21. Denmark
  22. Dominican Republic
  23. Ecuador
  24. Egypt
  25. El Salvador
  26. England
  27. Estonia
  28. Ethiopia
  29. Finland
  30. France
  31. Germany
  32. Grand Cayman
  33. Greece
  34. Grenada
  35. Guam
  36. Guatemala
  37. Guyana
  38. Honduras
  39. Hong Kong
  40. Hungary
  41. India
  42. Indonesia
  43. Iran
  44. Ireland
  45. Israel
  46. Italy
  47. Jamaica
  48. Japan
  49. Jordan
  50. Kenya
  51. Kuwait
  52. Lebanon
  53. Lithuania
  54. Luxembourg
  55. Macedonia
  56. Malaysia
  57. Maldives
  58. Malta
  59. Mauritius
  60. Mexico
  61. Morocco
  62. Mozambique
  63. Namibia
  64. Netherlands
  65. New Zealand
  66. Nigeria
  67. Northern Ireland
  68. Norway
  69. Pakistan
  70. Panama
  71. Peru
  72. Philippines
  73. Poland
  74. Portugal
  75. Puerto Rico
  76. Romania
  77. Russia
  78. Rwanda
  79. Saudi Arabia
  80. Scotland
  81. Serbia
  82. Singapore
  83. Slovenia
  84. South Africa
  85. South Korea
  86. Spain
  87. Sri Lanka
  88. Suriname
  89. Sweden
  90. Switzerland
  91. Taiwan
  92. Tasmania
  93. Thailand
  94. Turkey
  95. UAE
  96. Ukraine
  97. Uruguay
  98. US (all 50 states)
  99. Venezuela
  100. Vietnam
  101. Wales
  102. West Indies (Trinidad & Tobago)
  103. Zambia