Heard that all single people have been crushed by the pandemic? Don’t believe it.
It seems like every major publication has featured some article pitying those single people whose lives have been ruined during the pandemic. I’m not unsympathetic – some single people really have been having a hard time, and their stories deserve to be told.
What I object to, vociferously, is the implication that their stories represent the only ways that single people experience the pandemic. In December 2020, I started inviting single people to share their pandemic experiences with me. Dozens have done so. I wrote about them in three articles, described below. I thank them again for sharing their stories.
During the pandemic, people who are single at heart have been thriving.
In one story after another about the pandemic, single people have been described as miserable and lonely. That pity is misplaced when it comes to people who are single at heart.
How the pandemic created a cohort of secure single people.
They didn’t want to stay single. Then the pandemic happened, and they discovered something they may never have realized otherwise — single life really suited them.
Single in a pandemic: 18 reflections at the 1-year mark.
Stories, a year into the pandemic, from Australia, Canada, India, the UK, and the US. What they all have in common, I think, is thoughtfulness and resilience.
For other examples, check out Single in a pandemic: Not the same old stories.
[Photo: Crystal Legacy, provided by her.]
