It’s Singles Week! How should we celebrate?

Someone sent me an email last week to inform me that September 20-26, 2009 is “National Singles Week.”  My interest was inspired, but briefly.  I soon went back to generally being frustrated and annoyed at the connotations that surround the word “single.” 

I will refrain from posting links to ridiculous articles about National Singles Week, I will let you go ahead and do the own research yourself (we singles are generally very practiced at googling ourselves.)   Most of the information  suggests that the way to celebrate Singles Week is to go out and try to find a relationship.  Clearly, there are no sponsors or advertisers for National Singles Week if the point is to help kill off the species.  This would be demographic-cide, if only there was such a word. 

Let’s celebrate Singles Week.  But not by surfing Zoosk or eharmony, but by getting together with our single friends and enriching our friendships.  If being single to you means constantly looking for “the one” then you are doing it wrong.  Being single is fun, fulfilling, and unfortunately stigmatized.  The one linkI will provide you about the week is by Bella DePaulo, the author of Singled Out: How Singles are Stereotyped, Stigmatized and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After.   The book is essential for anyone who is single.  I’m in the process of reading it now and feel that I owe you a full review when I finish.  Dr. DePaulo is a scholar and she takes her subject matter very seriously, though she is not without a sense of humor in her writing style.  One hopes that sense of humor serves her well when her admittedly earnest subject matter about being single and happy is wedged between google ads on Huffington Post.  My banner ads for Dr. DePaulo’s piece read, “Single and over 40?  Meet Washington DC Singles.  Everyone is serious and screened.”  and “Why Women Divorce.  Find out why so many women today are divorcing their husbands.” 

I realize these ads are automatically placed according to content, but this brings me back to my original problem with the information about Singles Week.  I don’t want a week that brings singles together so they can all pair up or feel sorry for one another, I want a Singles Pride Parade with carefree, smiling singles getting together.  I want a public face for being single that does not involve appearing despondent and lovelorn.  I want singles to be an actual demographic of like-minded people.  People who deserve the same legal rights and social respect as married couples.  All I want is for reality to be reflected.  I realize that not everyone is happy being single, they can have their own float too.  Give the cat ladies their float, give the heartbroken young people desperate to find love their own float, but give my friends and I an opportunity to say – we are single by choice.  And believe it or not, we’re pretty happy about that choice. 

Be single, be proud, and celebrate National Single Week by getting together with friends and reading Dr. DePaulo’s book and her blog posts.  I’m so grateful that someone is speaking out for singles in a clear, concise and educated manner.