When I was single, smug married people drove me nuts. Then I became one.

A few years ago, a friend told me she was worried that she’d never find a partner. She had been single for a long time and didn’t see much chance that this would change.

“You’ll find someone,” I said. “I just know it.”

She shot me a deadly look. “Do you know how many people have told me that?”

I apologized immediately, embarrassed by the asinine comment. I had been single throughout my 20s and 30s, and always hated know-it-all proclamations from coupled friends. Now here I was, uttering the same words that pissed me off so many years ago. It was easy, I realized, to become the smug-married enemy.

Read the rest of the piece here.

Today is the pub date for the German edition of IT’S NOT YOU. Happy to see it has Brian Rea‘s beautiful cover illustration.

In American politics, the married heterosexual couple with children has been the gold standard of normalcy and virtue. They’re the people politicians address in their speeches, the ones they vow to fight for. If you exist outside this model, the nearly exclusive focus on these particular citizens can be profoundly alienating.

So it was exciting last week to see the Supreme Court recognize marriage equality for all. It seems we’re slowly moving past the one-size-fits-all model of family and adulthood.

But as The Washington Post’s Lisa Bonos and New York Magazine’s Rebecca Traister quickly noticed, the language Justice Kennedy used in the majority opinion also reveals that many old stereotypes persist: (more…)

Recently, Singular City editor Kim Calvert commented on the negative tone that many people take when writing about the single life, noting my work in particular. Calvert cited a recent newsletter of mine, in which I expressed my belief that our positive-thinking culture often makes people feel worse because it pressures them to deny their genuine feelings and paper them over with something more socially palatable. The newsletter also included links to some eHarmony Q&As about breakups and couple envy, as well as the Strangers podcast series “Love Hurts.”

In a Psychology Today post, Calvert said she thought I was encouraging singles to wallow in their misery. The fact that I answered questions from distressed readers suggested to Calvert that I was courting the attention of unhappy singles while ignoring the satisfied ones. (more…)

Dear Sara: I was involved with my ex-companion from 2007 to 2014. I loved her whole-heartedly the entire time. (She had acknowledged by telling me a few years back that she was lucky to have me). In June 2013 she wanted to end our relationship (not that she has someone else, nor had I cheated on her) due to us growing apart due to her insecurity. Her reason for splitting up was “irreconcilable differences.” Years ago I had been reminding her that all relationships involve “give and take,” not just one-sided. I practiced what I had been telling her: “She is No. 1 in my life and all others do not matter as much.” She was the opposite. She cares what others think and as a result, she would bend over backwards to please and make people love her. To balance her life, I was taken for granted and my feelings meant little to her.
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Do we only respect single women who have the power of refusal? Is it necessary for the single woman to prove her solo state is entirely a choice–in other words, that guys dig her? I contemplate these questions in a Dame Magazine essay, The Problem with “Cool” Single Women, which was also posted on Salon.