There's a persistent cultural script that treats being single as a kind of holding pattern — a "before" stage that's supposed to resolve into a relationship eventually, at which point "real life," apparently, begins. This framing shows up everywhere, from how holidays get planned around couples to the slightly pitying tone some people use when asking a long-single friend "so, anyone special yet?"
Research on long-term single adults increasingly pushes back hard against this framing, and it's worth taking seriously.
What the Research Actually Shows
Dr. Bella DePaulo, a social psychologist who has spent decades specifically studying single life (she coined the term "singlism" to describe bias against single people), has compiled extensive research showing that single people, on average, maintain broader friendship networks, stronger ties to family, and more robust community involvement than their married peers — patterns that hold up across multiple studies, not just anecdotally. The popular assumption that singlehood is a deficient or incomplete state doesn't hold up well against the actual data on how single people build their lives.
The Specific Skills Long-Term Single Life Tends to Build
People who've spent meaningful stretches of adulthood single often develop a level of self-sufficiency, independent decision-making, and comfort with solitude that people who've moved more quickly between relationships sometimes haven't had as much occasion to build. None of this means coupled people lack these skills — it means singlehood isn't the absence of a life, it's its own distinct version of one, with its own genuine strengths.
Why the "Waiting Room" Framing Actually Causes Harm
Psychologists studying wellbeing note that treating one's current life stage as merely preparatory — rather than valid in its own right — is associated with lower present-moment life satisfaction, regardless of relationship status. In other words: treating singlehood as a waiting room doesn't just mischaracterize the data, it can actively make the experience worse for the person living it.
Marking a Life That's Fully Yours, Not "On Pause"
Some long-term single people have started using milestones — moving into a first solo apartment, a personal achievement, simply a meaningful year lived entirely on their own terms — to claim a star on GalaxySpace, specifically as a way of marking a life that's complete and worth celebrating on its own, not contingent on anyone else showing up first.
You can create one here — a small, permanent acknowledgment that this chapter counts, exactly as it is.