Being in a relationship has its perks. You get massages, sometimes meals are made for you and well you get that lovey dovey feeling. But in case your friend Crystal tagged you in this post…RELATIONSHIPS ARE THE WORST!
Looks like that’s a fact that is backed by some damn science guys.
If you are single, like many on this super fake holiday of Valentine’s Day don’t even worry about it! While everyone else is out on February 14th spending money, it seems you are the smart one doing nothing at home drinking wine!
Bella DePaulo, is a psychologist from the University of California Santa Barbara aka UCSB, and she lives the single life to its fullest. She also travels the world telling people about it.
In a recent paper she published in ACA, she wrote:
“Claims that getting married makes people happier, healthier, and less isolated are based on studies that, methodologically, could never support such claims.
I will explain what is problematic about so many of the relevant studies. I will also describe the results of some of the highest quality studies available and show they do not support the ‘get married, get happier and healthier’ narrative.”
She continues:
“In some important ways, getting married does not result in lasting improvements. People end up about where they were when they were single. In other ways, results are exactly the opposite of what we have been led to believe.
For example, single people are more connected to parents, siblings, friends, neighbours, and coworkers than married people are, and when people marry, they become more insular.”
This is what she had to say about people that do tie the knot:
“Scholars who predict that people who marry will become happier and healthier often point to the emotional and psychological benefits that marital relationship has the potential to offer, such as ‘support, intimacy, caring, and companionship.’
Rarely do they acknowledge other factors that are totally separate from anything that happens within a marriage.
People who marry get access to more than 1,000 federal benefits and protections, many of them financial. With greater economic advantage comes greater access to many other advantages, such as better health care.”
She concluded with:
“Married people are also advantaged by the relentless celebration of marriage and coupling and weddings that I call matrimania.
Single people, in contrast, are targets of singlism – the stereotyping, stigmatising, marginalising, and discrimination against people who are single.
The important people in the lives of single people are also marginalised. People such as close friends and siblings are not valued in the same way that spouses are, and they are not covered by laws such as the Family and Medical Leave Act.”
If you are more into watching a video and not reading, and you scrolled down to see if there was a video…you’re in luck! DePaulo gave a TED talk last year titled “What no one ever told you about people who are single.”