What do you get when you take a psychologist, an academic, a life coach, a ‘social theorist’, three writers, an editor and a sex columnist? The Observer’s panel on singledom in 2000.
By 2010, it was predicted, 40% of all households would be one-person (actually, the 2011 England and Wales figure was 30%). Was that ‘terrifying’, as Kathryn Flett, moderating, suggested? That depended, trend forecaster Professor Richard Scase pointed out, on your gender. In psychological and physical health terms, relationships were ‘Good news for men, bad news for women’. Women who left relationships became ‘happier, healthier and fitter’; the opposite was true for men.
Perhaps there were more singles, the panel pondered, because greater economic autonomy meant women could choose whether a relationship was right for them. Women also had stronger emotional support networks, meaning they could be more discriminating. They were becoming more like gay men, argued Mark Simpson, author of It’s a Queer World. ‘They don’t necessarily consider themselves “incomplete” because they are single.’ Advertising also encouraged a ‘gay way of looking at men’, suggesting they hold out for ‘a man with Brad Pitt pecs and a washboard stomach’. (‘It’s been a long time since I’ve shagged anyone with a washboard stomach,’ commented journalist Miranda Sawyer.)
Everyone felt the bar had been raised for choosing to couple up coupling up and that was no bad thing. It ‘probably makes for better relationships when you do enter into them,’ said Scase. Those who did feel ‘a love-shaped hole’ in their lives needed to stop idealising couples, Sawyer thought. ‘You never know what’s happening in other people’s relationships, do you?’
But what, actually, did being single feel like? Dorothy Rowe loved living alone, because it allowed her to pursue her own interests and sex columnist Kate Taylor was ‘excited’ about the four dates she had lined up. Piers Hernu, editor of lads’ mag Front, was seeing ‘a few girls’, hated the ‘smug togetherness’ of his coupled-up mates and enjoyed dating, but ‘Sundays I struggle with.’ ‘You need a dog, Piers!’ suggested Flett.
