Contrary to popular belief, one is *not* the loneliest number.
Increasing numbers of people are single for one simple reason: they want to be. They don’t have intimacy issues, they are not selfish, and they are not single because they cannot find a partner. It’s a deliberate choice. While many may still believe that being single is synonymous with isolation and that the only on-ramp to happiness is marriage, research tells a different story.
Social scientists Natalia Sarkisian and Naomi Gerstel found that single people have more social connections and are more involved in their communities than their married counterparts. They are also more likely to socialize with neighbors and to reach out to their social network. Put simply, they are generous, happy, and satisfied with their choice. Moreover, they are a lifeline of the community and a reservoir of connection.
Related research suggests that single people are also healthier than their partnered peers. They work out more and are in better shape. On top of their physical fitness and active social lives, single people are more likely to experience a sense of personal growth and a feeling that their life is a continuous process of learning and discovery.
One thought to keep in mind: People change. We are ever-evolving. Daniel Gilbert, professor of psychology at Harvard University and author of the best-selling Stumbling on Happiness, puts it this way: “Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished. The person you are right now is as transient, as fleeting, and as temporary as all the people you’ve ever been. The one constant in our life is change.”
Stay flexible. Keep an open mind. You never know what your future self will think.
We may live in a world that tells us to go it alone, but at heart, we are social creatures, longing for genuine connection and craving the company and love of our fellow humans. The data is beyond dispute: happiness doesn’t only come from within, it also comes from with. In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, celebrate connection and expand your circle of love.
While chocolates and flowers are nice, here are seven ways to provide what we all crave — the experience of “felt love.”
Showing you care isn’t just for Valentine’s Day. Research from UCLA shows that how we respond to one another significantly predicts the quality of our relationship. The next time a loved one shares news, look up from your phone, or even better, put it away. Genuinely engage. Give them your full attention. Say these three magic words: “tell me more.” And mean it.
Why do kids get to have all the fun making arts and crafts? Break out the glue and glitter and spend some time making a beautiful Valentine’s Day card. Plus, a handwritten note is so much more meaningful than a Hallmark cliché expression of love.
In The Myths of Happiness, Sonja Lyubomirsky suggests doing novel and exciting things together (skydiving, ballroom dancing, etc.). Couples who engage in new experiences report more satisfaction with their relationships than those who engage in routine activities like going to a movie or cooking dinner.
Walking hand-in-hand and side-by-side is a physical way to be more in sync with your partner and be attuned to their needs. Synchronized movement generates what psychologist Barbara Frederickson calls “positivity resonance” — a synthesis of shared positivity, mutual care and concern, plus behavioral and biological synchrony. These micro-moments of connection deepen our social bonds and satisfy our longing to love and feel loved.
Novelty wears off in life and love. Researchers call this process of getting used to things hedonic adaptation. As the old saying goes:
The first kiss is magic. The second is intimate. The third is routine.
Spontaneity makes a difference. People are reminded of their attraction to their partner when they see them in an unexpected context — like watching them give a speech if they never have before, or running a marathon for the first time. It reminds them that there is more to the person they brush their teeth next to in the morning.
Disrupt your routine — go to a new brunch place on Sunday mornings, switch the side of the bed you sleep on, visit a different bed and breakfast. Banish “we always…” from your vocabulary. As Lyubomirsky writes, “we are less likely to take our marriage for granted when it continues to deliver strong emotional reactions in us.”
Charge yourself with detecting one way in which your partner is different each day. Looking for subtle differences shifts your expectations and will remind you of what attracted you to them in the first place.
According to a study, couples who wrote about a recent disagreement from the perspective of a neutral third party had greater relationship satisfaction, passion and desire over the long term. No essay is required. Writing about conflict resolution for seven minutes every four months did the trick.
The art of love… is largely the art of persistence. – Albert Ellis
“My goal is to marry my best friend,” explained the young woman in my office. I have heard a version of this many times. There is tremendous pressure today to find a partner who is your “one and only.“ Indeed, it’s practically impossible to scroll through Instagram without seeing someone refer to their significant other as their #bestie.
Relationship expert Esther Perel addresses this contemporary cliche and cautions against searching for a romantic partner who checks every box in a 2018 SXSW talk:
We still want all the same things that traditional marriage was about—[family life, companionship, economic support, and social status]—but now [we] also want [our partners] to be a best friend, a trusted confidant, and a passionate lover to boot… What we have created in a romantic ambition is one person to give us what once an entire village used to provide.
While it’s cozy to think of your romantic partner as your best friend (who doesn’t like a package deal?), here are 3 reasons it’s important to nourish your platonic relationships too.
1. Friends Help Us Weather The Storm
An argument with your significant other is one of the most upsetting of daily stressors. As one patient told me, fighting with his partner in the morning sets a negative tone for the rest of the day. He described it as a dark cloud that hangs over him and follows him around until the issue is resolved.
In addition to taking an emotional toll, there is a physical cost to relationship disharmony. Negative interactions can impact the immune system and cardiovascular function.
A couple’s therapist might encourage a bickering couple to work on conflict resolution and to spend more quality time together. A study offers another important way to protect oneself from the harmful effects of conflict: having good friends.
Researchers at the University of Texas, Austin, asked 105 newlywed couples to keep a daily diary of marital conflict and to complete questionnaires about their social interactions outside of the marriage. The couples provided morning and evening saliva samples so the researchers could measure levels of cortisol, a hormone the body produces in direct association with physiological stress.
The findings indicate that having a few good friends to lean on can buffer against the stress of everyday conflict with one’s partner. Participants with high quality social support experienced lower levels of stress when marital conflicts arose. It is worth nothing that the number of friends didn’t impact the couple’s ability to handle conflict—it was the quality of the social interactions that counted. Knowing that someone has your back makes every challenge a little bit easier.
There is a lesson here. If you are in a relationship, don’t forget to make an effort with your friends. Having a shoulder to lean on that is outside of your relationship will enhance your connection with your one and only. When there is trouble in paradise, you can turn to your friends to help you weather the storm.
Friends don’t just make life better, they make romantic relationships better too.
2. Boundaries Strengthen Bonds
Contrary to how romantic relationships are depicted on Instagram, spending all of your time together does not deepen the connection. Poet Ranier Maria Rilke understood the tension between the longing for togetherness and the fundamental need for autonomy in ‘Letters to a Young Poet.’
A merging of two people is an impossibility, and where it seems to exist, it is a hemming-in, a mutual consent that robs one party or both parties of their fullest freedom and development. But once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvelous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky.
While it is important to share the same values—having different interests, hobbies, and friends allows for the “possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky.”
Supporting your partner’s interests and encouraging their pursuit is known as “autonomy support.” In other words, if your significant other loves to go camping but it’s not for you, suggest they go on a camping trip. If your partner is passionate about Broadway but you cannot stand it, buy tickets for them and their best friend. People are happiest when they do things that matter to them and become frustrated when they cannot. Encouraging the one you love to pursue their interests is relationship-enhancing. I am not suggesting that you and your partner need to be totally independent. On the contrary, when you support another’s autonomy, it will bring you closer together. As Rilke observed:
A good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude.
3. Greater Health, Happiness, and Wellbeing
Friendships often take a backseat to other demands but the more we prioritize friendships, the happier and healthier we are and the better our romantic relationships will be. A study from Michigan State University found that close friendships predict day-to-day happiness, how long we’ll live, and even more so than spousal and family relationships. On days when individuals interact with friends, they report greater happiness and are in a better mood. In fact, people generally report more positive experiences with their friends than they do with their families, particularly in later life.
Thomas Edison, the driving force behind such innovations as the phonograph, the incandescent light bulb, and the motion picture camera, was also creative when it came to hiring new employees. As part of the screening process, he would invite the candidate to lunch and order soup for the table. If the candidate added salt to the soup before testing it, Edison had his answer.
Pre-seasoners, he reasoned, did not belong in his laboratory because they relied on knee-jerk assumptions and mindless habits, behaviors antithetical to innovation. Edison only hired those who tasted the soup before adding salt. For Edison, reliance on evidence at the lunch table was a litmus test for curiosity in the real world.
While one can debate the utility of the soup test in the hiring process as an indicator of an open mind, it is worth taking a closer look at other behaviors many of us perform without thinking.
These unconscious pairings could undoubtedly benefit from some conscious uncoupling. Another mindless tendency is the impulse to add something whenever we want to make a change. A study from the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science found that we rarely look at a situation, object, or idea that needs improving and think to remove something as a solution. This is known as subtraction neglect.
We add meetings to solve problems at work, we add homework to improve academic performance, we add an ingredient to perfect a recipe, we add apps to boost efficiency, we add products to enhance our skin. Rarely do we consider how transformative the alternative—removing an element—could be. It’s only when encouraged to consider deletion that we brainstorm more creatively.
A more is more mindset is certainly apparent in the world of medicine. If a patient presents with a new symptom, the doctor typically prescribes a medication or recommends a lifestyle change. Perhaps subtraction neglect partially explains why so many people end up with tackle boxes of pills. Alas, the result of additive change is full medicine cabinets, closets, schedules, and landfills.
“Additive ideas come to mind quickly and easily, but subtractive ideas require more cognitive effort,” explained associate professor Benjamin Converse, coauthor of the study. “Because people are often moving fast and working with the first ideas that come to mind, they end up accepting additive solutions without considering subtraction at all.”
Before adding salt to your soup or adding yet another task to your to-do list, gather evidence, ask questions, and consider your options.
Bottom line: Consciously uncoupling unconscious tendencies can be liberating.
The number, frequency, and urgency of decisions that demand our attention on a daily basis are exhausting. Here are 5 strategies that might help.
Cream or Milk?
Do you want fries with that?
Should I bring an umbrella?
Our days are essentially one decision after another. The number, frequency, and urgency of decisions that demand our attention on a daily basis are exhausting. Decision-making has gotten even harder during the pandemic. As one patient told me recently, “It took me 10 minutes to decide if I should give my dog a bath today or tomorrow. I overthink everything. Every decision feels momentous.” Another told me that she and her partner took so long deciding what movie to watch they gave up after an hour of watching trailers. The idea of committing to anything feels daunting.
Increasing numbers report “decision paralysis” over minor and relatively inconsequential decisions. Nearly one-third of adults (32%) said sometimes they are so stressed about the coronavirus pandemic that they struggle to make basic decisions, such as what to wear or what to eat. Millennials (48%) were particularly likely to struggle with this when compared with other groups (Gen Z adults: 37%, Gen Xers: 32%, Boomers: 14%, older adults: 3%).
Sustained stress drains our cognitive resources, and the uncertainty of the pandemic has left many feeling emotionally exhausted and overwhelmed. Our brains are buckling under an endless stream of information, making it even harder to make good choices and focus our energy productively.
These days, the risks and benefits of participating in basic activities require ongoing assessment and evaluation. From attending social gatherings to going to a restaurant to taking public transportation, we have to ask ourselves, “Should I or shouldn’t I?”
Cognitive overload makes it challenging to process, sort, and prioritize data. As a friend put it recently, “Every decision makes me feel like Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream.’ I just want to hold my head and shout ‘I don’t know.'”
If you are experiencing decision paralysis, here are 5 strategies that might help.
1. Stick to a routine
Establishing a predictable routine will help keep minor decisions at a minimum. Wash the dog on Sundays. Call your grandmother on Fridays. Schedule a walk with a friend on Saturdays. Structure leaves less wiggle room for indecision. Plus, research from the University of Southern California found that establishing healthy habits makes us more likely to default to them during periods of stress. For instance, participants who regularly ate oatmeal for breakfast during the semester were more likely to eat a healthy breakfast during exams. Students who ate unhealthy breakfasts during the semester — such as pastries or doughnuts — ate even more junk food during exams.
2. Be your own Choice Architect
Instead of depleting valuable cognitive resources to guide you through each and every decision, eliminate unnecessary choices. Steve Jobs famously wore a black turtleneck every day so he didn’t have to waste time thinking about what to wear. I have a friend who always orders the special in a restaurant so he doesn’t have to bother with the endless options on the menu. As your own choice architect, design your surroundings to promote choices that reflect your values. Fill your refrigerator with healthy options to spare, turn your bedroom into a sleep sanctuary, and place your sneakers by the front door to remind you to go for a walk. Making it harder to choose behaviors that don’t align with your values makes it easy to choose behaviors that do. Eliminate vitality draining options. If you throw out the candy bar in your desk drawer, you won’t waste time thinking about whether or not you should eat it.
3. Aim for good enough
Instead of investing substantial time and effort mulling over the details of every option, aim for good enough. Research in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that Maximizers, people who agonize endlessly over decisions, experience more regret and lower levels of happiness than Satisficers. If you are exhibiting Maximizing tendencies, consider the following exercise. Over the next week, make one choice every day that is “good enough.” For example, if deciding what to cook for dinner, throw together what you already have in the fridge. If in need of a new toothpaste, close your eyes and pull one off the shelf. Later in the day, reflect on why this choice was a fine choice as well as the benefits of deciding without relentless deliberation.
4. Remember to HALT
If decision fatigue is depleting your energy stores and willpower, don’t forget to HALT.
HALT stands for:
Hungry
Angry
Lonely
Tired
If you are experiencing any of the above, you may be vulnerable to making impulsive or suboptimal choices. The key is to recognize how these states might influence your decision-making capacity and to press pause before rushing into a decision you might later regret. Next time decision paralysis kicks in, ask yourself: Am I hungry, angry, lonely, or tired? Eating a snack, taking a walk, calling a friend, and getting a good night’s sleep might work wonders. As the old saying goes, don’t make a permanent decision because of a temporary emotion.
5. Perform a pre-mortem
Doctors perform a post-mortem when a patient dies to figure out the cause of death. A pre-mortem is the hypothetical opposite. Instead of waiting for “the end” to figure out what went wrong, a pre-mortem is a hypothetical exercise that you perform before a decision has been made. The idea is to imagine yourself in the future and that the decision you made did not turn out well. For instance, perhaps you are considering leaving your job. The upsides are obvious to you. To make sure you aren’t missing anything, fast forward in your mind three months and imagine that you are bored, lonely, and concerned about finances. By forcing yourself to imagine scenarios that turn out to be sub-optimal, you can pick up. blind spots in your thinking according to psychologist Gary Klein.
Bottom line: Don’t be a squirrel when it comes to making decisions.
You will have a better holiday if you put your phone away.
A study from the University of British Columbia found that phones make social interactions less fun.
“When we use our phones while we are spending time with people we care about—apart from offending them—we enjoy the experience less” explained one of the researchers, Ryan Dwyer.
When phones were on the table, participants reported more boredom during the meal. This finding surprised the researchers—they assumed that people would be less bored when they had access to their phones because they could entertain themselves if there was a lull in the conversation.
The joy-dampening effects of phones extend beyond the dinner table. In-person social interactions suffer when we are on our phones – be it at work, watching a movie, or taking a walk. Just the sight of a phone—yours or someone else’s—is enough to undermine the quality of a conversation.
Bottom line: There is a real and detectable benefit from putting your phone away when you’re spending time with friends and family.
