Being Single Is on the Rise. Nicola Slawson Gets Real About the Challenges and Joys of Not Being Partnered

Before launching “The Single Supplement,” a newsletter dedicated to single women, Nicola Slawson was frustrated. All the stories she read about being unpartnered were myopic in scope and pessimistic in tone. The rhetoric emphasized being single as something to fix, or evoked shame or sadness. As Slawson tells us, “It was all focused on dating and trying not to be single."

Slawson, a UK-based journalist, yearned for stories that reflected nuanced and varied experiences of being a single woman. So, she started her newsletter to offer a multifaceted exploration. Her writing covers themes around single life, such as stigmas, finances, and family relations. It also honors a wide spectrum of feelings, from joy and empowerment to fear, confusion, and beyond. Slawson’s newsletter took off—and that momentum has unspooled into her new book, Single: Living a Complete Life on Your Own Terms.

We chatted with Slawon about the complex, overlooked truths about being single today. She tells us why we need more education and policy supporting single people, and how we can all expand the narrative. Because however we feel about being single, evolving the conversation is about “living your best life and not being afraid to talk about it,” she says.

A CONVERSATION WITH NICOLA SLAWSON

Let's explore the stories surrounding being single. As you write, reigning attitudes about single women tend to be steeped in negativity and shame. The same goes for stories that center on the idea that everyone's partnered up and something must be wrong if you're not. Where are these attitudes perpetuated?

It's ingrained in everything. When we're little and reading story books, it's always a mom and a dad, a family unit, even when the characters are animals. It's in the language we speak to little ones: 'You're going to be popular with the boys,' or 'Save that talk for on your wedding day.' It's just so ingrained in everything from such an early age. As a teenager, I was obsessed with getting a boyfriend and the idea that something was wrong with you if you haven't got one. It's even in the language we use when we talk about single people. It places blame and makes you feel like you're doing something wrong or are out of sync: 'Oh, why are you still single? There must be something wrong with you.'

But the reality is that everything is changing all the time. You might have somebody in a relationship, and then they break up. The divorce rate is high everywhere, particularly in the US and the UK. There are so many people who are single and who live alone today. So, everything is always changing. And yet, single people are completely shut out of the conversation when it comes to things like policy, where they'll be talking about hard-working families and ignoring a massive section of the population.

And you explore how this can make someone question themselves.

It gets to you after a while. It does seep in, and you think, I'm doing something wrong. I really did absorb all of that. For ages, I wouldn't talk about how long I'd been single. I was ashamed about it. If anyone asked, I'd be vague. I didn't want to talk about how it felt when, slowly, my friends started partnering off one by one, and things were getting serious with their partners. You have this horrible feeling of being abandoned. And there's a feeling where it makes you question yourself.  

When did this start to change for you?

I had a shift in perspective. One, I realized that I did know quite a few people who are still single. Or some people who had been in relationships and had broken up. And their value didn't increase or decrease whether they had a ring on their finger. So, at first, that was something I had to relearn. I had to remind myself that my value is not dependent on my relationship status. But now, I'm confident in it.

I've been on a journey, but there are still so many people who have different experiences with being single. I run a community, The Single Supplement, which is a Facebook Group, and it's very active. There are lots of people in there who enjoy being single or are single by choice. There's also a lot of people who are struggling, or they [feel like they're] doing something wrong, or everyone's got it right and they haven't figured it out or are not hitting those classic milestones. There are many people for whom it's quite new. Maybe they've just broken up with somebody, and they don't feel like getting with somebody else straight away, or they want some time on their own. That's one of the reasons I wanted to write the book: I wanted to tell different stories. There are loads of stories about this because everyone's experience is different.

In chapter two, you dig into how being single can impact one person differently than somebody else for many reasons, including privilege, background, safety, and more. What are some of the hard and nuanced aspects of being single that you include, and why was this important to you?

I spoke to somebody who's low income and on government benefits, and they talked about living in a [small studio] and how if they lived with a partner, they'd be living in a nicer place. They also talk about not feeling safe where they live. As women, we're told, 'Make sure you don't walk anywhere on your own after dark,' but if you live alone, you don't have a choice. I spoke to one woman who's experienced a lot of fatphobia, and it was just horrific how she was treated on a date. I spoke to a writer who is disabled, and a dating agency told her she was too disabled to be on their books. I've had conversations with people where some people find it difficult when you say, 'There's nothing wrong with you for being single,' but they've internalized that there is something wrong with them because society makes them feel this way, and that might be because of ableism or racism.

I don't want to ever [make it seem like] I'm speaking for all single people. So, it was really important for me to explore and make this point that not all single people are created equal. It's all very well of me to say, 'You should enjoy being single,' but it affects many different things. There's an intersection where your relationship status can impact all sorts of things, from housing and finances to your career and standing in your family. I wanted to include loads of different perspectives because there are so many untold stories, and often, we just get one picture of being single.

You include a 'Single Manifesto' in one chapter where you write about how everyone's lives would be better if society changed how it views and treats single people. How can we take part in changing this?

One of the points I make in the Manifesto is about education. Why is it that we don't teach children that it's perfectly acceptable to be on your own, and it is a valid way to live life? Being on your own doesn't mean you're sad or a loser. It starts so young, and then that's where there's this misogynistic subculture, where [some people] believe they have a right to have a girlfriend, have sex, and they're angry that they don't have those things because, to them, the worst possible thing is to be single. Where does that messaging come from? So, I'd love to see a call to action around this.

There's also so much we can do about speaking to policymakers and reminding them that single people exist. Have they thought about how this impacts people who live alone? People in my community have started doing that: They pushed for meetings with MPs in the UK, for example. In the pandemic, we had lockdown, it took a long time in the UK for people to see that people who live alone probably need a support bubble. That [awareness] started because a single woman started a campaign and wrote to somebody saying, 'Have you thought about this?'

Also, this is about living your best life and not being afraid to talk about it. Because still, so many people have shame about talking about being single. So, on a small level, it's about people being more open, telling more stories about their lives, and sharing more stories from their single experiences. It's about being a bit prouder and more confident when talking about being single. I once went on national radio to talk about the cost of being single, and someone messaged me and said they'd never heard anyone talk about being single on the radio before!

In your time writing about being single, have you seen a shift in the conversation?

I'm a journalist, so I know a lot of journalists and editors, and many of them subscribe to the newsletter. I did notice that they started to commission more articles about being single. It wasn't as narrow in its focus as it was before—so that is good. There are also a couple more books out or coming out soon with similar themes, and that also makes me excited. What I'd like to see is bookshops having a whole section about being single. Often, when you go into a bookshop, there's a section on love and relationships and maybe one on feminism, but I'd love to see whole sections on being single and all the different aspects of it.

Politically wise, it's still quite hard to get anyone to pay attention. I often think I'm going to have to start a campaign around some of the things that I care about—many people in my community are desperate for a campaign to be launched. This would take a lot of hard work, energy, momentum, and support. But at the same time, I'm tempted, and that would give me hope. But I do think things have been changing and shifting. It won't be perfect anytime soon, but we can keep dreaming.

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Nicola Slawson is the creator of the popular newsletter The Single Supplement. She is passionate about telling human stories—other people’s and her own—and is a freelance journalist, writer, and public speaker.