What’s So Special about Single People?
Singles are such a diverse group. Can they be dismissed as a hapless collection of individuals with nothing in common?
Poo-poo. That’s what an editor at Forbes had to say when Singular magazine was launched in 2008. Well, those were not her exact words. Instead, she posed the condescending question, “Does the world really need a magazine for single people?”
She offered all sorts of reasons to be dismissive of such a publication. I was incensed, and sent a long, passionate reply. I figured I’d get blown off at least as unceremoniously as Singular magazine had. Instead, Forbes immediately offered to publish my screed.
Looking back at this more than a decade later, I think that what set me off wasn’t just one editor’s attitude toward one magazine. Contained within the editor’s perspective was a whole panoply of misunderstandings about single people and single life. And she was hardly the only person who thought that way.
Today, those stereotypes are still in need of debunking. So in commemoration of the first day of Unmarried and Single Americans Week (September 15–21), I am sharing my response in its entirety, exactly as published in Forbes in 2008. I’ll save my commentary, including an update on the actual fate of Singular magazine, for afterwards.
