Do you believe that you need to be in a romantic relationship to be truly happy? That no one is complete without the love of a romantic partner? If so, you have a lot of company. In countries such as the U.S. and Canada, those beliefs are part of the conventional wisdom, perpetuated by popular culture (remember “You complete me”) and rarely challenged. They are sold to us as romantic. They shape our dreams and aspirations.
I’ve spent many years studying people I call “single at heart,” who live in proud defiance of those beliefs. They are happy and flourishing because they are single, not despite it. Most of them grew up in cultures suffused with the gauzy mythology about the “magical mythical romantic partner.” They had to shake it off to embrace their most meaningful, fulfilling, and authentic life—their single life.
Taking seriously the myth of the magical romantic partner is not just hazardous to single people who live their best lives by staying single. Recent research shows that beliefs that put romantic partners on a pedestal may also be part of a psychological process that undermines the happiness of single people more generally, and even coupled people.
Overvaluing Romantic Relationships: Four Studies
In “Relationships on a pedestal,” published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin earlier this year (2024), Brittany E. Dennett and Yuthika U. Girme of Simon Fraser University report four studies documenting the potential risks to everyday life satisfaction of believing that you need to have a romantic relationship to be truly happy and fulfilled.
The studies included college students as well as adults from the community. All four studies included single people (they identified as single or divorced, and not dating or dating only casually) and one study included coupled people. At the beginning of each study, participants were asked questions assessing their “relationship pedestal beliefs” as well as their fear of being single. Then they reported their satisfaction with their daily life, sometimes for as many as 14 days. Coupled people also reported their satisfaction with their romantic relationship.
People who put romantic relationships on a pedestal agree with statements such as “No one is truly complete without the love of a romantic partner.” And, “It is important to be in a relationship if people want to be fulfilled.” People who were afraid of being single agreed with statements such as “It scares me to think there might not be anyone out there for me.” And, “If I end up alone in life, I will probably feel that there is something wrong with me.” People who were satisfied with their daily lives agreed more strongly with statements such as “I felt satisfied with my life.” People who were satisfied with their romantic relationship more strongly agreed with statements such as “Today, our relationship made me very happy.”
The Fear of Being Single Is Key
In all four studies, people who put romantic relationships on a pedestal were more afraid of being single. In turn, those who were afraid of being single were less satisfied with their day-to-day lives and the coupled people were also less satisfied with their romantic relationships.
With the methodology they used, the social scientists could not establish for sure that putting romantic relationships on a pedestal caused people to be afraid of being single, or that being afraid of being single caused people to be less satisfied with their lives or their romantic relationships. They could only say that their analyses supported those possibilities more strongly than other interpretations.
Get Down Off that Pedestal
Believing that you need a romantic partner to be really and truly happy is not just a harmless myth. It may put you at risk for being afraid of being single. That fear may be the real culprit. In the four studies, people who feared being single were less satisfied with their everyday lives and the coupled people were also less satisfied with the everyday state of their romantic relationships.
Think again about the beliefs that comprise a fear of being single: “It scares me to think there might not be anyone out there for me” and “If I end up alone in life, I will probably feel that there is something wrong with me.” These beliefs, like the belief that single people can never be really and truly happy, are relentlessly promoted in popular culture, everyday conversations, and sometimes even in scholarly writings. But they should be challenged rather than promoted. Studies show that being afraid of being single is linked to a whole array of bad experiences, such as feeling depressed, having low standards for romantic partners, and clinging to unsatisfying romantic relationships.
When I wrote Single at Heart, I thought of it as validating the experiences of people who love being single and want to stay single. I also thought it would help other people, such as their relatives and friends, understand them better. But the more I learn about the potentially destructive implications of the fear of being single, the more important I think it is for people to understand that a single life can be a deeply fulfilling life, even if it is not the life to which they aspire.