RESEARCH_FILE
Singlism
Singlism is the stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination directed at single adults, named by Bella DePaulo and Wendy Morris in 2005. It flows from an unexamined 'Ideology of Marriage and Family' — the assumption that a romantic partnership is the one truly important adult relationship — and it is largely unrecognized: judging singles as immature, self-centered or lonely is rarely seen as prejudice at all, even though the same judgments about other groups would be.
SEE THE PRACTICE
Turn a thought this research explains into one clear move.
THE THOUGHT
“Still single at my age means something's wrong with me”
YOUR RECORDED RESPONSE
“Single is a status. The 'something's wrong with me' explanation is a script I absorbed—not a finding.”
ONE PRIVATE MOVE
Write down three rejections from the past year and next to each one, write the actual reason the other person gave (or likely had). Then write what you added to it. Notice the gap. Keep it private.
How it sounds in your head
The thought 'everyone at this wedding is wondering what's wrong with me' treats a cultural stereotype as a personal verdict. The singlism research reframes it: the judgment is a documented societal bias with a name and a literature — evidence about the ideology, not about you.