Posted on 10/29/2001 2:40:08 PM PST by Utah Girl
Years ago, Kris Osborn's father, a psychiatrist, gave him a bit of advice:
"If you go and chase after women, you'll never meet quality women. You only find quality women if you excel in your own life."
At 32, Osborn is working hard at excelling in his own life. He's the newest general assignment anchor of "CNN Headline News" here, a position he took in July. He's still single, however. Can a quality woman be far behind? Well, there's a new love interest in Boston, but it's too early to tell.
At the moment, Osborn is leading the single man's good life in trendy Buckhead, his treadmill in front of the TV for those Sunday afternoons of football, nothing but bottled water in the fridge. He shares the upscale apartment only with a shelter cat named Byron.
While he lives alone, Osborn is not alone. The 2000 census shows that more than 27 million Americans live by themselves, about one-fourth of all households, nearly 10 percent of the population. For the first time, one-person households outnumber traditional fami- lies.
"With the increase in the divorce rate, the increase in the age at which people first get married and with our increasing longevity, the experience of being single is now one of the most widely shared experiences of adulthood," says Bella DePaulo, visiting professor of psychology at the University of California-Santa Barbara.
And when you add in the single people who are living together but not married the number of singles in America soars. Their ranks increased from 38 million in 1970 to 82 million in 2000. Single people now account for more than 40 percent of the adult population, up from 28 percent of all adults in the United States three decades ago, according to DePaulo, who cites census statistics.
"These findings are not surprising. They reflect a 30-year trend in America to marry later in life, divorce or never get married at all," says Xavier Amador, co-author of Being Single in a Couples' World: How to be Happily Single While Looking for Love and director of psychology at New York State Psychiatric Institute in New York City.
According to the American Association for Single People (AASP), an "unmarried majority" has emerged in most major cities, as well as six states, facts the association disseminated on Capitol Hill last month during National Singles Week.
"And within a few years, the majority of households in the nation will be headed by unmarried adults," says AASP Executive Director Tom Cole- man.
Up until a few years ago when AASP was formed, virtually all singles groups were for dating and matchmaking, focused on social and recreational activities. Now more and more groups are formed for support, even political reasons.
"As single people begin to wake up and realize that we are being cheated sometimes to the tune of thousands of dollars per year in higher taxes, higher insurance rates, fewer employee benefits and smaller Social Security benefits more of their attention and support will shift toward organizations fighting for legal and economic reform," Coleman says.
Conservative groups have expressed concern over the "single and alone" trend, calling it a troubling indicator of deeper societal problems.
But demographers say that what the trend truly reveals is adults just prefer their own company, living near their families but not with them. In fact, it is very American.
"Americans are individualists, and unless we're married and raising children, we tend to want to live alone rather than impose on relatives," says Andrew Cherlin, a Johns Hopkins University sociology pro- fessor.
Cherlin says some people are worried that it makes for "a more detached society, but most people who live alone live near friends and family. "
Demographers, however, point out that the "single" trend will have a profound effect on American institutions. With fewer households having children, for instance, public schools will face a more difficult time gathering support for educational and building programs.
What caused this? We live in a culture of narcissism, with problems created by self-love supposedly solved by even more doses of self-love.
Marriage has been attacked from so many quarters that few people now think that getting married young and having children within the bonds of matrimony is a desirable way to live.
Boys and men have been willing to father children but not to be fathers. I place most of the blame on them, not on the women.
Women have hoped they could be such good housemates that their boyfriends would marry them. Common law marriage in the past was not all bad, but now this is just an excuse to trade partners every so often. It is a bad bargain for everyone.
Our society cannot continue to exist with these anarchist tendencies.
I have a few friends who slept around, etc. They were always worried about STD's, unplanned pregnancies, "will he still love me tomorrow?", etc. I'm not saying it is easy to wait until marriage, but it will be worth it...
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