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With all the relationship milestones being celebrated on social media, it may seem like everyone you know is part of a happy couple. But if you’re still navigating life solo, rest assured. You’re not alone. In fact, research shows that people are staying single longer and settling down later. If they do, some are choosing to remain single forever. And they’re doing it by choice.
Being single is no longer seen as a temporary condition. Society is changing and one of those changes is that we no longer blindly assume that everyone is married by the age of thirty. The fact that someone is single is therefore no longer a reason to feel sorry for that person. And rightly so, because there are many mental and physical benefits that come with it.
New research published in the journal Evolutionary Psychological Science expands on these benefits, saying that people view single life primarily as an opportunity for self-development. Researchers from the University of Nicosia set out to find out what makes single life so appealing, and found this and more.
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What makes the single life so appealing?
With the new study, the researchers wanted to answer the question of why people see single life as advantageous. To investigate this question, they conducted two studies on the advantages of single life .
The first study was an online questionnaire. In the questionnaire, 269 Greek-speaking men and women were asked to write down what they thought were the advantages of living as a single person . The researchers analyzed the answers and identified 84 different advantages.
In the second part of the study, the list of benefits was narrowed down to ten categories by presenting the list of 84 benefits to a larger group of 612 participants. They were asked to rate how important each benefit on the list would be to them if they were single.
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10 Key Benefits
Based on the responses, the researchers found that these are the top ten benefits, ranked by most important benefits:
- More time for myself
- Focus on my goals
- Nobody tells me what to do
- Don’t get hurt
- Peace of mind
- No tensions and arguments
- Freedom to flirt
- To spare
- Not doing things I don’t like
- Better control over what I eat
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According to the research, self-development is the number one reason for staying single. That is the biggest advantage of being single: the ability to prioritize your self-development. That is, having more time for yourself to focus on your goals without having to worry about someone telling you what to do.
According to the research, men find the ‘freedom to flirt’ more important than women, while women find ‘focusing on my goal’ and ‘no tensions and arguments’ more important than men. In addition, younger singles find ‘focusing on my goal’ more important than older singles.
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