Your Voices, My Resources

Over the course of my years of blogging, I have sometimes experimented with hosting posts by guest bloggers. Many of those guest posts have been popular with readers. In that spirit, here are two invitations to share your perspectives on single life. In the first (Your Voices I), I would post your contribution (or an excerpt from it) on one of my blogs. In the second (Your Voices II), you would post on the designated topic on your own blog (or twitter feed), as part of a blogfest event.

In the third part of this post, I offer some resources on popular topics relevant to single life (and the area of expertise that preoccupied me before I started writing about single life, the psychology of lying and detecting lies).

Your Voices I: Share Your Love of Your Single Life

A reader of this blog recently sent me a great suggestion. He said that he would like to hear from people who love their single lives. What makes them passionate about living single? What are the different perspectives and approaches to life of people who are single at heart?

So, single-at-heart readers, have at it! Tell me why your own single life is so fulfilling. Send your essays and observations to me at BellaDePaulo [at] gmail.com. Typical blog posts are between 400 and 800 words, but there are lots of exceptions. I may publish entire posts or select excerpts.

There is no deadline. Submit your writing whenever you like. I will probably space the essays out over time, interspersed with my usual posts. I may also post some of the essays or excerpts on my personal blog instead of here. As you can see, this idea is in the early stages.

Your Voices II: Join the Blogfest

Cindy Butler of Unmarried Equality, Christina Campbell and Lisa A. of Onely, Eleanore Wells of Spinsterlicious Life and I are organizing a series of blogfests to raise awareness about singlism (the stereotyping, stigmatizing, and discrimination against single people) and single life. We call our group the Communications League for Unmarried Equality or CLUE.

Our first blogest, about the cost of single life, launched on tax day, April 15. Dozens of bloggers participated. Our next event is scheduled for Independence Day, July 4, and the theme is the ways in which single people are both independent and interdependent: they value their autonomy but they also attend to their connections with other people (usually to a greater extent than married people do) and they often do more than their share of caring for people who cannot care for themselves.

If you have a blog and would like to join the league of singles bloggers for this blogfest or for future events, let me know (or any of the other organizers) and we will add your name to the list and send you more information. We also welcome people who want to tweet about the events.

Resources

There are some topics that I get asked about often and write about repeatedly as new data and new perspectives emerge. Over at my personal blog, I am collecting links on popular topics and making them available simply by clicking the title of the relevant theme. I will continue to create more of these collections. Here are the ones available now:

On getting married and (not) getting happier: What we know

Debunking the myth that married people live longer

Single parents and their children: Donâ€™t believe the prophesies of doom

Single at heart: What do we know about it?

What do we know about the experiences of singles around the world?

Singles in the military and foreign service: Voices and perspectives

Is it fair for businesses to charge singles more? Examples from many sectors

Hereâ€™s what I know about lying and detecting lies

<!–

And they are apparently too stupid to realize how easy it is to ensure they are called out for their bad behavior.

–>

Bella DePaulo (Ph.D., Harvard; Visiting Professor, UC Santa Barbara), an expert on single life, is the author of several books, including â€œSingled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever Afterâ€ and â€œSinglism: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How to Stop It.â€ Dr. DePaulo has discussed singles and single life on radio and television, including NPR and CNN, and her work has been described in newspapers such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and USA Today, and magazines such as Time, Atlantic, the Week, More, the Nation, Business Week, AARP Magazine, and Newsweek. Visit her website at www.BellaDePaulo.com.

Like this author?
Catch up on other posts by
Bella DePaulo, Ph.D
(or subscribe to their
feed).

Comments