As a behavioural economist and lifelong bachelor, I should no longer be surprised by how comfortable married people are telling single people how to live. Among elsewhere, this unsolicited advice can be found on high-profile opinion pages, with an array of articles advising singles to marry sooner rather than later in order to live a more fulfilling life.

A recent Deseret News op-ed urged 34-year-old Taylor Swift, currently dating Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, to get married. According to this piece, Swift could then find stability and contentment, diverging from a path of serial monogamy and public heartbreaks (often referenced in her lyrics). And by marrying now, she would improve her chances to have kids, something the pop star has acknowledged as a potential goal.

When I was 34, I threw myself a bachelor party as a new professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. Fifteen friends visited my new home for a weekend of hiking, poker, wiffleball, tailgating and the obligatory bar crawl.

There was just one hitch: I wasn’t getting hitched.

Instead, after a recent “near miss,” I began to doubt that matrimony was the right path for me. I thought, Who gets to decide that you need to get married in order to celebrate your singlehood?

And there is a lot of singlehood to be celebrated.

In the United States, 50% of adults are unmarried, 28% live alone, and Pew Research projects that by the time they reach middle age, as many as 25% of millennials will never marry. Pew also reports that 50% of single adults in the United States are not actively looking for 𝑠e𝑥 or romance. Their temporary or permanent disinterest in love or lust is varied and revealing. Forty-four percent simply enjoy being single, and 47% have other life priorities taking precedence. Like Swift, they may be making art, building a business or both.

I don’t know Taylor Swift, nor do I know most of the 127 million unmarried adults in the United States. Yet I contend that the former serves as a powerful, positive role model for the latter — especially young women. By all the evidence, Swift is resilient, creative and courageously embracing her wholeheartedness, whether dating or not.

Going SoloTaylor Swift appears to exemplify a subset of singles that I call “Solos” — distinct from the kind of person who feels incomplete until they someday find “the one.”

Solos are wholehearted and celebrate their autonomy while remaining connected to friends, family and community. They think unconventionally about relationships, and about life in general. These perspectives challenge traditional notions of singlehood, offering an empowering alternative to waiting, sometimes hopelessly, for Mr. or Ms. Right to come along.

A recent Deseret News op-ed urged 34-year-old Taylor Swift, currently dating Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, to get married. According to this piece, Swift could then find stability and contentment, diverging from a path of serial monogamy and public heartbreaks (often referenced in her lyrics). And by marrying now, she would improve her chances to have kids, something the pop star has acknowledged as a potential goal.

When I was 34, I threw myself a bachelor party as a new professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. Fifteen friends visited my new home for a weekend of hiking, poker, wiffleball, tailgating and the obligatory bar crawl.

There was just one hitch: I wasn’t getting hitched.

Instead, after a recent “near miss,” I began to doubt that matrimony was the right path for me. I thought, Who gets to decide that you need to get married in order to celebrate your singlehood?

And there is a lot of singlehood to be celebrated.

In the United States, 50% of adults are unmarried, 28% live alone, and Pew Research projects that by the time they reach middle age, as many as 25% of millennials will never marry. Pew also reports that 50% of single adults in the United States are not actively looking for 𝑠e𝑥 or romance. Their temporary or permanent disinterest in love or lust is varied and revealing. Forty-four percent simply enjoy being single, and 47% have other life priorities taking precedence. Like Swift, they may be making art, building a business or both.

I don’t know Taylor Swift, nor do I know most of the 127 million unmarried adults in the United States. Yet I contend that the former serves as a powerful, positive role model for the latter — especially young women. By all the evidence, Swift is resilient, creative and courageously embracing her wholeheartedness, whether dating or not.

Going SoloTaylor Swift appears to exemplify a subset of singles that I call “Solos” — distinct from the kind of person who feels incomplete until they someday find “the one.”

Solos are wholehearted and celebrate their autonomy while remaining connected to friends, family and community. They think unconventionally about relationships, and about life in general. These perspectives challenge traditional notions of singlehood, offering an empowering alternative to waiting, sometimes hopelessly, for Mr. or Ms. Right to come along.

Solos may welcome romance — for example, making plans to spend a cozy holiday season together in their beau’s new $6 million Kansas City mansion. Solos, however, do not feel incomplete in the meantime. Swift seems not to be one of those people who drop their friends every time a boy comes along. She is dedicated to her girl gang — as the almost nonstop coverage of her nights out with her female friends shows — and her community of Swifties.

If you have any doubts about Swift’s unconventional perspective, check out her Time Person of the Year Instagram post featuring the magazine cover of her and one of her three cats. In her announcement, she makes the stereotype of the “cat lady” look cool to her 278 million followers.

Time Magazine: We’d like to name you Person of the Yea―Me: Can I bring my cat.

Being single is about one’s relationship status. Going Solo is about one’s perspective.

My transformation from single to Solo occurred in three phases. My autonomy and self-reliance began to develop early in life, being the son of a financially struggling single mom. I had to learn to parent myself at a young age, becoming so adept at self-sufficiency that a girlfriend’s mom remarked to her, “He doesn’t need you.” Mom thought that was a bug, but I believe it to be a feature of a healthy relationship in which partners choose each other — interdependent rather than co-dependent.

I recognised my wholeheartedness as a result of an acute heartbreak in my 30s. I thought I would ride the relationship escalator with a smart, funny fashionista. However, she wanted kids, and I did not — which brought the relationship to an end. As I was grieving (hard), I had a moment of insight when I realised, I am happy when I am single. Not “less than.” Not “incomplete.”

My unconventional perspective about relationships, and about life more generally, occurred as part of my “Solo” podcast, as I realised how fulfilling a broad array of relationships can be — and why important relationships should be given the same high status that a marriage has.

Fortunately, people have given up and stopped asking me, “So, is there anyone special?” However, with the holidays here, too many singles — especially women, who typically experience more strident and insidious pressure than men — will face that question.