Singles, The Magazine for Today's Single

FEATURES FOR SINGLES:

It's About Time! Singles Make the Cover of Time Magazine!

From Singles, The Magazine for Today's Single

It's a first for the New Millennium, and an indicator of things to come. How could it be? Singles are usually bashed in the mainstream media, so what happened to provoke a kinder and gentler portrayal of us in the August 28th, 2001 issue of Time magazine?

Besides plastering single people on the cover (well, actually it's a picture of the four babes that star in Sex in the City, a hit TV series centering on the lives of promiscuous singles, who are skilled in dysfunctional relationships and the inability to form happy social relations) the byline reads.., "Who Needs a Husband", and "More Women Are Saying No to Marriage and Embracing the Single Life - Are they Happy?"

Are they happy? Are couples happy? What sort of criteria are they defining happiness as? One suspects they see happy as a noun, rather than the fluid adjective it really is. :) Happiness, regardless of marriage status - for everybody - is not a THING to be gotten, as are the Chicken Pox or a Mutual Fund. Yet, popular media driven by commercial culture incessantly suggests it is. Naturally.

For if buying a new car (or a lifestyle, which buys a lot of new cars) is the motor driving capitalism, then their best method of advertising (read, propaganda) is to persuade us that Things give it to us. Our only job is to wear out our credit cards.

That also makes us good citizens. As the interest on both national and international debt owed to us, is the main reason our country is so wealthy.

There's an old Immigration Service joke.. when an illegal alien is stopped at the border and asked if he has a green card, he responds: no, I only carry American Express. But happiness is the byproduct of a process, know as Real Life (not the television show version either..) which responds to meaningful situations and experiences, and by our making good choices in the midst of them. The extent to which our choices live up to our ideals and give us meaning goes a long way to predicating how much happiness we will feel. That is, by finding and creating, meaning (not necessarily in that order) we gain satisfactions, joys and what most would call happiness. It is not a thing in itself, as the philosophers say. It springs from a good life, well lived. Something singles are in many ways uniquely qualified to do. Or conversely, it may come from the level of meaning we are able to create in the midst of whatever our life circumstances are. Happiness comes from the why within all the hows. But enough esoteric didacticism..

Let us Celebrate our Heralded cultural coming-of-age. It's about.. Time!

Inside the cover, there are three articles discussing this new phenomenon of Singlehood. Tamala Edwards, in her article "Flying Solo" starts off by admitting that singles Can live a fulfilling life (thanks for the news..) that being single Can be an empowering choice (power to the single people!) , but (and there is Always a moralistic warning required when it comes to singlehood it seems).. it is not an easy choice. Is being married or part of a couple an easy one then?

Still, all in all, the news is good. By a major magazine giving singles the centerpiece, albeit in a slightly skewed and morally questioning tone, our growing presence and importance is signified. Why did they do it? Probably because our importance to the consumer market cannot be underestimated as their own stories illustrate. The reality of our demographics gets continually harder to dodge, er,.. over Time. As our numbers continue to increase, so too will our power and a general mainstream respectability will follow as well. For we are rapidly becoming that very mainstream.

New statistics on singles are offered in this issue like fireworks.

Forget that the babes on the cover are all wearing red, white and blue against a suspiciously Valentine-ish Pink background. Don't even wonder if this a sneaky way of saying, now All American women can be single too (but not men?) as long as they are still yearning and searching for that Big Valentine in the Sky? Naturally, singles are expected to suffer in this way. Yet, is the romantic side of marriage really all it's stacked up too be? Not according to large percentage of my married friends, that's for sure. Does this image reduce us to compulsive romance seekers? Or do-we-not-still-have-a-life? Hmm..

Edward's article cites a Young and Rubicam poll concluded earlier this summer that showed: "Single women are the YUPPIES of this decade, the blockbuster consumer group whose tastes will matter most to retailers and dictate our trends."

Another poll points out that 60% of single women own their own home. That more than 40% (up from 30% in the 1960's) or 43 million adult females are single. A sociologist from the University of Chicago, Linda Wade, notes "this is huge." That unmarried women make up half of the adventure travelers and 2 out of every 5 business travelers. A Time poll was conducted showing 80% of men and women would like to find the perfect mate (perfect?), but if not, less than half said they'd marry someone else. Woe to any oldschool matchmakers selling perfection!

Further, a full 61% of single women between 18 and 49, according to a CNN-Time Poll, would consider rearing a child on their own. At Rutgers, we are told, the National Marriage Project has documented the rate of marriage fell by one-third since the 1970's. "Marriage is now an interlude and singlehood the state of affairs," writes famed Harvard sociologist Carol Gilligan. She trumpets the news, "There's now a pressure to create relationships that both men and women WANT to be in, and that's great! This is revolutionary." Even the author of The Rules, Ellen Fein, underscores that women "want men to value them. A final analysis is offered by Pam Wolf, 33, sitting in her New York one bedroom condo, "it would be great if I found a relationship that allowed me to be as I am and added something. But I am not going to do anything to attract a person that means changing. I've worked long and hard to be myself."

You Go, Girl! It's all about choices, as they say.

Saved for the end of the special singles series is an article about single mothers. Interesting that they come in last, since single parents are actually first, in terms of need for societal support, being among the poorest of the poor in our land of abundance. It's about Time, to acknowledge that too. Instead, a well to do mother magically replaces the marginalized reality. Time is thus reorienting consumer culture, allowing singles in the club, yes.. well, primarily those with greater purchasing power at least. This article quotes US census data that 32% of all babies are born to unmarried mothers. The article might've also noted that those children as a group are the ones most often below the poverty line.

But for Today, let's Ring the Bells for Singles, the "unmarried" alas, have made the cover of Time. Hoorah!