Have you ever cried into a glass of Chianti or a bag of Oreos because you just can seem to be able you find your significant other? Despite what Hollywood would have you believe, very few people have.
A new study conducted by a team from the University of Auckland (New Zealand) has deemed it important to inform everyone that single people can be just as happy as those in relationships and that they don’t spend their days moping in the darkness like some real life cliches. The researcher team says that it’s all a mater of temperament.
Previous studies have concluded that single people are usually less satisfied with the state of lives, compared to people who have found their significant other. Or a person they currently believe to be their significant other. But the researchers from the new study say that these findings only reflect the average experience, and that there’s a group of people, a minority, who are very happy to be on their own.
These people have stronger relationships with their friends and family members, and they can also be very satisfied with their lives as long as they have the right temperament and the right view on relationships in general. The researchers say that they need to be the type of person that likes to avoid drama and conflict in their relationships. Wait. Isn’t that everyone?
And the researchers also inform that people who don’t mind drama and conflict in their relationships are less happy if they have to be single for a while. Well, at least they didn’t say that this group prefers to have drama and conflict in their relationships.
Yuthika Girme, lead author, and her colleagues explain the situation by saying that people who are happy being single find it less stressful to be romantically unattached.
James Maddux, senior scholar at George Mason University’s Center for the Advancement of Well-Being (Fairfax), was not involved in the study, but somehow thinks it was a serious project. He gave a statement saying that “I think this study underscores the point that you can never say one-size-fits-all. There are many paths to happiness”.
Apparently Maddux believes that people who try to avoid drama and conflict in their relationships may be a little neurotic. He also went on to add that some of them could find it useful to change their perspective on certain things, which is apparently one of the main goals in couples’ counseling – not to help people who have trouble communicating with one another understand each other, but to chance them and teach them to ignore their problems.
Maddux also advices sane people who dislike drama and conflict to not give up on finding love if they stumble upon a promising romantic relationship. He said that if you’re one of these people “You can change” and “You’re not stuck”.
However, it was unclear on whether he wanted single people to embrace being part of a healthy relationship or part of a relationship plagued with drama and conflict.
For their project, Yuthika Girme and her colleagues surveyed more than 4000 adults living in New Zealand. The subjects were asked questions once at the beginning of the study, and a second time a year later. Single people made up one fifth of all subjects both times.
It’s worth mentioning that more than half of American adults are currently single. And experts say that the number is on the rise as modern day people have a tendency of postponing marriage and / or divorcing after a few years.
The study was published earlier this week, on Friday (August 21, 2015), in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.
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