What Makes Single Life Attractive: an Explorative Examination of the Advantages of Singlehood

Many people do not have an intimate partner, one reason being that they prefer to be single. The current research aimed to address the question what makes single life appealing, that is, to identify the possible advantages of being single. More specifically, Study 1 employed open-ended questionnaires on a sample of 269 Greek-speaking participants, and identified 84 such advantages. By using quantitative research methods on a sample of 612 Greek-speaking participants, Study 2 classified these advantages into 10 broader categories. The “More time for myself,” followed by the “Focus on my goals,” and the “No one dictates my actions,” were rated as the most important. Men found the “Freedom to flirt around” more important than women, while women found the Focus on my goals and the “No tensions and fights” more important than men. In addition, younger participants rated the Focus on my goals as more important than older ones. Furthermore, low scorers in mating performance found the identified advantages more important than high scorers.