If the trend pieces and studies are to be believed, we’re living through a new golden age of the single person. Fewer Americans than ever are getting married, and they’re waiting longer and longer to do so. Many are living by themselves, often by choice. And yet, according to pop culture, a lot of them are awfully unhappy about it. In everything from “Girls” to Carly Rae Jepsen singles, our culture is obsessed with the prospect and possibility of finding a partner and escaping the lonely purgatory of singledom. Singleness, the message seems to be, is merely an unfulfilling wind-up for the far greater thrill of a real romantic relationship. But what would happen if we stopped hating on singledom, and started loving it?

In his new book, “Single: Arguments for the Uncoupled,” Michael Cobb, a professor of English at the University of Toronto, argues that our negative attitudes toward single people aren’t just hurting singles — they’re hurting our relationships and our culture. An academic work about music, film and literature, it claims that singles in North America have become a hated sexual minority, victims of our culture’s misplaced and out-of-step priorities. Cobb believes that single life can be as fulfilling, interesting and legitimate as any romantic arrangement, and that it’s high time we gave it more respect.

Salon spoke to Cobb over the phone from Toronto about the possibility of an unmarried president, “Girls” and what it’s like to be the spokesperson for singleness.

You argue that our current culture considers singleness to be a “conundrum.” What do you mean by that?

I don’t think we even know what being single is. We live in such a couples-obsessed society that there really are no “singles” out there — everyone is pre- or post-coupled. They’re either in the wings waiting or they’re past their prime and are no longer allowed to be part of this central way people not only organize their intimate lives but attain social legitimacy. People use relationships to bind themselves to social, political and cultural realities.

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Readers Comments (2)

1. A Garcia says:

   July 16, 2012 at 9:10 pm

   Its cause most stuff you see in music and on TV, is pretty much telling everyone to cheat on each other and being single is the better way to be, which is a lie, its them trying to break us down, a single person is easier to deal with than a couple which can be very strong together, and help each other out.
2. Zimkhitha Bogacu says:

   January 26, 2013 at 9:49 am

   Power of singlenes is the greatest power we woman must appreciate because it reveals who we are without depandind on husbands,boy friend or any form of sugar daddy you can find,I’M a single and proud of it cause in all my achievement I know it came out of a power of being a single woman,to all others woman I’d like to encourage you too to be in control of your life because you can, it’s a matter of deciding and just be focus.