In a Pew Research Center survey of 6,034 American adults taken in July 2022, 57% of single respondents said they were not looking for a relationship or for casual dates. The share of singles who were looking had fallen to 42%, from 49% in 2019. Those figures describe a large group of adults who are unattached and, by their own account, not in a hurry to change that.
Singles’ Stated Reasons
An earlier Pew survey, from February 2022, asked singles who were not looking for their reasons. Among them, 72% said enjoying being single was at least a minor reason, and 63% said they had more important priorities. Both answers describe a decision made on the merits.
The July 2022 survey found that 3 in 10 American adults were single, and that the drop in singles who were looking came mostly from men, whose share fell from 61% in 2019 to 50%. Among women the figure was 35%, little changed from 38% in 2019. Women who were looking were also more particular about what they wanted. Among singles open to only one kind of relationship, 41% of women wanted a committed relationship only, compared with 25% of men.
A person who has stopped looking and a person who is looking selectively both spend long stretches single, for different reasons, and the second group is the one the question of settling is about.
Single Living in the Census Figures
The Census Bureau counted 38.5 million one-person households in 2024, which was 29% of all households in the United States. In 1974 the figure was 19%. The median age at first marriage in the Bureau’s 2025 release was 30.8 for men and 28.4 for women, compared with 23.5 and 21.1 in 1975.
The household count includes people who live alone by choice and people who would prefer a partner. With the marriage figures, it shows that adult life without a spouse in the house is common, and that first marriages now happen about 7 years later than they did in 1975.
Fear of Being Single
A 2013 paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, led by Stephanie Spielmann at the University of Toronto, measured how much participants agreed with statements such as “I feel anxious when I think about being single forever.” Those with higher scores were more likely to stay in unsatisfying relationships and were less selective about new partners, including in speed-dating sessions.
In one experiment, single participants viewed fictional profiles, some of which were written to suggest a person who was unkind or emotionally unavailable. Participants who feared being single recognized the warning signs and still showed interest in those people. The pattern was the same for men and women and did not vary with age. Spielmann’s explanation was that people who fear single life want a relationship so badly that they are willing to overlook warning signs they can see.
Holding Out by Choice
Holding out usually means holding out for something particular. Some hold out for a partner of the same faith, and others want to date a sugar daddy or someone with no interest in children.
Each of these is a narrower search than the general pool. A narrower search takes longer, and a person running one is more likely to spend several years single on purpose.
Satisfaction Among Long-Term Singles
A study published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin in 2026 followed 2,930 never-married adults in the German Family Panel from 2009 to 2021. To be included, participants had to remain unmarried and without a committed partner at all 11 yearly surveys. Roughly 90% of each age group stayed above the midpoint of the life satisfaction scale for the entire period. Lead author Elaine Hoan reported that the singles with the highest well-being tended to be more extraverted, less neurotic, more highly educated and employed full time.
Satisfaction with being single varied more than satisfaction with life in general. About 67% of the youngest group reported high and stable satisfaction with their single status, while among the middle-aged group the highly satisfied share was about 37%, with a smaller group, about 18%, reporting low satisfaction.
Differences Between Single Women and Men
A 2025 study by Elaine Hoan and Geoff MacDonald at the University of Toronto, published in Social Psychological and Personality Science, compared nearly 6,000 single adults. Single women reported higher sexual satisfaction than single men, and the authors linked the gap to earlier research showing that men fear being single more than women do. Younger single men had the most difficulty, and older men tended to be more content. The authors suggested that men may have more to gain than women from being in a romantic relationship.
Counter-Evidence From Europe
A 2024 paper in Psychological Science, led by Julia Stern of the University of Bremen, analyzed 77,064 participants aged 50 or older from 27 European countries and found that lifelong singles reported lower life satisfaction than people who had been partnered. The gap was largest when singlehood was defined as never having had a partner at all.
The same paper found the largest gaps among younger participants and men, which matches the Toronto findings, and the authors described the average differences as small. Because the study is cross-sectional, it describes an association, and Stern said the evidence pointed to selection, meaning that people with certain personalities are more likely to enter relationships. People single all their lives were also less extraverted and less open to new experiences. The gap in satisfaction was also wider in countries with higher marriage rates, such as those in southern Europe, where staying single is contrary to local expectation.
An Open Question
The research so far describes who stays single and how they fare. It says less about the people at the center of the settling question, those who would accept a partner but only one who meets a specific standard. If most singles who are not looking are content and a minority are waiting for one kind of person, how long is that minority willing to wait?
