World Single’s Day??

Due to a number of spam emails I received this morning, I found out that today is World Single’s Day. Although this actually doesn’t apply to me, several webshops thought it nonetheless a good idea to urge me to use this special occasion as a reason to buy their clothes. I did not think that a good reason at all, but anyway, that’s not what I wanted to talk about.

What I find remarkable about this day, is that it is apparently interpreted in rather different ways. One of my emails started like this: “HAPPY WORLD SINGLE’S DAY!” (no kidding, they used Caps Lock and all); and another started like this: “Today is Single’s Day *broken heart emoji*”. So what? If you’re single, are you supposed to celebrate or cry today?

Although I don’t give a damn about this nonsense called “World Single’s Day”, I do find this an interesting question. It seems that today’s society considers being together with someone as the ideal, and this triggers some sort of reaction from single’s trying to convince others that they’re all extremely happy in their loneliness. As is the Council’s custom when presented with difficult questions like these, we will now take a few fictional works to make a scientific argument on whether being single is a reason for joy or for tears.

Here’s the thing: in Greek mythology, relationships usually don’t last long. The one’s that do, are either not really happy (Zeus and Hera), or one of the lovers dies (poor Orpheus) or one of the lovers spends half a life fighting a war and then get’s lost at sea (looking at you, Odysseus). Moving on to the Arthurian legends. Actually quite a lot of happy endings here. However, the romances that actually interest us, like Arthur & Guinevere or Tristan & Isolde, end in heart-break and death. Moving on again: romanticism. Most of the relationships here are tragic as well. And if even if we were to purely focus on Jane Austen, you may notice that it is often only the lead character who gets a happy love life. All others in a relationship are unhappy, or at best mildly content but not in love.

Moral of the story: relationships can make for great tales. But they don’t always end well. And if they do end well, they’re probably not that interesting. So if you are boring, you should cry at single’s day because you could be happy if you were in a relationship. But if you’re interesting, be glad that you’re single or you will end up like Romeo & Juliet. Makes sense right?