S22E17: What Everyone Gets Wrong About Being Single (From Someone Who Has Been Single Her Entire Life) w/ Dr. Bella DePaulo

Dateable: Your insider's look into modern dating and relationships

Yue Xu and Julie Krafchick

Science, Social Sciences, Health & Fitness, Sexuality, Relationships, Society & Culture

4.7 • 910 Ratings

🗓️ 2 June 2026

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What if you actually love living alone and are sick of the pitying looks from those who couldn't imagine happiness outside of coupledom? We're joined by Dr. Bella DePaulo who describes herself as 'Single at Heart' and shares why she's happy as a clam (even well into her 70s!) and feels anything but lonely being single even in a partnered world. We're discussing how to know if you truly are single at heart or where you fall on the spectrum, how you can thrive on your own whether it's for the long-haul or just in a passing season, and why you can have a meaningful, fulfilling life filled with love regardless of your relationship status. To learn more about Dr. Bella DePaulo go to https://belladepaulo.com/. Get her book 'Single At Heart: The Power, Freedom, and Heart-filling Joy of Single Life' wherever books are sold. ---- Take our Dating Archetypes quiz: https://howtobedateable.com/ Read our book: How To Be Dateable: The Essential Guide To Finding Your Person and Falling in Love: https://howtobedateable.com/ Try the Dateable AI Dating Coach: Get personalized advice trained on our years of podcast episodes, courses and frameworks: https://studio.com/dateable Follow us @dateablepodcast, @juliekrafchick and @nonplatonic. Check out our website for more content. Also listen to our other podcasts The Psychology of Relationships and Exit Interview available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. WE WROTE A BOOK! HOW TO BE DATEABLE (Simon & Schuster) is available now: https://howtobedateable.com/ Want to remove distractions from your dates? Download Brick and get 10% off at https://www.getbrick.app/DATEABLE Our Sponsors: * Avocado Green Mattress: Check out their mattress and furniture sale: https://avocadogreenmattress.com/DATEABLE * Get Rain of Shadows and Endings wherever books are sold or at Kensington Publishing https://www.kensingtonbooks.com * Quince: Get free shipping and 365 day returns at https://quince.com/dateable * Ruggable: Get 10% off your first order, sitewide, with promo code DATEABLE at https://ruggable.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm Ui Shue. And I'm Julie Craftchick. We're active daters turned dating insiders. Here to dive into everything, modern dating and relationships. Welcome to Datable.
0:15.4	Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Datable. Do you ever feel like maybe you're just so much happier single that maybe your default setting is single versus trying to get in a relationship?
0:30.8	Are you allowed to say that? I know. Is that illegal? Although it is becoming, it's becoming trendy to be single, right?
0:38.5	We saw that.
0:39.2	Our boyfriend's embarrassing now article.
0:41.4	And there's been a lot of stuff that's circulating.
0:43.9	And I think all of this is like net good in the sense that doesn't pit like being single is bad and being in a relationship is good.
0:51.4	And this conversation really isn't about single is better. It's more of like,
0:56.2	what is authentic to you? What is the best for you? And don't feel like I have to fit into a mold
1:02.0	because society tells me so. And lucky for you, here's an expert who has devoted her entire
1:09.1	professional life researching the single experience. Her name is Dr.
1:13.1	Bella DePaulo. She's an acclaimed social scientist, leading expert on the single life,
1:17.9	and has been described by the Atlantic as America's foremost thinker and writer on the single
1:23.6	experience. And she's not just an academic. She's living proof, living through being single,
1:30.6	what she calls single at heart. And, you know, she shares this. She's 72. She has lived life. It's not a
1:37.8	phase for her. Like, this is what it is, you know. And she has written on this topic. She's the author of the book Single at
1:46.0	Heart, which is what we'll be discussing, but also singled out and how we live now. And she's
1:52.0	written the Living Single blog for Psychology Today since 2008. So she's been living the single
1:58.6	life and advocating for it for a long time.
2:01.6	And in this episode, you get to hear Bella talk about what it means to be single at heart.
2:07.2	And what are some of the common myths?
2:09.4	How do you know that you're actually single at heart versus you're doing it out of spite because you've had bad dating experiences?
	...

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