No, Not Like That

Rather than give up on the couple unit in favour of nothing at all, we should have been finding new units - units of friends and siblings and wasters who couldn't get a mortgage on their own. We should have used the opportunities presented by the breakdown of the traditional couple to create new and ever larger households, not smaller ones.

And we've still got time to buck the trend, but only once we stop being so sensitive to one another - only once we stop feeling sorry for singles, and start berating and hassling them.

Singletons are selfish

Because there's no better way to get someone to do what you think is best for them than by berating and hassling them. As someone who lives alone, I do so because I have the resources to do so. And I do, on occasion, meet people who give me a hard time about that, although, now that I am well past any reasonable age for first marriage, not as many as I used to.

And I would ask Zoe Williams (presuming that, after all this time, she still holds to her opinion) the same thing I've asked some more recent critics: "What's in it for me?" I understand that many can live more cheaply than one, given that I understand basic math, so clearly the financial savings are not a motivator. Getting people to form large households as some people seem to want, is a matter of no longer feeling sorry for single people. But it does require some sensitivity; after all, if you can't be bothered to get to know someone well enough to understand what they value, how do you give them a rational reason to go along with your desires for them?

While this example is both old and trivial, I think that it illustrates something that American (and apparently British) society could use some work on; understanding that when people don't need what one wants to sell them, just beating them about the head and shoulders is a poor substitute for a good sales pitch.