I read on the Guardian website that Emma Watson (who played Hermione in the Harry Potter films) is happy, aged thirty, to be single. The phrase she uses - “self-partnered” - encouraged the writer of the article to bang out 500 words on the various ways that singledom can be represented in these gender-fluid times (and the ways that people - women, at least - can feel stigmatised for not ‘coupling up’). Feeling positive about being single is now a 'movement', apparently.
Though I didn’t plan to be a bachelor for most of my adult life, I can’t say I envy any of my married friends. I’ve been called “selfish”, for staying single, on a couple of occasions, though I’m not sure why. There aren’t many songs which celebrate the single life, but here is the first verse and chorus of Better Off Without a Wife, by Tom Waits.
All my friends are married
Every Tom and Dick and Harry
You must be strong if you're to go it alone
Here's to the bachelors and the Bowery bums
Those who feel that they're the ones
That are better off without a wife
Cause I like to sleep until the crack of noon
Midnight howling at the moon
Going out when I want to
And I'm coming home when I please
Don't have to ask permission
If I wanna go out fishing
Never have to ask for the keys
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