A full life, and room in it.

On being single in your forties: after a long relationship, by choice, or somewhere in between.

Questions we answer

47%
of adults under 50 without children say they are unlikely to ever have them, up from 37% in 2018.
Pew Research Center, 2024. U.S. adults, 2023 survey.
Half
of single U.S. adults are not looking for a relationship or dates right now.
Pew Research Center, 2020. U.S. adults, 2019 survey.
37%
of adults ages 30 to 49 have ever used a dating site or app.
Pew Research Center, 2023. 6,034 U.S. adults, July 2022.
24%
of Gen X singles have used AI in their dating lives.
Kinsey Institute and Match, Singles in America, 2026. About 5,000 U.S. singles.

Single at 40Pew Research Center, 2020
A profile of single Americans (opens pewresearch.org)
Shows who is single in the US, how many are not looking to date, and the reasons they give.
Post-breakup lonelinessCleveland Clinic
How To Get Over a Breakup: 11 Tips for Healing (opens health.clevelandclinic.org)
Clinician-reviewed steps for handling the loneliness and identity loss that follow a breakup.
A full lifeGreater Good Science Center, UC Berkeley
One Key to Being Happy When You're Single (opens greatergood.berkeley.edu)
Research on how social activity shapes happiness for single people, sometimes more than for married people.

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Honest about limits. We say what the research does not show. Editorial standards

Eight questions about the last few people you dated. You get one of nine pattern cards. It runs in your browser and nothing is saved.