For well over a decade, I have been scrutinizing studies of the link between getting married and getting happy. With every new published study or review article, it becomes increasingly clear that the conventional wisdom – that getting married means getting happier – is just plain wrong.

The quality of the studies has been improving. Instead of just comparing people of different marital statuses at one point in time, we now have studies that follow people over many years of their adult lives as they get married or get divorced or widowed or stay single. They are asked repeatedly about their happiness (or life satisfaction). A review of 18 such studies showed quite compellingly that people who get married do not get happier.

The more problematic studies (comparing married and unmarried people at one point in time) continue to pile up, and they also fail to make the case that single people are miserable, and by marrying, they become blissful. They could not possibly show that, for methodological reasons.

Stories with titles such as “10 things never to say to singles” always catch my eye. The latest was originally written for Women’s Day and reposted on Shine at Yahoo. It was offered as a bit of advice to people tempted to offer their unsolicited suggestions to their single friends.

First, I’ll list the 10 things, without any of the commentary from the article, so you can generate your own critique.

[Bella’s intro: When I learned about Heather Steil’s writings about her experiences as a single woman in the Foreign Service, I immediately wanted to share her thoughts with Single-at-Heart readers. I was delighted when Heather agreed to write this guest post from Kabul, Afghanistan. Thank-you, Heather!]

I’m all for the arc of the moral universe bending toward justice. Society should constantly move toward greater inclusiveness and more fairness. The current debates that have reached the Supreme Court, though, ask a question that is too narrow and too timid. We should not be asking, “Why should you have to be a particular kind of couple – one man and one woman – in order to qualify for all of the benefits, protections, and privileges of marriage (as well as the official designation)?” Instead, we should be asking, “Why should you have to be any kind of couple at all?”

I just learned about The Book Inscription Project: “We collect personal messages written in ink (or pen or marker or crayon or grape jelly) inside books. Pictures count. So do poems. So do notes on paper found in a book. The more heartfelt the better.”

I think the project is a wonderful idea, maybe because I have a favorite inscription of my own. When I first started collecting books about single life, I learned about a 1936 book by Marjorie Hillis called Live Alone and Like It. I would have forked over the money for a new copy but at the time, there were only used copies available.

When the beaten-up copy arrived, with its orange hardcover and yellowed pages coming unglued from the spine, I found a hand-written note on the inside.

In 2011, a group of authors analyzed the results of 18 long-term studies of the implications of getting married for happiness. They wanted to know whether getting married makes people lastingly happier. The answer was no.

I described those findings in detail here, so I’ll just offer a brief overview before telling you about how social scientists tried to salvage the case for marriage in a subsequent paper.

I think the most powerful indication of the growing appeal of single life is what can’t be faked – the numbers. For decades, every big new Census report has shown that the number and percentage of unmarried Americans is growing. (The trend is not specific to the U.S.)

Clearly, marriage is no longer obligatory and more and more people are choosing not to join The Married Couples Club.

Alongside those hard numbers are some intriguing stories of how some people who do choose to marry are feeling about their decision. Apparently, they are embarrassed. They want their engagement rings, but they don’t want those rings to look too much like an engagement ring. The brides want the dress, but if it is white, they feel all apologetic about that. If they do the whole diet and workout routine before the wedding, they try to reframe their actions as not really about the wedding.

I have no idea how many people truly are single-at-heart – and neither does anyone else. The concept has never been fully developed, recognized, or tested. (I’m working on that now.) Without a way to measure it, we cannot count the number of people who fit the category. Without any relevant cultural conversations, many people never consider the possibility that living single could be, for them, the most meaningful and most authentic way to live.

There may also be an important component of age or maturity. In the early adult years, when so many people are preoccupied with dating and mating, it can be difficult to realize that the coupled life is not for you. Maybe that’s an insight that is more likely to be developed later in life.

A high school student writing a paper on single parents and their children was stunned and hurt by the many sweeping and scientifically-unfounded criticisms she discovered during the course of her research. She is a child of a single mother, and wanted to know what was behind all of the stereotyping and stigmatizing.

There’s a lot of baby angst going around these days. The concern is that women no longer feel compelled to have kids, and growing numbers are deciding not to. The purveyors of panic believe that America is doomed if this continues. That’s not my exaggerated gloss. They really do say that women’s decisions not to procreate “may spell disaster for the country.”

Previously, I pointed to the critics who used data to show that the sky is not actually falling. Then I dissected the approaches the panic-perpetrators used to try to coax women to do their baby-making duty. (Mocking, shaming, threatening, and bribing were the primary tactics.)

Here I want to address a different question that seems to have gotten lost in all of the discussion of the so-called fertility crisis that is part of a global post-familialism. Supposed those who are urging women to go forth and multiply actually succeed?