“I always knew that man was bad news,” Dee’s father said. Now, most people know that that is the the one thing you never, ever say to someone who has just had a breakup. But Bee’s father toed that line, then lept over it:

I knew he was bad news, because he was divorced.

Bee rolled her eyes and thanked god or the universe or whatever that Dee couldn’t hear anything over the Sad, Sad, Song playing in the background.

Copious Readers, your thoughts on this statement? Forgiveable from an old-school, overprotective father?

Before you answer, know that Dee’s dad actually came from a divorced family himself.

As someone myself who has dated some wonderful divorced men, I can’t help but think. . . WTF?

–Christina

We here at Onely like to experiment with guest posters! We love having them and the interesting perspectives they bring (which may or may not completely jibe with Onely’s optic). Today we are moving from pure text to something a little more visual–an Infographic. This medium is new to us so we’ll be interested in hearing your feedback on both the form and the content, which in this case has to do with the growing trend of Living Alone. Click on the graphic to see the whole image on ForRent.com, an apartment search company exploring this new trend. Normally Onely does not advocate specific businesses, but we believe in companies that consider renting or building alternative housing for non-traditional familes such as single people, and so we appreciate that ForRent has taken notice of single dwellers.

In 1950, only 9% of households had single occupants. Comparing that with today’s 27%, it is easy to see the trend of solitary living. With extending life spans, the average age of marriage slowly increasing and large rises in urbanization, we are on a path that will not be changing in the near future. The economy is in a slow recovery yet, surprisingly, a very small amount of young adults have moved back into their family homes.

In this infographic, we will take a look at some of the other factors influencing Americans to forego residential companionship and instead prefer to live by themselves.

“Alone But Not Lonely” infographic designed by ForRent.com

Photo credit: Someeecards.
Women’s Rights News posted it on Facebook. If anyone else has a better citation lemme know. CC

Photo credit: Rotten eCards. FB~Troublemakers posted it on Facebook. If anyone else has a better citation lemme know. CC

This one reminds me of our post raging against Facebook’s amatonormative list of drop-down relationship statuses (you can write in your religion, but you have to choose from a set–a small set–of predetermined “relationships”).

All these bloggers hit the cyberstreets protesting Marital Status Discrimination in their own words. Join us and them! #UnmarriedEquality and #SinglesBlogfest. The following bloggers did:

• Dating Senior Men: “Being single will cost you”
• Diva of Dating, Walker AKA The Diva: “Who knew there was a penalty for being single!”
• Funky Brown Chick, Tawana Hines: “Marriage equality is (somewhat) the wrong equation”
• Hollywood Spinster: “Sex & the single room supplement”
• Huffington Post, Eleanore Wells: “Singles: Paying more taxes and other annoyances”
• Living Single, Bella DePaulo: “If you are single, every day is tax day: 19 examples” (also published at the Huffington Post)
• MirletaLiz Living Out Loud, Liz Hiles: “Today…I blog for a cause”
• My Pixie Blog, Charlotte Klein: “Is there such a thing as marital status discrimination?”
• Onely, Christina Campbell and Lisa A.: “Single? Blogfest explains how to get screwed 1,000 times!”
• Open Salon, Eleanore Wells: “When your government discriminates”
• Rachel’s Musings: “Taxing singles”
• Say Waugh, Simone Waugh : “Happy you get shafted on taxes because you’re single day!”
• Single and Happy Online, Tyjuana Wilson: “Blog talk radio, This needs to be said”
• Single at Heart, Bella DePaulo: “Why we need consciousness-raising about singles: New York Times edition” (Also: “Nearing retirement and nearly broke? Economic discrimination against singles adds up”)
• Single. Sassy. Smart. Sophisticated? “Single supplements = unmarried inequality”
• Single Minded Women: “Calling all single woman bloggers” [Note from Bella: We welcome men, too, to this Blogfest and all future CLUE events!]
• Singular Magazine, Kim Calvert: “How single people get screwed”
• Spinsterlicious Life, Eleanore Wells: “Single: Paying more taxes and other annoyances”
• Spinster Jane, “Will you be my next of kin?”
• Spinster’s Compass: “Spinster”
• SWaNK Evolution, Carolyn Quan: “It’s tax day and singles are getting ripped off across the good ole U S of A”
• Unmarried Equality, Cindy Butler: “Living single comes at a HIGH price”
• Urban Dater, “Tax Day aka ranch me up and call me spanky day”
• With or Without a Man, Dr. Karen Gail Lewis: “April 15, tax day, single women!”
• Yahoo! Shine, Beth Greenfield: “Single in America? That’ll cost you”
• Your Tango, Eleanore Wells: “It’s #SinglesBlogfest on tax day!”

• I Have A Degree In This, Kimberlee Van Der Wall: On tax day, don’t forget the singles

• Notes From The Dating Trenches, Kelly Seal: “On April 15, are you paying more for being single? Yep.”

• SWANN (Single Working Women’s Affiliate Network), Barbara Payne: Tax day is a good day to holler about fairness to singles

–Christina and Lisa

So what? So this: The U.S. government–a democratic government, a government “By the People and For the People” and all that–discriminates against fifty percent of its population: unmarried people. Our federal code alone contains over 1,000 laws where marital status is a factor, and in most cases single people lose out.

Because this phenomenon was a problem with no name, we at Onely christened it “institutionalized” Marital Status Discrimination. In January we made a big slam-dunk stink about it in The Atlantic.

The Million-Dollar Difference: According to our very conservative and basic calculations, a single person earning $80,000/year could easily pay at least a million dollars more over her lifetime than her married counterpart, based on only a few of the most discriminatory laws (such as Income Tax, IRAs, and Social Security).

What’s more, our hypothetical scenarios did not consider state laws, nor the many ways Marital Status Discrimination shows up in corporate policies–such as when singles pay more for all sorts of insurance. These factors could easily push the million-dollar figure higher. Much higher.

But money isn’t everything:  That’s why our government has thoughtfully provided other laws that don’t impact single people’s pocketbooks. These laws instead impact single people’s peace of mind. For example, as we described in 2010 on Psychology Today, an anti-stalking law promises protection to the victim’s spouse. Phew! But a single person being stalked is offered no such additional protection for a loved ones.

Any stalker who does his research (and we imagine this is all of them) would know exactly whom his stalkee loves most. R.I.P. Grandma; if only you had married your grandson maybe there would have been cops by your door when his stalker came calling. . .

The U.S. Government thinks being unmarried means: a life free of connections and cares, and full of discretionary spending. Unfortunately, even if this were true (and we at Onely fervently wish it were), no society is at its best when half its members are treated differently from the other half.

So let’s get started obliterating Marital Status Discrimination! Our first step is to. . uh. . . We will start by. . . ahem. . . Our next move should be. . . um. . .  Well, as you can see, while we at Onely are skilled at pointing out these problems, we aren’t so sure what we should do next.

So, Copious Readers, here’s where we need your help: Now that we’ve gotten the dialog started, what do you think our “next steps” should be? How do you think we should take action (and by “we,” we mean the collective blogosphere standing up for single people everywhere)? What subject matter experts are best positioned to spread the word or propose legislative change? Do you know tax professionals or legislators friendly to our cause? (Or can you convince them to embrace our cause?)

Please share your insights and spread the word: Comment below. Or tweet #UnmarriedEquality and #SinglesBlogfest. Or share this article on Facebook!

If you have more questions about Singles Blogfest, please write to Onely@onely.org or to contact.clue@gmail.com. Huh? Clue? Yes:

The Communication League for Unmarried Equality (CLUE):

We at Onely were not the only ones who instigated this effort. We were honored to have had lots of help from three of the most active voices in the progressive singles’ movement, who jumped on board the Singles Blogfest project with unparalleled enthusiasm and expertise:

Bella DePaulo (Ph.D., Harvard), author of Singled Out and the “Living Single” blog at Psychology Today (belladepaulo@gmail.com)

Eleanore Wells, blogger and author of The Spinsterlicious Life (Eleanore@TheSpinsterliciousLife.com)

Cindy Butler, of Unmarried Equality  (cbutler@unmarried.org)

Thanks Copious Readers, We Love You!

–Christina Campbell and Lisa A. of Onely.org, (pronounced wun-lee), a blog that challenges stereotypes about singles (Onely@onely.org)

Photo Credit: The Atlantic.com