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"You're so great -- why don't you have a boyfriend?" This misguided compliment, often doled out to young successful women, has given birth to a new thought experiment: If a woman is great and no romantic partner is there to appreciate her, can she still lead a happy and fulfilling life? Since 2000, the most common American household has been a person living alone. According to the 2017 census, 53.6 percent of American women over the age of 18 were unmarried. So why do singles often feel like the odd woman out? We may be living in a post-"Sex And The City" era, but we're not as far from the conventions of "The Partridge Family" as we'd like to think (and it's worth noting that even SATC's cynical Miranda had her fairytale romantic ending when all was said and done). Over the last 15 years, we've watched pop culture heroines like Mindy Lahiri, Meredith Grey and Ally McBeal put their professional accomplishments on the back burner when things go south in the romance department. It's not hard to see where these television writers are getting their material: Women often feel bad about being single, despite how satisfying their lives are otherwise. Turns out, there are a few reasons you might feel that romantic ennui: You might be putting too much stock in one type of relationship... Unfortunately, it's all too easy to devalue our platonic relationships when we don't have a romantic one (if we want one, that is), but that doesn't mean we're not reaping the psychological benefits of all of the platonic love in our lives. In fact, when it comes to happiness, it seems that love is blind. | 
