Professor embraces single life in new book
Despite the arrival of Valentine’s Day, University of Colorado Boulder professor and proud bachelor Peter Mcgraw is embracing “solo life” with his new book entitled “Solo: Building a Remarkable Life of Your Own.”
“The book in many ways is about transcending relationship status by not letting your relationship status define who you are,” Mcgraw said. “In part because knowing whether someone is single or not tells you almost nothing about them.”
Embracing the term “solo”, which appears in his book title as well as his podcast, was the culmination of a lifelong journey for Mcgraw to reclaim his label and challenge the societal expectations that stood against him.
“What the world says is that you ought to be doing this and if you’re not doing it or you’re unable to be doing it then you are ‘less than’, you are incomplete, you are half of a whole,” Mcgraw said. “… The perspective and the ability to think critically that came out of my training has helped me to question the default thinking and the norms.”
As a psychology and marketing professor and behavioral economist, Mcgraw is in tune with the statistics indicating a rise in single living. According to a 2021 Pew Research Study, the percentage of adults ages 25 to 54 who had never married was 33% in 2019 compared to 17% in 1990.
Other pioneers in this area of research, like Kris Marsh, sociologist and author of “The Love Jones Cohort: Single and Living Alone in the Black Middle Class,” inspired Mcgraw to write from his own experience.
“The really unique thing about Peter’s book — and my book as well — is that everybody has held the title of single at one time,” said Marsh. “… He looks very different from me… but were both single and we came to our single-ness from different perspectives.”
Marsh has appeared on Mcgraw’s podcast as has Bella Depaulo, social scientist and author of “Single at Heart: The Power, Freedom, and Heart-filling Joy of Single Life.”
“One of the reasons it’s so important to get this (literature) out there is that people who love their single life … are made to feel insecure or doubtful about themselves because the cultural messaging is so insistent that the only way to be truly happy is to get married or at least be a part of a committed long-term romantic couple,” said Depaulo.
For Mcgraw, life can be full regardless of the existence of a romantic partner. As for his Valentine’s Day message to his fellow singles, Mcgraw said, “You can do whatever you want. There’s no one vetoing or demanding that you act in a particular way or that you buy chocolate and flowers at a premium price.
“You can wait until the next day and get [them] half off,” he added.
Mcgraw will be presenting his book at Denver’s Tattered Cover Book Store at 2526 E. Colfax Ave. on Thursday. “Solo: Building a Remarkable Life of Your Own” is available for purchase on his website at petermcgraw. org/books/solo/.