Top 10 Ways We Reframed Singlehood This Year
2025...that was somethin'.
Welcome to Cheaper Than Therapy, a newsletter by Shani Silver.
When 2025 wasn’t kicking us all in the shins, we managed to have some pretty cool forward movement in singlehood. I was really excited by the shifts I witnessed in overall sentiment regarding single women, we’re witnessing a new headspace I think, one that no longer views time alone as time in waiting, or time wasted, but instead as time full of opportunity for ourselves.
I tried to contribute to that with this newsletter, taking the discussion places I haven’t before, asking harder questions of myself and of single life than I have in the past, pushing beyond a viral headline or two and challenging us all to see bigger, truer pictures. Along the way I wrote some essays that you all seemed to enjoy, and I’ve recapped them here for anyone who missed them, or would like to revisit before the new year.
I would like to say a massive THANK YOU to this community, both for supporting my work but also for supporting each other, for engaging with this conversation, and for validating all the ways single women live, think, and feel in the world, especially among our generation, one that’s truly seen some shit. You’re why I do this, and you’re why I get to do this. Thank you.
So here they are, in order, the top 10 newsletters I wrote this year as indicated by how many of you read and shared them. (Thank you for that by the way.) I cannot wait to see what we dismantle and rebuild in 2026.
#10: I’m Glad I Never Got Fucking Married: This is about imbalance, and the glaring, vicious inequality that exists in heterosexual households. It’s also about how fucking glad I am that it never happened to me.
#9: Did Love Forget About Us? This is about pain, and envy, and how single women aren’t crazy for noticing that we’ve been overlooked, and we’re not weak for feeling a longing that never finds relief.
#8: Women Aren’t Enough For Me: I love my friends, but they’re never going to satiate my desire for a romantic partner. Never.
#7: Nora Ephron Didn’t See This Coming: What would the queen of romcoms think about a dating culture that isn’t funny at all?
#6: What If We Never Get Married: This is one of those hard questions I was talking about, with a softer answer than we’re expecting. Sometimes the scariest thing about a question isn’t the answer, but instead the bravery it takes to ask it.
#5: Soft Mourning Everything That Never Happened: The world moves from topic to topic at neck-breaking speeds. I think it’s important to give yourself and your experiences the time and care that they deserve.
#4: Did Love & Sex Disappear? Honestly WTF: Hey, sex! Remember that? Honestly at this point it’s becoming a more faint memory by the day. The comments on this one are particularly illustrative of the point.
#3: Are Men Worth It? I mean…no.
#2: A Desperate Generation Of Single Women: I don’t like what dating culture has done to women. I do not have to stay quiet about it. Neither do you.
#1: Why Does Nobody Want Me? If you have difficult days, if you’re sick to death of wanting something you never get, if it’s all too unfair and too arduous and too much, sit down next to me.
Happy Holidays to you all. Thank you for being here with me.
xo
Shani