Med denna uppsats har vi velat ta reda på hur singlar över 30 år upplever sitt singelskap samt hur de förhåller sig till att inleda partnerskap och att skaffa barn. Singel är ett begrepp som inrymmer många olika aspekter och perspektiv. Genom individuella intervjuer har vi tagit del av 4 kvinnliga singlar och 4 manliga singlars egna upplevelser, alla är över 30 år och bosatta i mellan Sverige. Vi har analyserat det empiriska materialet vi fått fram med hjälp av vår teoretiska utgångspunkt som berör modernitetens samhälle där individen skapar sin självidentitet och livsstil utifrån sin kontext. Singlarna har givit oss en bild av deras liv och deras inställning till den norm om parrelationer och att skaffa barn som finns i vårt samhälle. Det empiriska materialet vi fått tillgång till har tolkats och analyserats med hjälp av Grounded theory. Vårt resultat visar på individens strävan efter känslan av frihet och oberoende. Singlarna är nöjda över sin livsstil men uppger att det kan finnas en saknad av någon ibland. En ambivalens uppstår mellan deras känsla av frihet till den ensamhet de kan uppleva. Upplevelsen av singelskapet och synen på partnerskap och barn mellan män och kvinnor visar sig inte vara så olik. / In this paper we wanted to find out how singles over 30 years experience their position as singles and how they relate to initiate partnership and having children. Single is a term that covers a number of aspects and perspectives. Through individual interviews, we’ve taken note of 4 female and 4 male singles own experience, they’re all over 30 years old and live in central Sweden. We’ve analyzed the empirical material based on the knowledge from our theoretical basis on the modern society that reviles how the individuals creates their own identity and lifestyle. The singles have given us an understanding of their lifestyle and their attitude to the norm of intimate relationships and having children in our society. The empirical material we had access to has been interpreted and analyzed using the Grounded theory. Our results indicate that the experience of freedom and independence is a requisite to the individuals. The singles are pleased with their lifestyle but state that they, at times, yearn the intimacy from a relationship. A feeling of ambivalence occurs when their need for freedom collides with the loneliness they occasionally experience. The experience of solitude and views on partnership and having children between men and women turned out not to be very different.

Single activities have long been places where single people can come to meet friends, build community or look for partners. The activities have relevance for studies of heterosexuality, intimacy, personal life and space. This dissertation discusses a conference, a cruise, an online site and an association for heterosexual singles in contemporary Sweden. It shows how these activities, analysed as organising people and spaces, offer participants different versions of intimacy, relationships, personal life and ultimately singledom itself.  The concept non-relationality is coined to describe how people understand and enact what it means to lack a certain kind of relationship. Multi-sited ethnographic observations are combined with interviews and a survey (n=416). The chosen methods allow insight into both the heterogeneous character of the contemporary single activity scene, as well as existing tendencies to form communities. The group whose single activities are examined is deemed fairly typical of the single population at large. Nevertheless, most conclusions centre on the specific set of activities described in the book and relate them to historical examples and theory. The single activities examined can be interpreted to enact different practices entailed in a relationship without necessarily demanding commitment to a whole relationship or a specific person. In that way, the activities accommodate the inflexible personal lives that some singles report having. This challenges strict boundaries between coupledom and singledom. Such transgressive or “hetero-doxical” potential in single activities is nevertheless circumscribed by organisers’ notion that the activities provide therapeutic community in a phase before singles take the step (back) into coupledom.