International Singles Day on November 11 gave New Zealanders a reason to flip a tired script: the idea that being single is a waiting room on the way to a relationship. Writing in the NZ Herald, sexologist and podcast host Morgan Penn argued that single life deserves celebration as a legitimate way to live, not an unfortunate circumstance demanding explanation.
The observance began in China, where the date 11/11 was chosen because the digits look like four individuals standing independently. Penn, who has spent the past five years single, used the day to push back against a culture she says treats partnership as the default setting for a good life.
The awkward question everyone asks
Penn describes a familiar ritual. Someone asks whether you are seeing anyone, and a negative answer triggers an awkward pause followed by an enthusiastic investigation into why, as though singleness must have a cause. The subtext, she writes, is a look that asks what is wrong with you.
That reaction is not accidental. As Gekobetit recently explained, romantic coupling has functioned as the default expectation for generations, so anyone off that path throws observers off balance. The reflex to treat single people as problems is a cultural habit, not a fact about their lives.
Penn wants the assumption retired. Being single, she argues, is not always a relationship status waiting to happen, and it does not mean being undesirable or incomplete.
What five years alone taught a sexologist
Penn is candid that her own single stretch included dates, a situationship, short relationships and heartbreak. She longed for a deep connection, the Bunnings runs on Sundays, the small everyday intimacies of a shared life. Waiting for the right fit was, at times, painful and lonely.
She is equally candid that single life is not all celebration. The world costs more for one person, loneliness is real, and flat-pack furniture does not assemble itself. Online dating, she writes, makes finding someone who can hold a conversation feel like scoring the first car park outside the supermarket.
The freedoms we undercount
Still, Penn insists the benefits of single life go underacknowledged. You make decisions based on what you want: book the holiday, change careers, move cities, eat dinner at 9pm, sleep diagonally across the bed, spend a Saturday doing nothing. No negotiation required.
She sees the deeper value in self-knowledge, including sexual self-knowledge. In relationships, she argues, sexual identity can get wrapped up in another person's desires and expectations until you lose touch with your own. Being single offers space to ask what you enjoy, what touch feels good, what makes you feel confident in your body.
That is not indulgence, she says. Developing a relationship with your own pleasure is one of the most empowering things anyone can do, partnered or not.
You can want love without needing it
Penn rejects the false binary that happily single people must be fiercely independent and uninterested in love. You can love your independence and still want intimacy, she writes. You can be content in your own company and still crave a cuddle. Both things can be true.
Her definition of empowerment is precise: being able to want a relationship without needing one to validate your worth, and refusing to settle simply because being alone feels uncomfortable or because everyone around you appears to be moving through life in pairs.
That argument is gaining traction beyond her column. Writing on Substack, one author argued that being single at 36 is not the red flag, settling is, warning that a partner whose moods dictate your daily happiness is not a partner but a mood regulator. Others point out that the loneliness single people fear is not exclusive to them: therapists note that loneliness inside a relationship is often more painful than loneliness while single, because at least the single situation makes sense.
A message for the happily, newly and reluctantly single
Penn's invitation on International Singles Day is deliberately broad. Whether you are happily single, newly single, reluctantly single or somewhere in the complicated middle, she asks you to celebrate yourself: take yourself on a date, buy the expensive dessert, call your friends, dance in your kitchen, or spend the evening in pyjamas with a takeaway, which she names as her personal favourite.
The point is not to declare single life superior. It is to know that being single is not second best.
Penn, who co-hosts the podcast Sex.Life, says season four is available weekly on iHeartRadio and other podcast platforms.
FAQ
What is International Singles Day?
It is an observance that began in China, celebrated on November 11 because the date 11/11 resembles four individuals standing independently.
Who is Morgan Penn?
A sexologist and co-host of the Sex.Life podcast, who wrote the NZ Herald column on International Singles Day 2026.
Can you be happy single and still want a relationship?
Yes. Penn argues empowerment means wanting a relationship without needing one to validate your worth, and refusing to settle out of discomfort.