For years, the advice to single young adults has been some version of “relax, you’re fine.” According to new research, that’s mostly true at first. Then, quietly, it stops being true.
A large study from the University of Zurich, published in published in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, tracked nearly 17,400 people in Germany and the UK from their mid-teens into their late twenties, mapping out when long-term single living begins to affect mental health.
It gets quite specific.
At 16 or 17, there’s almost no difference between teens who remain single and those who eventually find partners. You’re still a teen; you’re living with your parents. You’ve got nothing to worry about.
And then you hit 18 and everything goes to hell.
Younger adults who stay single begin showing steeper drops in satisfaction compared to peers entering relationships. The shift is subtle at first, but it’s the beginning of a trend that doesn’t reverse until you get shacked up with someone.
According to the researchers, by age 19, just a year later, loneliness emerges as a real, legitimate threat to your mental health. It keeps getting worse as you move through your 20s, until you hit 24, when it hits the turbo booster and starts accelerating, like an F1 car that had its brakes cut. Loneliness spikes, and your satisfaction with life keeps sliding into the abyss.
Depression shows up later and less consistently. Differences begin around age 23, suggesting loneliness and dissatisfaction may come first, with broader emotional distress following as singlehood marches on into the infinite expanse.
The poor, lonely sap eventually settles into a vicious cycle of mental torment. Being lonely lowers their overall well-being. The longer they stay lonely, the worse their well-being becomes. Unless that cycle is broken, it’s in a keep feeding itself, intensifying itself with every bite, all throughout your 20s.
There is an upside-down descent into lonely madness, in that there is an easy fix. Easy, being a relative term in this case: your first relationships delivered immediate and lasting benefits to your mental health. Your happiness shoots up, and your loneliness recedes, producing gains in your overall mental well-being that persist straight through age 29, even after you break up with partners.
To be clear, none of this means being single is catastrophic. But the study did find differences in mental well-being, and they were consistent. If you want to stay in peak psychological health, find somebody to partner up with, even if it isn’t for the long haul.
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