While your interesting question initially drew me to your fact-check, it’s rather misleading. Upon reading the article you provided from Forbes, I realized your question was somewhat irrelevant. This article answers your question early on: “[Y]ou can’t look to scientific research for a plan of action. You need to assess your specific situation—weighing the pros of your current relationship against the benefits of singlehood while invoking both short- and long-term viewpoints.” Here’s your answer. Even though the article plays around with the idea of being single creating more happiness than being in a couple, it never supports this perspective outright. In fact, throughout this piece, it acknowledges that there isn’t necessarily a quantifiable, scientific approach to determining if being single is more or less happiness-inducing than being in a relationship. This is a rather obvious conclusion because of course there isn’t a way to scientifically quantify happiness in relationships across the board. Love and happiness are too subjective of experiences to break them down into hard numbers and data points. As for evidence to support my answer and the article’s answer to your question, all of the hyperlinked sources and studies in the article are evidence enough. While **some of the articles point more heavily towards singledom producing high happiness, ***others confirm the Forbes’ perspective pointing to an inability to answer your fact-check’s driving question. However, at the end of the day, none of the hyperlinked sources that provide some support for increased happiness in singledom can actually prove the cumulative reliability of this claim. Even though some studies or analyses may suggest single people are somewhat happier, it’s impossible to uniformly quantify all relationships and non-relationships.
**https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2005-09295-002; https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1474704919887706;
***https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10902-006-9001-x
