What if some of history’s most fascinating people didn’t need better marriages — they needed permission not to marry? In this re-release of a fun, historically rich Solo classic, Mary Dahm and Peter McGraw discuss people who probably shouldn’t have married, using figures like Abraham Lincoln, Ernest Hemingway, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman to reveal […]
Peter McGraw
I host solo.
Solo Thoughts 19: A-Life vs. B-Life
In this Solo thoughts episode, Peter McGraw introduces the distinction between A-Life and B-Life. A-Life is achievement, optimization, production, and living through goals. B-Life is presence, pleasure, engagement, and doing things for their own sake. Drawing from anxiety, sabbatical planning, retirement, Seneca, and a vintage typewriter, Peter makes the case for shifting the dial […]
Solo Book Club: The Present Age
Peter McGraw is joined by David Jitendranath for a Solo Book Club episode on Søren Kierkegaard’s The Present Age. They discuss why this slim, difficult book feels eerily modern: a culture of reflection without action, irony without commitment, resentment disguised as equality, and “leveling” as the force that pulls down anyone who dares to […]
Singles in the Workplace: How Companies Can Better Support Solo Employees
Sarah Brock, the CEO of Sarah Bee Talent, joins Peter McGraw to examine how “family-friendly” workplaces often overlook solo employees. Building on Peter’s recent article in The Conversation, they discuss scheduling, workplace culture, benefits, amatonormativity, and practical ways companies can better support Solos in an era when unmarried adults are reshaping the workforce. — […]
Aging Single #12: The Wealth Ladder
What does financial freedom look like when you’re climbing solo? Peter McGraw talks with Nick Maggiulli, author of The Wealth Ladder, about the six levels of wealth, what changes at each stage, and how singles can build money—and a remarkable life—on their own. — Listen to Episode #265 here Aging Single #12: The […]
Many churches, synagogues and mosques are built around families – and they’re struggling to respond to rising singles
This post was originally published at The Conversation. When a couple marry in a church, synagogue or mosque, the ceremony does more than sanctify a union. Often, it binds two families to an institution. For centuries, marriage and child-rearing have been among the main ways adults are integrated into congregational life. Couples who share the […]
Are You Dead? Going Solo in China
One in four Chinese households is now a single person. Pan Wang, Associate Professor of Chinese and Asian Studies at UNSW Sydney, joins Peter McGraw to talk about the “Are You Dead?” app, one-person hotpot restaurants, date-renting, AI companions, marriage markets, and how TV dating shows reshaped love and marriage in a single generation. […]
Solo Thoughts 18: Welcoming Rough Seas
A high-achieving friend falls in love and suddenly finds himself in rough emotional seas. In this Solo Thoughts episode, Peter McGraw explores why calm, optimized lives can make us successful – but not truly alive – and why passion, uncertainty, and even heartbreak may be the price of a psychologically rich life. — Listen […]