single world

When she's ready to unwind, Michele Rogers will regularly curl up on the couch and prepare to spend an hour with her date.

He doesn't analyze her choice of career. He doesn't make her change into a strapless dress or stiletto heels.

And he doesn't tell her she's making a big deal out of nothing by talking about her feelings.

Because he's on TV.

"My only date that night is McDreamy on 'Grey's Anatomy' and that's perfectly fine," said Rogers, 34, who lives in Columbus.

A single woman watching television. Alone. Just add sweatpants and a pet cat and you have a model for the international spinsters' union.

Right?

Not anymore, say representatives from singles-advocacy organizations like Unmarried America.

"There are more single people than ever before," Thomas Coleman, executive director for Unmarried America, said in a recent phone interview.

Nationally, Coleman pointed to 100 million unmarried adults.

More and more adults are delaying marriage, choosing to pursue school and careers prior to being bound by family responsibilities, Coleman explained.

"We really are an unmarried majority nation," Coleman said. "It (marriage) is just not a lifelong thing."

I do?

Rogers is a divorcee who has experienced the world of marriage and isn't necessarily longing to return.

"If I never got married again, I would be OK with that," she said while having lunch with 43-year-old Joanna Heath of Columbus, a friend and fellow divorcee.

"When you're single, there's no stress," Heath said. "I am what I am."

It was a Friday, and hours after Rogers and Heath finished their lunch at Locos Amigos Cantina on Broadway in Columbus, the same downtown landscape was invaded by late-night partiers.

Among the nightlife crowd was the small circle of 20-something women who staked out a corner table in The Uptown Tap's courtyard.

They wore the obligatory club apparel -- jeans, flattering shirts and high heels. But their table was entirely devoid of men.

"Even at our age, people wonder why we're not dating anyone," said Kristen Meyer, 21, a student at Columbus State University.

Meyer and her friends are more than familiar with stories of early marriages and high school relationships that transform into lifelong partnerships, they said.

They are also aware of what happens when pressure to marry goes awry.

Unmarried America's Coleman cites national studies that suggest the younger couples marry, the more likely they are to divorce.

"I really think that settling is the biggest issue," said Nicky Pitts, 23, of Columbus.

The vegetable aisle?

That leaves many single adults to hit the nightlife scene cognizant of the fact that a party environment isn't necessarily the best vehicle for a trusting partnership.

"I don't come downtown looking for a relationship," said Genai Foster, 22, who is separated. Foster is stationed at Fort Benning.

Locally, some civilian men say the deluge of Fort Benning men fighting for female attention decreases their dating odds locally.

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