The tangled lives and loves of the unattached have nailed shows like Seinfeld and Friends firmly to the top of the television ratings.
But what's it really like being single? Is life just a series of intriguing relationships, upwardly mobile careers and partying, or is there a downside to not being in a serious relationship?
These are just some of the questions which may be answered by a study about to begin at the University of Queensland's School of Psychology.
PhD student Jeff Miller, supervised by Dr Judy Feeney, is researching the experiences of single people, including their relationships.
As part of the study Mr Miller will be organising small discussion groups and he is looking for single men and women to take part.
'The purpose of these discussions is to get a clear picture of the important issues and concerns of single people. We want single people to tell us what areas of their lives we should be looking at, ' said Mr Miller.
Mr Miller is looking for people at least 25 years old, childless and not currently in any sort of seriously committed relationship. Discussions will be run in groups of six to eight people and last for up to an hour and a half.
But is Mr Miller concerned he may unwittingly be playing the role of matchmaker? After all, bringing together lots of single people may result in the creation of new sets of couples, so destroying his core research material.
'If people meet and form relationships in the future that's fine,' he says. 'For the purposes of this research we are just interested in looking at their situations up to the present time.'
For more information, contact either Mr Miller (telephone 3365 7294) or Dr Judy Feeney (telephone 3365 6412).
