DEAR SUSAN: How do you get family members to stop pressuring you to find a boyfriend? I'm 22 and definitely not looking. I like my life as it is and don't feel a need for commitment right now. Still, some close relatives keep pressuring me to meet "a nice young man." I'm tired of being asked when I'm going to marry. It's kind of like asking a 50-year-old when he's going to get dentures! — Francesca A., Long Island, N.Y.

DEAR FRANCESCA: It's THE question singles get asked. It's boring and tiresome and always puts the questionee on the defensive! It's as if being single is a temporary affliction, meant to be tolerated for the shortest possible time and cured ASAP. When, in fact, it's more and more the status of choice. And not only in this country but also worldwide. Actually, the Europeans are way ahead of us in government-sanctioned rights and benefits for nonbinding Civil Partnerships, which include inheritance rights, hospital visitation, pensions and more. They're more sophisticated about these things, more in tune with the way the world is moving. They seem to get it.

But I digress. … Back to this country and the Eternal Question that's been the cause of endless stammering, not to mention red faces. But times they are a-changing, I promise. Year by year, stale stereotypes about being single are breaking down. Far fewer eyebrows are lifted when the unmarried in a family circle remain unmarried and choose to live fulfilling lives on their own.

The truth is singleness just isn't causing the ruckus it once did. And part of the reason is its popularity. It seems everyone knows people who are divorced and are leading quite respectable and full lives. It's almost a ho-hum situation! (What else is new?) We go on about our business with great unconcern — almost disinterest — and wonder whether we will someday join their ranks. (Women are almost scripted to be widows, so we had best adapt to older singleness when it arrives.) Divorce, though, is another story. In this greener-grass society, where the other fellow's lot has a habit of looking better than ours, divorce is a constant possibility. Marital status is a fluid situation. But the main point of this rambling, Francesca, is that the single world has been liberated from the question that rankles you; society's expectations have changed radically. So it's only right that the celebration of those new freedoms is my "Emancipation Proclamation." They are all ethical and responsible freedoms, merely the liberation from stale thinking and rigid stereotypes endured for years. Singleness has come of age, no longer a haven for oddballs and rejects, but fully deserved first-class status. (Certainly a majority in this country.) Demographics are on your side.

TEENAGERS CHANGING SEXUAL BEHAVIOR. In findings published this year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the percentage of high-school students in 2007 who had ever had sexual intercourse declined by 12 percent since 1991. The percentage who had had intercourse with four or more partners declined by 20 percent. At the same time, condom use increased by 343 percent. But there was bad news also. There were no significant changes in the prevalence of sexual risk behavior from 2005 to 2007. And this may have contributed to a 34 percent increase in HIV and AIDS cases diagnosed among teenagers 14 and older from 2003 to 2006, a 6 percent increase in gonorrhea from 2005 to 2006, and an increase in live births to 41.9 per thousand in 2006, up from 40.5 in 2005.

RELATIONSHIP DEAL-BREAKERS: One reader suggested we add to the list of turnoffs, putting it this way: "Tonight I added cackling to the list. You don't want to know the details. But $80 for a Thai dinner rocked this country boy back on his heels. It was gourmet good and quieted her down for a while." Nothing like a great meal to stop the cackling.

Write to Susan Deitz c/o this newspaper. She will answer all letters that come with a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Or you may e-mail her at info@creators.com.

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