Scarlett Saitta
Jonesboro, Arkansas, United States

Franz Kafka firmly believed that much of his writing was unworthy, and asked that it be burned after his death. He did not describe this conviction as spontaneous or mysterious. In writing about his father, Kafka traced it to growing up in an atmosphere in which paternal approval was scarce and judgment omnipresent. Reflecting on these effects, he wrote that he had “lost confidence in my own actions.”¹ Over time, the voice of authority no longer needed to speak aloud because it had already been internalized. Kafka’s story is therefore not simply about an unhappy childhood. It illustrates how repeated external judgments can become indistinguishable from one’s own self-assessment, even after they cease to reflect reality or are proven wrong by other metrics of merit.

History would prove Kafka’s assessment of himself remarkably inaccurate. Though he died largely unknown, his work would later reshape modern literature through its exploration of alienation, anxiety, and the bewildering power of social institutions. In fact, the adjective “Kafkaesque” entered the language itself.² Yet Kafka never lived to witness his influence. The irony is not merely that Kafka underestimated his talent; it is that he eventually mistook an inherited judgment for objective truth. His life raises a broader question: How often do people mistake socially acquired judgments for objective truths about themselves?

These kinds of judgments often affect people who are single. In some circles, marriage functions as more than a relationship status, becoming evidence of maturity, stability, virtue, or even divine favor. Engagements may be celebrated more enthusiastically than academic achievements, acts of caregiving, or professional accomplishments. By contrast, prolonged singleness often invites explanation, as though remaining unmarried reveals something essential about a person’s worth or character.

The pressure rarely takes the form of outright condemnation. More often, it appears through everyday social interactions: in questions asked at dinner tables, in comparisons to siblings and cousins whose marriages are celebrated even when other accomplishments and acts of merit receive little notice. For many people, promotions, degrees, years spent caring for aging parents, or other forms of devotion can fade into the background once an engagement is announced. Friends wonder whether someone is being sufficiently intentional, while relatives recount how they “just trusted God” before finding the right person, implying that a different outcome reflects a failure of faith, effort, or judgment rather than circumstance. Others search for hidden explanations, as though singleness must be solved rather than understood.

DePaulo and Morris describe this phenomenon as singlism: the stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination directed toward people because they are not in romantic relationships. They argue that singlism is sustained by an “ideology of marriage and family,” a largely unquestioned belief system that treats romantic partnership as the primary marker of fulfillment and adulthood.³ Subsequent research has found that single adults are often stereotyped as lonelier, less fulfilled, less trustworthy, or somehow deficient compared with partnered adults, despite little evidence that these assumptions are accurate.⁴ Through repetition, ordinary interactions become evaluative, transforming a neutral circumstance into a problem awaiting correction.

These social judgments are not merely irritating; they may have measurable consequences. In a large study of relationship status and wellbeing, Girme and colleagues found that lower levels of wellbeing among single adults were at least partly associated with reduced social support and greater experiences of discrimination.⁵ Their findings suggest that some of the distress associated with singlehood may arise not simply from relationship status itself, but from how single people are treated by those around them.

The deeper question, however, is what happens after these judgments are encountered often enough to become self-judgment. Distress often stems less from being single than from what people believe their singleness reveals about them. Again and again, people describe singleness not as a circumstance, but as a verdict on their worth. Psychologist Patrick Corrigan and colleagues describe a similar process in their work on self-stigma. They propose that people first become aware of negative public stereotypes, may then come to agree with them, and eventually apply those stereotypes to themselves. At that final stage, social judgment becomes personal harm.⁶ What may appear to be a personal conclusion is instead a social message absorbed so thoroughly that its origin has been forgotten.

These assumptions do not emerge out of nowhere. Literature has long helped define what a successful life is supposed to look like. In the novels of Jane Austen, marriage does more than resolve romantic tension; it quietly sorts characters into those who have arrived and those who have not. In Pride and Prejudice, Charlotte Lucas accepts a loveless marriage to Mr. Collins largely because remaining unmarried carries social and economic penalties, illustrating how deeply a person’s worth could become tied to partnership.⁷ To remain unpaired is not neutral; it invites interpretation. What is striking is how persistent this logic has proven to be, surviving well beyond fiction and continuing to shape how real lives are assessed.

Singleness is merely one example of a broader phenomenon. Societies often transform neutral differences into perceived moral deficiencies, whether related to age, childlessness, disability, unemployment, or other departures from an expected life course. The specific standard changes across cultures and eras, but the underlying pattern remains remarkably consistent.

What Kafka located within the private sphere of the family appears more broadly as a social process. Societies do not merely establish rules; they establish benchmarks for what a successful life should look like. More often, these standards are not enforced through explicit condemnation. Instead, they operate through comparison, expectation, and subtle social reinforcement. Over time, what begins as a cultural preference can come to feel like a personal truth. The standard remains external, but the verdict feels internal.

Kafka’s insight was that shame often feels personal even when its origins are social. Many of the people I have encountered are not suffering simply because they are single. They are suffering because they have learned to interpret their singleness as evidence of deficiency. Had they been surrounded by different social expectations, the feeling itself might have been different as well. It is not our core self that changes under these judgments; it is simply the verdict we learn to pass upon it.

References

1. Kafka F. Letter to His Father. New York, NY: Schocken Books; 1966.
2. Stach R. Kafka: The Decisive Years. Frisch S, trans. Harcourt; 2005.
3. DePaulo BM, Morris WL. Target article: Singles in society and in science. Psychological Inquiry. 2005;16(2-3):57-83. doi:10.1080/1047840X.2005.9682918.
4. Dupuis HE, Girme YU. “Cat Ladies” and “Mama’s Boys”: a mixed-methods analysis of the gendered discrimination and stereotypes of single women and single men. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 2024;50(2):314-328. doi:10.1177/01461672231203123.
5. Girme YU, Sibley CG, Hadden BW, Schmitt MT, Hunger JM. Unsupported and Stigmatized? The Association Between Relationship Status and Well-Being Is Mediated by Social Support and Social Discrimination. Soc Psychol Personal Sci. 2022;13(2):425-435. doi:10.1177/19485506211030102.
6. Corrigan PW, Rao D. On the self-stigma of mental illness: stages, disclosure, and strategies for change. Can J Psychiatry. 2012;57(8):464-469. doi:10.1177/070674371205700804
7. Austen J. Pride and Prejudice. T Egerton; 1813.