Paper Title
“It’s Like A Roller Coaster”: Self Perception of Being Single in India

Abstract
In Indian society, marriage is central to the lives of women. Being in a married relationship is regarded as a significant social and developmental milestone. Single women who deviate from this social norm are socially isolated and face societal biases. Singles research is relevant in today's time as the number of single women has risen rapidly in recent years. Psychological studies and literature have mostly ignored women's experiences of being single. This research studied women's experiences of being single in India, using an interpretative phenomenological analysis. For the research study 8 women from urban India were interviewed individually who fulfilled the inclusion criteria. The women were never married between the age of 30 - 40 years. The detailed accounts of these single women regarding their experiences of being single in India were analysed. The themes that emerged in the study were (1) singlehood as a facilitator of growth and independence (2) perception towards another single woman (3) singlehood is ambivalent (4) single woman is an anomaly (5) change in experience and self-perception towards singlehood. From the data it can be inferred that women are ambivalent about their singlehood;they experience both the upsides and downsides of being single and singlehood is dynamic and transient. Keywords - Phenomenology, Single, Singlehood, Women