Last Year of Single

There is a specific kind of freedom in doing something entirely alone: no one else's mood to manage, no one else's idea of you to perform for, total control over how the night goes. Bree talks to Dr. Kris Marsh and Tayler Wells about how to enjoy doing things alone and how our expectations of romantic relationships impact our ability to enjoy singledom.

Kris opens with the story that anchors the episode: going to 26 Kendrick Lamar and SZA tour shows alone, across multiple countries, and the overwhelmingly supportive, admiring reaction from everyone who found out. From there, the conversation digs into why solo concerts strip away other people's preconceived ideas of who you are, why being alone forces (and rewards) actually talking to strangers, and how to handle the comedown when a euphoric night ends and there's no one next to you to decompress with.

Then the research: why people with high intimacy expectations of romantic relationships tend to enjoy being single less, why negative relationship expectations don't carry nearly the same weight, and why people with negative relationship expectations are more likely to be single — without necessarily being any happier for it. Bree, Kris and Tayler make the case that once you learn to actually enjoy your own company, you become genuinely unstoppable — because you stop needing someone else there for the night to count.

Dr Kris Marsh - https://drkrismarsh.com/

Tayler Wells - https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/01461672261438616

Substack memoir — last year of single in real time: breesteele.substack.com

Instagram: @breesteele.mp3 @lastyearofsingle

Join the Last Year of Single Facebook community - https://www.facebook.com/share/g/1BthE53uod/?mibextid=wwXIfr

[email protected]

Host and Executive Producer: Bree Steele

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rom-coms, Disney princesses, and why we still expect love to look like the movies. I've always watched movies, TV shows, and read books as a way to understand myself and to work out what to expect from life, and this episode asks what happens when "what to expect" came from a childhood of Disney princesses and rom-coms.

Millennial women are the first generation raised with on-demand access to film and TV; meaning we absorbed the golden era of Disney princess movies and the golden age of the rom-com more completely than any generation before us.

Bree talks to Dr. Veronica Hefner, associate professor and chair of the Department of Communication and Media Studies at Dominican University of California, whose research examines exactly how romantic films and Disney princess movies shape real beliefs about love, dating, and relationships.

In this episode you'll learn:

• What "happily ever after" actually trains us to expect from love and a partner
• Why we keep attracting the wrong people, and how rom-com idealism can prime us for emotionally unavailable men
• How childhood media exposure connects to anxious attachment and avoidant attachment patterns later in life
• Whether it's still okay to watch these films, knowing what we now know
• How to untangle what we actually want from what we were taught to want
• Why we expect real life to imitate art in the first place
• The genuine, researched benefits of rom-com watching, and how to actually be happy alone instead of waiting for a movie ending

We reference Sex and the City, Eat Pray Love, Bridget Jones's Diary, (500) Days of Summer, Serendipity, Notting Hill, and Sleepless in Seattle throughout.

If you've ever caught yourself measuring your single life against a movie you watched twenty years ago, this episode is for you.

Dr. Veronica Hefner: hefner.faculty.ucdavis.edu

Substack memoir — last year of single in real time: breesteele.substack.com

Instagram: @lastyearofsingle @breesteele.mp3

Join the Last Year of Single Facebook community:  https://www.facebook.com/share/g/1BthE53uod/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Listen to the full series (best in order)

Host and Executive Producer: Bree Steele

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Chosen family isn't a backup plan — for queer and trans communities, it's been survival and a radical way to build love, care, and belonging outside blood and marriage. This episode asks why the rest of us haven't caught up.

Bree talks to Dr. Shanna Kattari, associate professor at the University of Michigan School of Social Work and director of the [Sexuality | Relationships | Gender] Research Collective, whose research includes the landmark study "We Just Take Care of Each Other," on chosen family among queer and transgender young adults.

In this episode you'll learn:

• What chosen family actually means, and its roots in queer and trans history
• Why queer and trans people are often better at deep, lasting friendship — and what the rest of us can learn from it
• The real, researched benefits of chosen family
• Why straight people, and single women especially, should be building chosen family too
• How to actually create a chosen family — it's a practice, not something that just happens
• The conversations needed with coupled-up friends and parents who've never had to prioritise friendship
• What healthy expectations of a chosen family member look like, and why not everyone in your life needs to play the same role

If you've ever felt your friendships deserved to be taken as seriously as a romantic relationship, this episode is for you.

Best listened to as part of the full Last Year of Single series.

Dr. Shanna Kattari: shannakattari.wordpress.com

Follow Dr. Kattari: @DrShannaK

Substack memoir — last year of single in real time: breesteele.substack.com

Instagram: @lastyearofsingle @breesteele.mp3

Email: [email protected]

Join the Last Year of Single Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/share/g/1BthE53uod/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Host and Executive Producer: Bree Steele

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you have been listening to Last Year of Single from the beginning, you know I have been talking about the Last Year of Single List since the very first episode. The idea is simple: if you knew in twelve months you would never be single again, how would you spend your time? What would you do that you have been waiting to do with someone else?

In this episode, I am finally revealing five of the things on my own list: what they are, why I chose them, and what success actually looks like to me for each one. I am keeping two items secret for now. But five is enough to be going on with.

Here is what made the list:

• Writing a book.
• Being in a Bollywood film.
• Watching an entire Bollywood film without subtitles and actually understanding it.
• Learning what a healthy and trustworthy romantic relationship is supposed to feel like and what that even means for someone who has never quite experienced it.
• And becoming financially secure, not rich, not retired, just genuinely, solidly secure.

For the relationship goal, I play a clip from my episode with Ann Davidman, a counsellor and author who specialises in helping people understand what they actually want from love and relationships. For the financial security goal, I play a clip from my episode with Glen James, creator of the Money Money Money podcast, formerly My Millennial Money, and one of Australia's most trusted voices on personal finance.

I also want to hear what is on your list. Email me, DM me on Instagram, or come and talk about it in the Last Year of Single Facebook community. And if you have not written your list yet, Episode 10 is where I explain exactly how to do it.

The Last Year of Single List is not about being productive while you wait for life to start. It is about deciding what your life is and living it. Whatever happens next.

Substack memoir: breesteele.substack.com

Instagram: @breesteele.mp3

Facebook community: Last Year of Single

Host, Executive Producer & Editor: Bree Steele

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Asian men are twice as likely as Asian women to be single. Black women face the same exclusion from the other direction. This is not a coincidence and it is not about attraction - it is about bias, and dating apps have made that bias faster, more efficient, and easier to never have to examine.

I wanted to make this episode because of two things I have noticed. The first: every time I post about dating in India, Indian men get flooded with racist comments - comments that would never be said about a white man doing the exact same thing. The second: I am a white woman dating in India, and I have had to sit with an uncomfortable truth: in a country still shaped by colonial history, my whiteness makes me more desirable to many people here than I would ever be considered at home.

That is a bias I benefit from.

Harry Au, psychologist and social worker whose practice focuses on the Asian experience in North America, joins me to talk about what it is actually like to be a single Asian man navigating dating apps built on a hierarchy he did not choose and cannot opt out of. We talk about the research, the stereotypes, where they come from, and - more importantly - what each of us can actually do to check our own dating biases instead of pretending we don't have any.

This episode is a departure from my usual single-women focus, and I am not sorry about that. Last Year of Single exists because nobody is having an honest conversation about what it is actually like to be single and that conversation has to include people who are not straight white women, because the rom-com version of single life was never the whole story.

In this episode:

• The research on racial bias in dating apps. What the data actually shows, and why
• Why Asian men are twice as likely as Asian women to remain unpartnered
• What it is actually like to date as a single Asian man in North America
• The specific stereotypes Asian men face and where they historically come from
• Why Indian men get disproportionately racist comments when dating content goes viral
• The uncomfortable truth about whiteness and desirability in post-colonial India
• How to actually check your own dating biases. Practical steps, not just awareness
• Why "I just have a type" is rarely as innocent as it sounds

Harry Au is a registered social worker and psychologist whose practice, Asian Therapy, focuses specifically on helping Asian clients navigate identity, family and relationships. He holds a Master's in Gender Studies and Feminist Research from McMaster University.

This is not a comfortable episode. It is an important one.

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Harry Au: https://www.therapywithharry.com/

Substack memoir: breesteele.substack.com

Instagram: @breesteele.mp3

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Going to a wedding alone when everyone else has a plus one is one of the most quietly expensive, emotionally exhausting and occasionally humiliating experiences of being single. This episode is the bible for single women at weddings and for the couples planning them.

I am writing this from Mumbai during Indian wedding season, where the city looks like a Bollywood film set and the celebrations last for days. It got me thinking: why do Indian weddings look so much more fun? And why, as a single woman, do I dread a western wedding invitation?

Etiquette expert Jackie Vernon-Thompson joins me to answer everything nobody tells you about navigating weddings as a single person: how to handle the plus one conversation, how to decline a wedding invitation without destroying a friendship, whether you are actually obligated to attend a bachelorette party, and why - according to Jackie - wishing wells at weddings are genuinely rude and should be retired immediately.

We also talk about a theory I have been sitting with for a while: when couples throw out all the traditional wedding etiquette rules to make the day entirely about themselves, they stop thinking about their guests. Main character energy is great for the couple getting married. It is expensive and exhausting for everyone else in the room.

According to LendingTree, 40% of wedding guests have gone into debt to attend a wedding, and for bridal party members that number jumps to 62%. And 48% of Americans are secretly hoping they are not asked to be in a bridal party this year because of the financial and time burden. The etiquette around all of this is broken. This episode fixes it.

Jackie Vernon-Thompson is a Certified Etiquette Consultant, #1 bestselling author of Transformative Etiquette, and founder of From the Inside-Out School of Etiquette, featured in HuffPost.

In this episode you'll learn:

• How to go to a wedding alone without feeling like the exhibit
• The exact etiquette around plus ones for single guests, what you can ask for and how to ask
• How to decline a wedding invitation without damaging the friendship
• Whether couples should pay for their guests to attend bachelorette and bachelor parties
• Why wishing wells are considered rude and what good wedding gift etiquette actually looks like
• How to decide whether you actually want to go to a wedding
• How wedding etiquette has changed in the past 20 years and why bucking tradition is putting pressure on guests
• How couples can be more inclusive of their single guests
• Why Indian weddings look more fun than western weddings and what western couples could learn from them

Whether you are heading to a wedding alone this summer, trying to figure out if you can say no without the guilt, secretly relieved someone cancelled their engagement, or planning a wedding and want to actually be a good host to your single friends, this episode is for you.

Jackie Vernon-Thompson: transformativeetiquette.com · @fromtheinsideoutsoe

Substack memoir - the Last Year of Single story in real time: breesteele.substack.com

Instagram: @breesteele.mp3

Host and Executive Producer: Bree Steele

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's the end of monsoon season in Mumbai. Bree went to the premiere of Call Me Bae last night. And she's been thinking about a question that's been sitting with her: what is it like when you have never once seen yourself reflected in a rom-com?

That question brought her to Peta Hooke.

Peta is a disability advocate, podcaster, and single woman living with cerebral palsy in Melbourne, Australia. She uses an electric wheelchair and has been navigating dating, ableism, body image, fertility decisions and the complicated business of loving her single life, all while the world largely pretends people with disabilities don't date, don't have sex, and don't deserve to see themselves in the stories we tell about love.

This episode is one of the most honest, important and entertaining conversations in the entire series. It will change how you see single life, dating, representation, and what it actually means to enjoy being on your own, regardless of whether you have a disability or not.

Peta is the creator and host of The I Can't Stand Podcast - the show that answers every question people are too scared to ask about living with a disability. It took her 313 days to be given access to freeze her eggs due to ableism in the medical system. She is not here to be inspirational. She is here to be honest.

In this episode you'll learn:

• What dating with a disability actually looks like: the ableism on dating apps, the assumptions able-bodied people make, and the exhausting work of navigating a world that wasn't built for you
• How growing up without ever seeing yourself in a rom-com shapes your expectations of love, relationships and single life
• The myth that wheelchair users can't have sex
• What Peta wishes able-bodied people understood before dating someone with a disability, the practical advice that changes everything
• The 313-day fight to access egg freezing: what ableism in the medical system looks like when you're trying to make decisions about your own fertility and future
• How Peta's relationship with being single has changed over the years, from grief about the life she hoped for to genuinely loving the life she has
• What single women - with or without a disability - can learn from Peta's experience about self-worth, representation and refusing to make yourself smaller so the world is more comfortable

This episode is for every single woman who has ever felt like she wasn't the person the love story was written for.

Peta Hooke's podcast: The I Can't Stand Podcast - icantstandpodcast.com

Follow Peta on Instagram: @petahooke

Follow Bree on Instagram: @breesteele.mp3

Substack - community + Last Year of Single List here

Listen to the full series (best in order)

Email: [email protected]

Host and Executive Producer: Bree Steele 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I used to say I loved myself. I also used to people-please, stay in situationships that made me feel worthless, and spend every night alone wondering what was wrong with me. Those two things cannot both be true. One of them was lying.

If you would say you love yourself, but you keep accepting less than you deserve, chasing people who don't choose you, and feeling like being single means something is fundamentally wrong with you; this episode is the one that explains why. And what to actually do about it.

Clinical psychologist Dr Adia Gooden joins Bree to break down what self-esteem actually is, why so many high-achieving women have dangerously low self-worth without realising it, and how to build the kind of unconditional self-worth that doesn't crumble when the world: dating apps, rejection, situationships, the stories in your own head, confirms every insecurity you've ever had.

Because it will confirm them. Repeatedly. And your self-worth needs to be built for that.

Dr Adia Gooden is a licensed clinical psychologist with a BA from Stanford University and PhD from DePaul University. Her TEDx talk "Cultivating Unconditional Self-Worth" has over 1 million views. She hosts the Unconditionally Worthy podcast and coaches high-achieving professional women to stop making their worth conditional on achievement, approval or being chosen.

In this episode you'll learn:

• What self-esteem actually is and the difference between self-esteem and unconditional self-worth that changes everything
• The hidden signs of low self-worth that look like being a good person: people-pleasing, over-giving, settling, chasing
• Why hating being single is a self-esteem problem disguised as a relationship problem and why no relationship will fix it
• How the stories we tell ourselves: "I'm too much," "I'm not enough," "nobody stays", become self-fulfilling and how to break them
• Why the world, dating apps, rejection and situationships are specifically designed to confirm your worst fears about yourself and how to build self-worth that survives all of it
• The four practices Dr Adia Gooden uses to help women build unconditional self-worth
• What genuinely loving yourself looks like in practice, not as a concept but as a daily experience that changes how you date, how you live single, and how far across the world you're willing to go alone on gut instinct

Whether you're newly single after a breakup, stuck in self-sabotage and people-pleasing, exhausted by attracting people who treat you as less than you're worth, or a solo female traveller who moved countries alone and still wonders if she's enough, this episode is the foundation everything else builds on.

Dr Adia Gooden's free ebook: 4 Practices to Cultivate Unconditional Self-Worth - dradiagooden.com

Unconditionally Worthy podcast — Dr Adia Gooden

TEDx: Cultivating Unconditional Self-Worth

dradiagooden.com · 📸 @dradiagooden

Follow Bree on Instagram: @breesteele.mp3

Substack community + Last Year of Single List here

Email: [email protected]

Host and Executive Producer: Bree Steele 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For the women listening: if you've spent years dating emotionally unavailable men and wondering why - this episode has the peer-reviewed answer. And it's more surprising, and more human, than you'd expect. For the single men listening: this episode was made for you. Not to lecture you. Not to make you feel worse about yourself. To actually help.

University of Toronto PhD researcher Elaine Hoan joins Bree to break down her landmark study of nearly 6,000 adults - the first comprehensive research of its kind - which found that single women are happier than single men across every measure: life satisfaction, relationship satisfaction, sexual fulfilment, and desire for a partner. The eligible bachelor is a myth. The male loneliness epidemic is real. And it's quietly destroying modern dating for everyone.

Bree also asked single men on Instagram what it's actually like to be them. Their answers were raw, honest and revealing. They feel intense pressure to do everything alone. They feel deeply isolated but don't know how to change it. They cope by throwing themselves into the gym and their careers. Almost none of them have the kind of deep, honest friendships that women build naturally. And the finding that explains modern dating in one sentence - men think women want money, muscles and someone who never cries. Women actually want emotional maturity, real vulnerability and a man who knows how to be a genuine friend.

This episode covers the male loneliness epidemic, the male friendship crisis, what women actually want versus what men think women want, the limiting definition of masculinity that is making single men miserable, and most importantly, what single men can actually do to be happier, more connected, and better at dating.

Elaine Hoan is a PhD candidate in the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto, supervised by Professor Geoff MacDonald. Her study "Sisters Are Doin' It for Themselves": Gender Differences in Singles' Well-Being was published in Social Psychological and Personality Science (2025).

In this episode you'll learn:

• Why single men are less happy than single women across every measure — the findings from nearly 6,000 adults
• The male loneliness epidemic: why single men are isolated, friendless and struggling in ways they rarely admit
• Why men fear singlehood more than women, and how that fear creates emotionally unavailable behaviour in dating
• The male friendship crisis: why men don't have real friendships, what masculinity has to do with it, and what it's costing them
• Why single men cope through the gym and their careers, and why it will never fill the gap
• What women actually want in dating: emotional maturity, vulnerability, real connection; versus what men think women want
• Why single women are more sexually fulfilled than single men and what that reveals about modern relationships
• The limiting definition of masculinity that is keeping single men isolated, unhappy and undateable
• What single men can actually do differently to be happier, build real friendships and become the kind of partner women are genuinely looking for
• What the male loneliness epidemic means for your dating life as a newly single woman, and why emotional maturity is the only green flag that actually matters

Whether you're a single woman exhausted by emotionally unavailable men, newly single after a breakup and trying to understand the modern dating landscape, or a single man who recognises himself in any of this and is ready to actually change, this episode is for you.

Elaine Hoan's study: "Sisters Are Doin' It for Themselves" - Social Psychological and Personality Science (2025)

University of Toronto Department of Psychology: psych.utoronto.ca

Follow Bree on Instagram: @breesteele.mp3

Substack — memoir, community + Last Year of Single List: [Substack link]

Email: [email protected]

Executive producer, host & editor: Bree Steele

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you've just come out of a relationship, situationship or hookup that felt like an addiction: intense highs, crushing lows, a pattern you can't seem to escape no matter how much you want to, this episode explains exactly what was happening in your brain. And what it takes to actually stop it.

Clinical psychologist Dr Anastasia Hronis joins Bree to break down the psychology and neuroscience behind love bombing, dopamine-driven dating, toxic relationship patterns, anxious attachment, and why dating apps are making it all so much harder to find genuine connection.

Dr Hronis is the founder of the Australian Institute for Human Wellness, Honorary Associate at the University of Technology Sydney, and author of The Dopamine Brain (Penguin, 2024) - the science-backed guide to breaking cycles of impulse and living with intention.

Whether you're newly single after a relationship that felt like a drug, struggling with why you keep attracting emotionally unavailable people, or trying to understand why your last relationship had such extreme high highs and low lows — this conversation will change how you understand yourself and your patterns.

In this episode you'll learn:

•    What love bombing actually is and the early red flags that are easy to miss when everything feels so good

•    Why your brain confuses intensity with genuine love, the dopamine science behind it

•    How dopamine creates addiction to toxic relationships and emotional chaos

•    Why dating apps are built like slot machines and what that does to your ability to attach

•    Anxious attachment, avoidant patterns and why you keep attracting emotionally unavailable people

•    How to tell the difference between real connection and a dopamine hit

•    Why you keep repeating the same relationship patterns and how to actually break them

•    What healthy, secure dating actually feels like when you're used to chaos

•    Practical steps to start dating like a grounded, regulated person and stop the cycle

The Dopamine Brain by Dr Anastasia Hronis — Penguin, 2024 — available everywhere books are sold

Dr Anastasia Hronis: anastasiahronis.com.au

Australian Institute for Human Wellness: ausihw.com.au

Follow Bree on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/breesteele.mp3/

Join the Last Year of Single community on Substack: https://breesteele.substack.com/

Email: [email protected]

Host and Executive Producer: Bree Steele

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.