Singlehood to sisterhood: Building new bond

The members of Status Single, a community for single women, had their first offline meet up at various places in the country, in October, and plan on meeting regularly now.

Bound by a common status — of being single — a group of women across the country are finding strength in each other’s tales of courage and survival. Having interacted digitally for years, the members of the community, Status Single, finally got together for an offline meet recently.

Status Single, a support group for single women founded by author Sreemoyee Piu Kundu in 2018, met for the first time in person last month.

“We had our meetup on Karwa Chauth in Delhi. It was symbolic as anyone can pray for the long life of their loves ones, and doesn’t have to be only for your husband,” says author Sreemoyee Piu Kundu, who is the founder of this community. She informs, “The Delhi members of the group met and shared their experiences. Though they have known each other for long, this was the first time they met in person. It was like a blind date among friends, who got together to discuss the vision of their community.It was in October, when one of the members in Kolkata asked ‘Why are we not meeting’. With members in so many cities across the world, we then decided to build this community into an actual, visible, offline support group for single women. We realised that these women were not interested to just do a kitty party, but become a collective of women like a support group. Since then, this idea spread like wild fire, and we’ve already had meetups in Kolkata, Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, Chennai, Lucknow, and Mumbai.”

Sreemoyee Piu Kundu, the founder of Status Single, says that her Facebook community grew after her book was published in 2018.

Sangeeta Das, an artist and graphic designer from Mayur Vihar, attended the Delhi meet and terms it a magical moment. “Everyone decided on what should be the purpose of the meet. And it was not a meet to party, but to establish a kind of city-based community group,” she points.

Another attendee, Vrinda Vats, a Haryana-based teacher, shares how meeting everyone gave her positive vibes. “This helped me to strengthen my decision of staying single by choice!” says Vats.

While the physical meetups could happen only now, the community kept in touch virtually during the pandemic and offered support to members. “We would talk about loneliness and mental health issues. We conducted a survey to figure out the financial situation of the members and were shocked to see that many of them didn’t have savings. We then organised talks to connect them with HR leads,” Kundu concludes.

Author tweets @anjuri

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