Half the men in Seattle are never-married singles, census data shows

I wish they defined what "single" means for the purpose of this statistic. From what I see on the census website, it's as though they're counting people who are divorced, widowed, unmarried and also people who are in a long term relationship in the same category, which they're calling "single". Single to me means not in a relationship at all.

I guess I also wish they defined the boundaries of Seattle: do they mean the urban core, the city limits, King County, or the metropolitan region? I know relatively few married people who live in Seattle, but that's because it's too expensive to buy a house in Seattle's city limits. You either have to inherit a house, or have both people work in a high-paying industry for this to be affordable.

I also know more than a few couples who are in very long term, committed relationships, living in Seattle with no intention to get legally married. They are 'married' in the culturally meaningful sense, just not the legal one.

My point is it seems (to my inexpert reading) like their statistic is capturing very young people, who rent apartments in Seattle but aren't ready to get married, and older people who may have houses in Seattle, but are more likely to be divorced or widowed. But, they're mostly not talking about 30-60 year olds, who are more likely to be married, bu live outside Seattle and commute into it. Weird.

I don't know how much I care about this statistic.