Understanding get_post_meta & single

get_post_meta does not act as the reference (http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/get_post_meta) is telling me:

The $single parameter acts the opposite as statet. If I set it to TRUE and I expect the value to be an array, I receive an array, if I set it to FALSE, there is something empty beeing returned.

Actually I might be ment the other way arround. Nevertheles it is strange…