I
read an article the other day, written by a lady defending the idea of living alone. She’d been married and was in her fifties,
but it was nice to see someone defending the choice to live alone for a change. Clearly people who can’t appreciate why some
chose to live alone do not understand the utopia that your own space can be.
I
did my fair share of living with people.
I went from living with my family to sharing a dorm room the size of my
parent’s laundry room with another person.
Now, having never shared a bedroom, much less a coat closet, this
sucked. And that was just the first of
four completely crazy roommates. My
freshman roommate started dating a guy towards the end of the year. I’d go off to study and come back to being
locked out of my dorm room so they could have sex. This does not a good roomie make.
My
sophomore roomie was utterly depressed.
She had good reasons for being so, however I was looking for someone to
live with who was a) interested in getting out of bed and b) opening the blinds
to see the rare Oregon sunshine on occasion.
I told the housing director if he didn’t find me my own room I’d pitch a
tent in the middle of the quad. And that
I was a champion camper so don’t test me.
He moved me to the top of the list and I got my own room.
One
of my junior roomies locked her door after swallowing pills and a boatload of
booze. After breaking up with someone
names Harold Haroldson. I wish I were
kidding about the name. Security had to
break down the door but she turned out to be fine. Just emotionally crazy, no long term damage.
One
of my senior roomies loved purple. I
mean LOVED purple. Her car was painted
purple. Her parents painted their house
purple. Her bedroom liked like Barney
threw up in there. She also repeatedly stole my brown sugar. This is mostly
annoying, but no twenty-something should be that addicted to a color.
So
after the sheer volume of crazy roommates, it’s not a stretch to see why I
prefer living alone. I did have one good
room mate living experience with a co-worker and we’re actually still friends. The only person I’ve lived with and we still
like each other all these years later.
It probably helped that we had a third, male, roommate.
So
I’ve spent the last 7-ish years living alone.
And I love it. To the point that
if I ever decide to get married, I don’t just want side-by-side individual
beds, I want side-by-side houses. Maybe
a duplex would be more economical. There
are certainly some good tax implications there.
Anyway,
since I find myself quite entertaining most of the time, living alone doesn’t
faze me in the least. Occasionally I
wish the food fairy or laundry fairy would make an appearance, but the good
outweighs the bad. For example, no one
(besides Hulu - yes I know how long I've been watching, quit judging me!) could comment on the Revenge marathon I just went through. I don’t have to explain why I’m addicted to
the damn show and just watched 30 episodes in a week.
Whose
dirty dishes in the sink? Mine. Whose shoes littering my living room? Mine.
Whose underwear littering the bedroom floor? I have no idea; I have a laundry basket for
that. Here’s the thing, I can do what I want, when I want and no one
is there to pass judgment. If I want
company, I go visit friends.
Personally,
I think everyone should live alone at some point in your life. It’s important to learn how to be just you,
how to entertain yourself and how to get through a bottle of wine by yourself
before it goes bad. I still haven’t
mastered that one. Alone doesn’t mean
lonely. Alone means freedom.
The
usual definition of alone is separate, apart, isolated from others. I like the alternate definition . . . unique
or unequaled.
