Living alone: anecdotes and such

[Isaac Hill]

I've lived alone for the past 9 years and don't see that changing anytime soon, if ever. I like that there's no one to complain when I have the floors of two rooms covered in Legos. Even when I shared apartments with roommates in college, I pretty much lived alone. Unless I was making food, I was pretty much either in my own room or out. The only time I didn't have my own room was freshman year of college, when I shared a dorm room with two other guys. One guy wasn't there much and moved into a frat mid year, but the other guy and I got along pretty well.

For people who want their own kitchen and living space, but still miss having people around, it might be possible to buy/rent an entire small apartment building. Maybe one of those tri-level buildings with two apartments on each floor. Get enough friends to fill all the units, and everyone would have their own space, but you'd still be able to hang out together without braving the elements. If you could afford a little extra rent, leave one unit empty as a common area.

The hardest part would be finding a building with multiple units opening up at the same time. If you're in a college town, there should be some buildings that churn though tenants fairly quickly as people graduate.

[Proginoskes]

And that's what someone who has no sense of humor says. Or what a douchebag says.

BTW, I still think the original post is funny.

That's because you're sexist.

Get well soon.

No, the JOKE is sexist. (Only because of the slapping.)

If someone tells a Polish joke, that doesn't make them Polish, does it?

[Ulc]

If someone tells a Polish joke, that doesn't make them Polish, does it?

No, but it likely makes them racist.

And no, it's not just because of the slapping.

[Proginoskes]

If someone tells a Polish joke, that doesn't make them Polish, does it?

No, but it likely makes them racist.

And no, it's not just because of the slapping.

This mock flame war was actually a visual demonstration of another reason why living alone stinks. If you live alone, you have nothing better to do at nights than to argue on the Internet.

[Red Hal]

"Mock" flame war? Ah! So it was all just a social experiment? I see. Well, now that's cleared up I am sure no-one will think any the worse of you.

I've tried living alone. It sucks. I mean it's great for a couple of weeks, and maybe some people prefer to have a guaranteed personal space, but for me an otherwise empty property (save for myself) is a slightly depressing place to be.

[dubsola]

I lived alone for a couple of years and quite enjoyed it at first. I'd just moved out of my parents house and loved the freedom. I would spend an entire afternoon and evening playing around with toys (eg computers), go eat a 1 dollar burger, then watch TV till I fell asleep.

After a while it got old. Since then I've lived with one friend, five friends, a girlfriend and her sister, and now live with my wife. All of those experiences have positive and negative aspects. I think it comes down to: what kind of person you are, what mood you are in, what your circumstances are.

[AngrySquirrel]

On living alone.

Pros:
No one gives a shit what I do.

Cons:
No one gives a shit what I do.

I enjoy living on my own, it's very liberating and it's helping me become a better person, simply because I have no one to blame for things going wrong except myself. On the other hand it's quite scary knowing that if I die it will be months before anyone notices.

[meridian]

@AngrySquirrel: Obviously, you just have to not die. Ever. Problem solved.

I loved living alone. I loved living with a significant other. I am not so good with roommates. I miss living alone in the fact that the mess that I have to clean (and I seem to be the only one who cleans), is multiplied by the number of people I live with, not decreased by the sharing of work. I miss when the mess was my own and not so soul sucking.

[AngrySquirrel]

@AngrySquirrel: Obviously, you just have to not die. Ever. Problem solved.

I know right! Easiest thing in the world!

[The Mighty Thesaurus]

I'm the sort of person who prefers to live alone, but probably shouldn't. I do things like forget to eat for days or meticulously order my film collection while the rest of the house just gets dirtier and dirtier unless I have somebody actively reminding me to do that stuff.

[AvatarIII]

Only drawback is that my current roommate is a morning person, whereas I'm distinctly not a morning person.

Counter to that, I'm not a morning person either, but that just meant that when I lived on my own, if I slept through my plethora of alarms, I would sleep until I woke up naturally, which is normally 10am-ish.
When I lived with a flatmate, if he was getting ready for work and didn't see me getting ready for work, he'd knock on my door to make sure I was awake, same with my girlfriend/fiancée, but replace knocking on door with kicking on leg.
or if they didn't need to be up and I did, they would impolitely shout at me until I turned my alarms off, which I could quite happily sleep through.

Another drawback of living alone is cost, since it always seems like if you double the amount you pay for rent, you get 4 times as much space.

Benefits to living on your own are setting your own timetable; being able to use the bathroom whenever you want, for as long as you want; being as messy as you want (although that has the drawback of the landlord caring how messy it is, even if you don't, and then they send photographs to your guarantor who is your mum and then you get in trouble )

living alone is great, but living with a room-mate/partner is probably healthier psychologically. Being unaccountable to anyone but yourself is not really a good thing, it doesn't help you grow as a person and it makes you selfish and lazy, at least that's how I feel about it in retrospect, ironically that's the exact opposite to what AngrySquirrel said

[Amnesiasoft]

I'm the sort of person who prefers to live alone, but probably shouldn't. I do things like forget to eat for days or meticulously order my film collection while the rest of the house just gets dirtier and dirtier unless I have somebody actively reminding me to do that stuff.

Obviously you need to meticulously order your dirt collection.

[SlyReaper]

Doesn't this pretty much come down to whether you're an introvert or extrovert? Introverts prefer solitude, extroverts prefer the company of people, so this is surely reflected in whether they prefer to live alone or not.

[philsov]

For people who want their own kitchen and living space, but still miss having people around, it might be possible to buy/rent an entire small apartment building. Maybe one of those tri-level buildings with two apartments on each floor. Get enough friends to fill all the units, and everyone would have their own space, but you'd still be able to hang out together without braving the elements. If you could afford a little extra rent, leave one unit empty as a common area.

The hardest part would be finding a building with multiple units opening up at the same time. If you're in a college town, there should be some buildings that churn though tenants fairly quickly as people graduate.

I did this for two years during college, and it was awesome. It was an old complex, but because we were all so physically close it didn't really matter that most of us rocked 1 BR apartments complete with a communal front porch and backyard. At its peak there was a waiting list of sorts and the only way to get in was to get contacted by the person moving out, so we socially controlled the population and outsiders/people who'd officially contact the complex instead of us never made their way in.

Then things went downhill as we hemorrhaged with a lot of people moving out and no one wanting to move in and about half the tenants were suddenly middle aged druggies. Meh. Fun while it lasted.

[Kithplana]

Doesn't this pretty much come down to whether you're an introvert or extrovert? Introverts prefer solitude, extroverts prefer the company of people, so this is surely reflected in whether they prefer to live alone or not.

Not really. I'm pretty introverted, but although being alone is nice, I prefer having at least one other person around for periods of time exceeding a couple of days. Now, there might be a difference in how easily an introvert tolerates a roommate who is a friend or acquaintance rather than family or a significant other... I know I fare much better with the latter.

[AvatarIII]

Doesn't this pretty much come down to whether you're an introvert or extrovert? Introverts prefer solitude, extroverts prefer the company of people, so this is surely reflected in whether they prefer to live alone or not.

I don't know, if anything I'd say introverts prefer to live with people that they feel comfortable with, whereas an extrovert would be more than happy to live on their own because they can go out and make new friends easier.
Even introverts like human interaction, but an introvert living on their own would become insular and lonely, whereas an extrovert doesn't need to live with people because they can go out and seek human interaction whenever they want.

[flickering_candle]

I don't know, if anything I'd say introverts prefer to live with people that they feel comfortable with, whereas an extrovert would be more than happy to live on their own because they can go out and make new friends easier.
Even introverts like human interaction, but an introvert living on their own would become insular and lonely, whereas an extrovert doesn't need to live with people because they can go out and seek human interaction whenever they want.

Speaking as one who is very introverted, I get more than enough human interaction at work. At home, just leave me to my books and computer, thanks. In terms of who I would be comfortable living with, I think it really comes down to how much I trust them. I'm on good terms with my family, but my comfort level with living with my brother as a flatmate is very different from what it would be living with my SO. When I had roomates in college, the less I saw of them, generally the better in terms of comfort.

[SecondTalon]

Indeed. If I felt the need for human interaction, I could leave the house. If I do not, I simply would not. Never felt lonely, not even once. When I had a roommate, I'd have to do the whole "Go in my room and keep the door shut" when I wanted to be alone, which was annoying if I also wanted to ... y'know.. cook, or watch TV or use my PS2 or any other activity that I could not do in my room. As well as the torn feeling when your roommate knocks on your door to chat for a minute, as... do you be a dick and tell them to fuck off for a while? Because no matter how polite you are about it, even if you've worked out a system well in advance that a shut door means you're not to be disturbed, then just by shutting your door you're telling your roommate to fuck off..

Or you just suck it up and deal with it, which is.. annoying. I'm not even sure I can describe the feeling of forced interaction when you just want to be alone.

[D.B.]

I'm certainly an introvert, but I'd say that on balance I'm happier not living alone. Quite frankly if I don't have some kind of structure whereby I have to casually interact with other people, I end up not doing so at all. And then when I do need to, I find it difficult. It's almost like normal social interactions are a very perishable skill for me, and deteriorate rapidly if not practised. Living with one or more people helps with this, and while sometimes being forced to socialise when I don't want to is very annoying, I think I prefer it to the sensation of wanting to interact with someone but finding that I seem to have lost the knack as to how.

[SecondTalon]

Hm.. it may have helped that while I was living alone, my work was in the Customer Service industry. More or less, daily interaction with a wide variety of people was expected and mandatory. If I had a job where interaction wasn't required to fulfill the job requirements, perhaps I would have needed some other way to force interaction.

[roband]

I would say I'm more an extrovert than an intro-, but I enjoy living alone.

[krizzle_zizzle]

The worst for kitchen cleaning was when I shared a house at University. People would use all my stuff for cooking and then leave it in the sink full of food and water. Then somehow it was always magically my turn to clean the whole kitchen by myself. I was the youngest there, but now I'm old enough to see that we were all a bunch of noobs.

I also had to share a room when I lived at my parents, which involved lots of being woken up by alarms and people coming in late. I got really tired.

I lived alone working from home for a short while which was the loneliest. Now I work in an office, and the balance of work, social and alone time seems alright. I'd maybe share a place with someone but I'd have to trust them a lot.

[gorcee]

If someone tells a Polish joke, that doesn't make them Polish, does it?

No, but it likely makes them racist.

And no, it's not just because of the slapping.

It's not racist because Polish isn't a race. It's a nationality. And us Poles usually don't care, because we're too busy doing awesome things like training bears to carry artillery shells or making delicious sausages.

[StevenR]

That's because you're sexist.

[Nigel]
What's wrong with being sexy?
[/Nigel]

[meridian]

Sexist =/= Sexy

[StevenR]

Damn. I was hoping someone would get the Spinal Tap reference.

[SecondTalon]

That's because you're sexist.

[Nigel]
What's wrong with being sexy?
[/Nigel]

See, that's how you do it. So there's no questioning, no possible way someone could mistake what you're trying to do.

Yes, it is a bit "explaining the joke". Given the subject matter and the prior discussion of which you were referencing, there's no harm in explaining the joke.

[StevenR]

It just saddens me that kis these days aren't learning the classics.

I'm not certain I want to live in a world where Nigel Tufnel isn't known. That is most certainly not a world that goes to 11.

[SlyReaper]

Spinal Tap was moderately popular in its own time. That does not a classic make.

"Classic" is not a synonym for "old".

[SecondTalon]

It just saddens me that kis these days aren't learning the classics.

I'm not certain I want to live in a world where Nigel Tufnel isn't known. That is most certainly not a world that goes to 11.

While I do disagree with my colleague SlyReaper on the matter of Spinal Tap's classifulness, but that's not really important or even relevant. If you'd like, I can discuss the variety of ways the joke fell completely flat. It's best to accept that it did, and move on.