Live alone and like it

June 28, 2018 9:54 AM

"There’s been a tendency over the last century or two to imagine the solo-living man as someone who has chosen peaceful privacy and the solo-living woman as a sort of flawed societal leftover. Or perhaps more alarmingly, a woman who has chosen to reject her preordained role as helper to a husband and family."
posted by Lycaste (50 comments total)

Speaking as a man who mostly lived by myself for ~10 years (and largely enjoyed it) on the cusp of and in early middle age, that was not my impression of the general US societal view of my living situation.

I think men who live by themselves after their 20s or so are typically viewed as losers, as potential creeps, and likely to be living in squalor or something close to it. Despite how common it has become, there still seems to be a stigma attached to going it alone, regardless of your gender.
posted by ryanshepard at 10:01 AM on June 28, 2018 [24 favorites]

I'm with ryanshepard. There's definitely a historical bias against solo-living ladies. I used to play a card game with my Nana called Old Maid. But the last century might be the kindest in a few millennia to the independent older woman, while the solo-living older man has become ever more suspect.

To be clear, I don't think either demographic gets off very well. And they're definitely subject to different stereotypes.
posted by es_de_bah at 10:09 AM on June 28, 2018 [6 favorites]

I understand what you're saying, although I'm not crazy about you both tumbling in to make it about men right out of the gate.

In the actual article, the author examines some interesting ways in which society (and other men) support the concept of men living alone as a positive or at most a neutral, whereas so much more often there is not only enormous social pressure against women living alone, but also enormous anxiety on the part of women about living alone (should I, how to, etc.), women constantly scrutinizing themselves for breaking this largely unstated norm.

Also the discourse about "is living alone SAFE", which does not show up in discussions of guys choosing bachelor pads.

Anyway, it's an interesting article, I recommend it.
posted by theatro at 10:18 AM on June 28, 2018 [43 favorites]

I'm a female who lived alone for about 9 years. I didn't think there was anything particularly unusual about it. Most people who questioned it were more wondering how I afforded a place by myself in Sydney.

The only time I did something specifically out of safety concerns was after I bought my house and a newspaper contacted me asking if they could interview me for a piece on my suburb (the real estate agent had passed on my details without my consent). I thought that putting my details (which would probably include the fact that I'd bought the place by myself) and picture of my house in a newspaper would not be the best idea.
posted by Kris10_b at 10:19 AM on June 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

I read the article yesterday and thought it had some interesting historical perspectives. I just hit my 2-year anniversary of living alone post-divorce, and I couldn't be happier about it. I think people around me probably do pity me a little bit; I pick up on stuff like that at work. But you know what? I turn 45 this year, and I don't give a shit what anyone else thinks about how I live my life. (Which is a realization I came to, like, two days ago.) From this point on in my life, every life decision I make is going to be for me, not for anyone else. I love living alone and I don't really care if other people have opinions about it. Being happy is so much more satisfying than living up to other people's expectations of what should make you happy.
posted by mudpuppie at 10:20 AM on June 28, 2018 [28 favorites]

Mod note: Quick note that, yes, experiences are not universal and what any given woman or man goes through in life will not necessarily hew to a general piece on this or that experiential thing. That said, let's maybe not go in early on a specific "here's a thing women deal with" link with a lot of "well, as a man..." redirects.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:28 AM on June 28, 2018 [13 favorites]

I think about my mother, who never lived alone until was widowed in her late 60s. She went from her childhood home, to the dorm, to sharing the bedroom of a tiny apartment with a fellow female teacher when she started working, to sharing a home with my dad after they married. Her own mother was widowed in her 50s and as a centenarian has lived nearly half her life alone.

No one bats an eye at a widowed older woman living alone.

For me, the stigma of living alone seemed to fall away in pieces. After a brief marriage and a socially acceptable good college try, we discovered I had a serious medical condition that made it unwise to try for children. Which led to less pressure for me to find someone else to marry to have said children. And then getting irreversibly ill and entering my 40s.

Not being in the position to be a viable wife and mother very cleanly removes me from most stigma or judgment, like most older widows. I live alone in a sweet little old house with my very sweet dog and my own thoughts and my own schedule and I thank my lucky stars every day for my incredible luck!
posted by mochapickle at 10:39 AM on June 28, 2018 [12 favorites]

living alone is the BEST. i'm in an apartment with hideous carpet now, but it is the only thing i dislike about MY SPACE, and unfortunately cannot correct it.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 10:53 AM on June 28, 2018 [11 favorites]

I'm a woman. I have never lived alone for any substantial period of time. Not because society disapproves, or because I would feel unsafe, or because I don't think I could cope. But because it is freakin' expensive! Seriously how can anyone even afford to live alone?
posted by elizilla at 11:04 AM on June 28, 2018 [2 favorites]

I've lived alone in my house for 18 years. It's marvelous and I see no reason to change (other than possibly retiring into a space with more facilities for the elderly when I hit that point). I can leave the dishes in the sink and the laundry piled on the couch, I can eat cheese and crackers for dinner for three days in a row, I can sleep late (if the dog lets me) or get up early without interfering with anyone else's schedule.

I love living alone, but it also helps to have my sister and nieces within a few miles, so I'm not actually short of social connections.
posted by suelac at 11:08 AM on June 28, 2018 [10 favorites]

Yeah, it definitely pushes my housing-as-percentage-of-income way up. If I lived with someone else, I could either pay less, or afford more/better space for the money. But in the end, it's so important to me by now, that it's a sacrifice I made without regret.
posted by theatro at 11:08 AM on June 28, 2018 [4 favorites]

--although of course, being able to even have the option to make the sacrifice is most definitely not something that most people can do. So I feel lucky to be able to have a solo place at all, and still be able to eat.
posted by theatro at 11:13 AM on June 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

I dislike how the automatic perception of a woman living alone is that she is a 'problem' that needs to be 'solved', while men living alone are not regarded in the same manner. It feels tied in into or notions about 'contribution to society', where women's contribution to society as measured by having a husband and children. For men, their contribution to society can be their job, although the whole idea is not called into question as much.

When family friends and what not ask about me, often times the one and only thing they ask is if I am married / if I have children. This is in 2018. About other things, nobody cares. No one cares about my job, activities, my volunteer work, or that I moved to a different country. It's not what matters to them. I could have traveled the world, become a turnip farmer, moved to the other side of the planet. It doesn't matter. This, I very much feel is gendered. The article articulates this problem.
posted by GladysKnight at 11:15 AM on June 28, 2018 [11 favorites]

I lived alone from mid-2009 to mid-2014 (in four different apartments in two cities, but that's another story), from age 27 to 32. I LOVED IT. Most of the time I was either in grad school or had a job, but there was a little gap between grad school and a job, and during that time, I reverted to the habits of an unparented pre-teen--nocturnal, a diet of granola bars, binge-watching netflix for 12-hour stretches. It was half glorious and half unsettling, like I was untethered to the world.
posted by millipede at 11:37 AM on June 28, 2018 [3 favorites]

Living alone is a relatively new phenomenon historically speaking. It would have been near impossible to live alone when you had to grow or hunt all of your food, when you had to build your own shelter, when you had to harvest all of the fuel you needed for cooking and heating, dig your own well and latrine, when you had to make your own clothes- tan the hides, spin the yarn, weave the cloth. And you had to somehow stake a claim to the land on which you wanted to live alone.

I sometimes wonder if we are being influenced to live alone by corporate greed. More units of consumption means more profit. The more individual households, the more cars, appliances, etc.
posted by mareli at 11:58 AM on June 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

I am a woman who lives alone and I love it. I love it. I would live with a romantic partner, and have, but I would require some very private space (and honestly, since the last time I wanted to a few years ago, I’m feeling more ambivalent about even wanting that).

It is expensive. More than that, I’m an artist/freelancer, and my precarity is infuriating when I realize that most others with a job like mine have partners with a “regular” job.

I spend a fair amount of time helping some friends with their kids and they sure do have a knack for having an emergency right when I have some rare down-time. My friendships and relationships and community and chosen family are incredibly important to me, but a lot of times I’m reminded that I love the choices I have made/the luck that has made this life possible (I generally think it’s mostly been the latter).
posted by jeweled accumulation at 12:20 PM on June 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

I definitely don't think corporate marketing has anything to do with it. Corporate marketing does not know that single living-alone late-30s female software developers even exist, as far as I can tell. It's actively difficult for me to buy food in many cases in quantities that actually suit cooking for one. My driving would happen in the same quantities or not depending on local support for public transit regardless of my household size. I don't live alone because anything has ever told me it was acceptable, I live alone because living with a romantic partner was trying and living with roommates was an actual nightmare. I periodically think about getting a roommate again, and then I remember about how much I like my privacy and how much I hated my last roommate's loud friends and tendency to get home drunk late on weekends and... no, really, I'm good.
posted by Sequence at 12:23 PM on June 28, 2018 [16 favorites]

Well after 20 years of marriage I am as of today living alone for the first time since my 20s. I have to say that although even amicable divorce is never fun, I like having my own place again.

So this seems pertinent to my interests.
posted by emjaybee at 12:31 PM on June 28, 2018 [17 favorites]

Yeah. I miss my tiny studio with the stained glass windows, the wooden griffins and green men carved into the walls, and the imperfect bathroom tucked just under a large staircase. It was perfect because it was mine and no one bothered me unless I wanted them to. The neighboring tenants and I would randomly host gatherings by opening our doors to each other and leaving them open during the night. Not to mention impromptu hiking trips.

Sigh.
posted by Young Kullervo at 12:35 PM on June 28, 2018 [8 favorites]

For the last couple of decades, I’ve lived in my own condo or house. I always made more than my boyfriends, so when things fell apart, I always had my home. When i moved to a different country 12 years ago, I tried something different. I wanted to try living with housemates. For 3 years, I lived with some terrific people ... but ... I missed being on my own. So I found an ancient cottage in a beautiful hilly enclave and lived there for 7 years. During that time, in my late 40s, I met Mr. lemon_icing who was a famous silent and fierce bachelor. It took time, but we found a house built for two independent people who wanted to be together. it’s the first time living with someone is easy. i’ve always felt content on my own.

My parents were very supportive of my purchases; they felt it made me safe. No landlord to kick me out, my finances were secure. My friends loved house watching my place when I went on holiday. i never felt the stigma of old maidness.
posted by lemon_icing at 12:37 PM on June 28, 2018 [4 favorites]

This idea that you need to be taught how to live on your own is kind of mysterious to me. I live on my own...how I live? Sure, occasionally I'll try this or that tweak to my lifestyle, but I don't feel like I'm constantly compensating or cheering myself up for no one else being there. That's just how it is. It probably helps that my interest in home decor exists, but has a definite limit. I'm not living in squalor, but I don't need fresh flowers daily to keep up my morale.
posted by praemunire at 12:46 PM on June 28, 2018 [4 favorites]

This idea that you need to be taught how to live on your own is kind of mysterious to me.

It isn't to me, and I say this as a staunch loner.

My parents were married for 53 years. When my dad passed away, my mom found herself living on her own for the first time ever. (Okay, minor caveat: My middle aged brother actually lives with her, but we're going to ignore that for now, for reasons.)

It was a total learning curve for her. Two years later, she's still learning that she can make what she wants for dinner because she wants it. I introduced her to the miracle of bagged salad greens and pre-cut fruit, which she previously would not let herself buy because they felt like frivolities. She painted her bedroom and bought new curtains because she liked the colors.

These seem like small things, but not when you're of that generation, and not when your entire adult life -- literally your entire adult life, because she got married when she was 19 -- had been about keeping house for your husband: Keeping him fed, keeping his clothes laundered and his shirts pressed, keeping his bathroom clean, and on, and on, and on. She was keeping him, not keeping herself. Living alone requires a shift in thinking when it comes to upkeep. Learning to keep yourself, and learning that it's okay to make yourself happy first, is an enormous thing to have to learn. It requires new skills and new muscles, and it doesn't come easily for everyone.
posted by mudpuppie at 1:14 PM on June 28, 2018 [25 favorites]

theatro, I'm right there with you. Didn't mean to start the thread out negative. I'm certainly not saying that this isn't still a thing.

I generally think that focus on nuclear family in the US as opposed to extended family or neighborhood/community is awful for lonely people of all types. I think there's also counter effect that comes from woman generally living much longer than men, especially alone. So older woman living alone has become a bit normalized, while old men living alone are increasingly seen as either bitter anti-social weirdos or chauvinist playboys. (I can't find it, but Lewis Black has a bit about how a minority of his friends think he molests trees, because he's older and single.)
posted by es_de_bah at 1:16 PM on June 28, 2018

People lived alone even in Ye Olde Dayes. It's just that if I had been living in Ye Olde Dayes I would either be dead for any of so very many reasons or called a witch of some kind, probably. The "extremely antisocial" personality type is not some kind of brand-new innovation; at most it's gotten logistically easier to accommodate is all. Having to live with kin all your life is not some kind of idyllic anti-capitalist panacea for all, it's my idea of hell.

One of my most wildest wishes is to live in some kind of enchanted Fortress of Solitude type dwelling with a Howl's Moving Castle style magic door so that I will always be able to go away and be in my own space.
posted by inconstant at 1:25 PM on June 28, 2018 [3 favorites]

Living alone is a relatively new phenomenon historically speaking.

I mean, on the other hand, haven't human living arrangements have been highly plastic over the course of human history? I'm not an expert but my sense is that neither the nuclear family nor the multigenerational extended family matches either hunter-gatherer or medieval living patterns, which were also different from each other.

And like, individual beds are also a relatively new phenomenon, historically speaking. But I think it'd be pretty hard to argue that not wanting to share a bed with two family members, a spouse, and a couple of roommates is a desire created by corporate greed. I think it's more likely that most people have always wanted solitude to some extent, just like they also have wanted social interaction to some extent, and that this is expressed differently in different cultures.
posted by en forme de poire at 1:48 PM on June 28, 2018 [3 favorites]

The thing about nuclear/extended families is that living with them can be super oppressive if someone in your family is, for example, abusive, intrusive, or can't abide some fundamental facet of your being like your gender or sexuality, or all three, or etc. If you're coming from a situation like that, living alone can offer psychological and material refuge that is very powerful.

If anything I think corporate greed is pushing us to ever decreasing privacy (between advertising and high costs of living, etc.) and I think that is going to negatively affect my generation.
posted by en forme de poire at 1:56 PM on June 28, 2018 [3 favorites]

Following up on mareli's point that until electricity it was seriously difficult to actually live alone -- true, but there were probably a hundred years of women living in boardinghouses at all levels of luxury and respectability, often in suites they expected to have to themselves. More than a hundred years, when I think of the "excess women" in Lark Rise to Candleford or, argh, not quite Cranbourne Confessions, which is the one with the bank collapse and the lace that goes through a cat? And then the boarding-house-keepers, employers and employees, were almost all women. Cf. Katherine Whitehorn's Cooking in a Bedsitter or The Hall Bedroom.

Demography and economics lead, seems to me, and ideology puffs along after with a patching-trowel.
posted by clew at 1:57 PM on June 28, 2018 [4 favorites]

Given how many societies expect women to do the bulk of survival work anyway, I'd think that lots of them were perfectly able to manage living alone, if they got the chance/wanted to, even in "the old days." Things stopping them were likely to be their kids, landlords wanting to take their land, or bad health. But if you're already used to doing all the sewing, cooking, cleaning and raising food, what do you need a husband for? He just makes more work for you.
posted by emjaybee at 2:25 PM on June 28, 2018 [3 favorites]

I've believed for some time that the viability of female independence is at the root of sexism and misogyny. Some caveman got rejected and spent his extra time thinking about revenge.

Then politics was invented.
posted by rhizome at 3:03 PM on June 28, 2018 [3 favorites]

I mean, if laundry still took literally all day and there was no such thing as a vacuum cleaner and I had to bake my bread from scratch, I don't think my career outside the home would be super viable, at least not such that I'd be living in anything like comfort, but that's pretty irrelevant to anybody in modern times.
posted by Sequence at 3:10 PM on June 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

I love the quote by Marjorie Hillis, author of Live Alone and Like It:

For the woman who was feeling lonely or sorry for herself, she offered this prim bit of wisdom: “To be sure, you will have nobody to make a fuss over you when you are tired, but you will also have nobody to expect you to make a fuss over him, when you are tired. You will have no one to be responsible for your bills—and also no one to be responsible to for your bills.”

Right on, girl! So refreshing to see the positive aspects of solo living being so frankly discussed, especially in the '30s. Living alone = freedom from mandatory compromise, and freedom from physical and emotional labor. All of my married with kids friends do so, so much labor. No matter how decent the husbands are, the women always do more.

Many of the most popular advice books on living alone interpret “living alone” as “going through life alone,” and are essentially advice books on being unpartnered.

"Living alone = lonely" is a big misconception I encounter often when meeting new people. I'm a woman who lives alone, and if I mention that I'm also single, you can almost feel the internal eyebrow raise and litany of questions in the other person's head as they try to figure out WHY.

I love living alone. I think people who have never experienced it are missing out on something important; the experience of having your own safe refuge, a retreat from the world that is completely under your control. I look at my friends who went from living with family to living with roommates in college to living with roommates post-college to marriage with kids, people who have NEVER lived alone, and I wonder how they keep their sanity in a world where their every waking minute is literally in occupied territory, and how they will fare when the kids are grown, the spouse has passed away, and they are alone for the first time as elderly people. Living alone has been vital to my development as a person. Who would I be if I were always, on some level, living for someone else?

Traveling alone as a woman is also something people, even other women, can't quite wrap their heads around. If I mention some place I've travelled, and that I went there alone, I get a lot of raised eyebrows and boggled faces and "good for you; I could never do that!" If I go out to a restaurant, or to the movies, or even just to a concert by myself, I get the same response. I was chatting with a woman at a show recently, and she asked me if I was there by myself, and when I said yes, she said she'd never been to a show alone; she always bought two tickets when she wanted to see a band and found someone to come along. At the show where we met, she had brought her son, who was not particularly into the experience, but who had driven from his college an hour away just to accompany his mom.

I like this quote at the end of the article: “I really loved having the sense of, ‘This is my own space. I control everything about it. I can kind of start turning it into my little sanctuary, my little home.’” Total agreement, yeah, I live in a tiny little hobbit hole of an apartment, but it's my tiny little home.
posted by the thought-fox at 4:01 PM on June 28, 2018 [14 favorites]

oh my god I know that when I lived alone I was broke as shit and my apartment was 10 feet wide on the 5th floor over a 4AM bar, and now I pay the same rent for 3x the space on the first floor of a beautiful green leafy street with friendly neighbor dogs but I miss it SO MUCH
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 5:50 PM on June 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

To add to the thought-fox's comment above, I attended a group kayaking event alone one time, because mr honey badger doesn't kayak due to injury. I was perfectly happy to attend alone (it was a full moon kayak trip!) though I was the only one in a group of nearly 20 people who came solo. I chatted with a woman who attended with her husband, and once I affirmed that I was there alone, she immediately validated my choice to be alone, but I felt it was because *she* was uncomfortable with me being alone. It was so bizarre. As an introvert who doesn't particularly enjoy bending to the whims of group outings, I LOVE to do things alone. I have traveled to many countries alone, I've dined in my city alone (solo male diners are far, far more prevalent than solo women). I'm so glad that I grew up without hangups of women doing things alone, and that includes living alone. Sheesh!
posted by honey badger at 5:52 PM on June 28, 2018 [5 favorites]

My parents were married for 53 years. When my dad passed away, my mom found herself living on her own for the first time ever. (Okay, minor caveat: My middle aged brother actually lives with her, but we're going to ignore that for now, for reasons.)

Yes, but much of the advice being discussed in the article was clearly not aimed at widows or late-in-life divorcees, but rather younger women whose prior communal living experience was probably at most college or an apartment shared with similar-age roommates. There's a whole "must pretty up the place to stave off the despair of not being married yet!" tone there that is just weird to me.
posted by praemunire at 7:17 PM on June 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

honey badger, your kayaking anecdote makes me think about how often other women are the ones most uncomfortable with the notion of a female solo traveler. I'm not sure why that is, but maybe it has something to do with the fact that *they* don't feel like they could travel solo? I've been asked why I do [fun activity, such as a mega road trip] alone, and my reply is always something along the lines of (a) because it's fun???, and (b) because if I had to wait to find someone to do every little thing with, I'd never do *anything.*
posted by the thought-fox at 7:28 PM on June 28, 2018 [7 favorites]

L.M. Montgomery (of Anne of Green Gables fame) wrote numerous short stories about "old maids" and frankly, they were often the happiest characters in the books. They had nice little houses (usually inherited from parents), cats and were super cheery rather than exhausted and worn down like the mothers were. I noticed this as a child, then by 30s realised that this was what I'd been working towards all my life. Those stories make a lovely change from the relentless 'searching for the one' type. Living alone is lovely. Society might see me as a flawed woman but i'm too happy to care.
posted by kitten magic at 7:41 PM on June 28, 2018 [13 favorites]

There's a scene in one of the Anne books when she's a teacher, and she asks the kids to write about what they want the most. One girl says she wants to be a widow, because if you're not married people call you an old maid, and if you are married your husband bosses you around, but if you're a widow you don't have to worry about either one.
posted by Daily Alice at 8:11 PM on June 28, 2018 [11 favorites]

I've lived alone for many years, since my marriage ended. Once people meet me they aren't very surprised (I'm the get off of my lawn! Type).
However, I've actually come to mention my friend Dawn who also lives alone and has for many years. She is who I aspire to be. She does so many things happily alone it's amazing. Camping, trips abroad, things I would never do alone and I'm an introvert!
Choosing to live alone is not a punishment for being a social outcast.
posted by evilDoug at 8:13 PM on June 28, 2018 [2 favorites]

I'd forgotten that Daily Alice! She had definitely thought things through. Plus, you'd get sympathy as a widow rather than scorn as an old maid.
posted by kitten magic at 8:42 PM on June 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

I don't think I'd be nearly the person I am today had I not been living alone for the past 16 years. It has been difficult at times and sometimes a bit lonely, but it has given me the space, freedom, courage and strength to figure out who I really am and curate a strong sense of self and belonging. Belonging to me.

I've had financial struggles that I pulled myself out of valiantly years ago. Alone. I've learned to cook and put together furniture. Alone. I've made art and music. Alone. I've wept at movies and howled at stand-up specials. Alone. I've read books and books and books and books. Alone. I've traveled here and there, vacationed and taken long drives. Alone.

But above all I've been my own best friend, my confidante, my lover, my soul mate. Alone.

And this is not to say that one day I won't find an incredible, amazing man with whom to share this life, but it won't be because I need fulfillment. And until that day comes, if it even does? I'm really, really, really effing happy and free. Alone.
posted by bologna on wry at 8:45 PM on June 28, 2018 [9 favorites]

I've used the widow thing when the nosy church outreach group came to my door and started asking me questions. It was bad enough when I said I don't go to church but they were mystified when I said I live alone. I've been married and divorced three times (inexcusable) and ex #2 is dead so it popped into my head to say I was a widow. Their confusion vanished! A widow! A perfectly understandable reason to be living alone. I steadfastly reined in an impish desire to own to a couple of fictitious grown children.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 10:07 PM on June 28, 2018 [8 favorites]

I don't mind living with the RIGHT roommate (if nothing else, it prevents you from letting the dish situation get out of hand), but having lived with a romantic partner I'm not eager to again.

Living alone is AMAZING. You can be as naked as you want, clean only when you feel like it, care about noisemaking only as much as your neighbors do, and the only limit to the number of cats you own is your imagination and finances (and willingness to do cat chores). Like, I foster cats in addition to having my own, so there's always a base level of cats and that fluxes upwards depending on emergencies and number of fosters. It's hard to find someone willing to live with that level of cat flexibility (and the occasional emergency kitten that needs to be isolated in the bathroom). A single woman living alone with a bunch of cats is not a good look in our society, but dammit, life is so good this way I give no fucks.
posted by Anonymous at 5:30 AM on June 29, 2018

there's always a base level of cats and that fluxes upwards depending on emergencies and number of fosters

Can you ever really be certain about that though?
I mean, until you check.
posted by fullerine at 5:43 AM on June 29, 2018 [5 favorites]

This thread has fed my soul.

I've lived alone off and on my adult life -- I've never lived with a lover, and have had, at best, middling experiences with roommates. (Several of them were and are good friends, I just don't want to share space with them.) I adore living alone, and have, to some extent, arranged my life so that I should hopefully not have to share a kitchen with another human being again.

I'm quiet and introverted, and my home is my refuge. I'm very tidy and incredibly house-proud, so it's good to be able to keep my space as I like it, full of my cat and my crafts and my sewing machine and all the other things that are me. I am still pagan enough that keeping a good hearth is important to me, and I'm definitely introverted enough that coming home without having to make small talk is the finest bliss.

I also travel, camp, and, well, do most things alone. Like others in the thread, if I waited to find someone else to do something with me, I'd never bloody do it! I love my own company and being in my own head, and my cat is my best friend. I'm sometimes curious about why I seem to be programmed like this -- when I know several women who openly admit that they can't not be in a relationship -- but mostly I am deeply, deeply happy with my own space and my own life. I don't know that I'll ever be in a romantic relationship again -- I'm ace, and kind of wondering if I should start adding aro- to that -- but I honestly don't know that I'd ever want to live with a partner; not without some kind of duplex/living close but not together situation.

I do long, a bit, for an extended close community; I have the remains of one in my current city, and I'm hoping to build a new one when I move. I think being queer helps with that; we're used to making our own families. (I wonder, too, if that's why I don't get much pushback about living alone; I didn't think most people clocked me as queer, but maybe that's finally coming through? Queer as in QUILTBAG, but also queer as in strange?)
posted by kalimac at 5:44 AM on June 29, 2018 [6 favorites]

metafilter: there's always a base level of cats
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 7:34 AM on June 29, 2018 [4 favorites]

I'm married, but if that changed for whatever reason, I will never marry again. I loved living alone*, and fondly recall the un-air-conditioned tiny railroad flat I lived alone in for two years before meeting David.
(*alone with pets)

I went on a one day kayak trip with a large group of people, and was in the first group to push off. The others ahead of me took off, and the ones behind me lagged, and I did the whole ten miles alone in the gorgeous silence. I don't feel safe kayaking alone, but that was the best possible outcome. I've never had a better trip.
posted by corvikate at 7:54 AM on June 29, 2018 [4 favorites]

I lived alone for about five years with a little apartment in a cool neighborhood in Boston and a lovely dog, and it was absolutely wonderful. I went to restaurants and bars by myself, I went to movies by myself, I travelled by myself, etc. It never occurred to me that I couldn't or shouldn't, because how else do I go to movies I want to see if I have to wait for someone else's schedule to align? Plus it helps now that I'm married with two young kids - the chances of coordinating a night both my husband and I can go to a movie are usually pretty low, so it's much easier to get the kids down by 7:30 and then be able to run over to the indie cinema 5 minutes away to catch whatever it is I want to see by myself. My husband, similarly, hits up a local dive bar after he goes swimming some evenings, just by himself, because he also spent a long time living on his own and is fine doing that. So even if you do end up in the society-preferred roles defined for you, "being comfortable living life by yourself" is actually an extremely handy skillset to have.

Also really useful if you ever end up a Navy spouse, FYI.
posted by olinerd at 8:23 AM on June 29, 2018 [3 favorites]

There's a whole "must pretty up the place to stave off the despair of not being married yet!" tone there that is just weird to me.

I'm the world's worst housekeeper generally, but one of the things I remember very strongly from reading Home Comforts was the talk about how making your home nice shouldn't have to be a thing you do for the sake of other people, it can be a thing you just do for you. I almost feel like the opposite of this is a problem: Until my middle 30s, I felt somehow like I shouldn't be expending time and effort on making the place I live nice because it was supposed to be a temporary stop before I found someone else to be living with. It took me a long time to internalize that I was allowed to buy permanent furniture, that I was allowed to make decor decisions without thinking about how they'd come off to a hypothetical future partner.

I think of it as the point you realize that you can buy yourself a KitchenAid mixer instead of waiting to put it on your wedding registry--not staving off the despair of not being married, but rather ceasing to wait for life to really start at some later point. I'm not really at a point where having fresh flowers around is super viable, but man did it take me a long time to realize that I was allowed to buy a sofa in a color that someone else might not like.
posted by Sequence at 8:56 AM on June 29, 2018 [7 favorites]

As thought_fox says upthread about traveling alone: so many people are frightened of it. When I was in college, I spent a semester in the UK, and traveled in Scotland and back down to London by myself for a while after the semester ended. I cannot believe the number of women who were horrified that I'd do that as a woman alone, and said they'd never dare do that by themselves. The UK for crying out loud!
posted by telophase at 11:18 AM on June 29, 2018 [5 favorites]

Sequence, this is a great way to express what I think is a fundamental prerequisite for enjoying living alone: "ceasing to wait for life to really start at some later point." And that whole bit about realizing that you're "allowed" (!) to buy a sofa or whatever without thinking about whether your hypothetical future spouse would like.

So many great, thoughtful comments in this thread! :D
posted by the thought-fox at 8:52 PM on June 29, 2018 [1 favorite]