Decent article. A lot of it I find to be true.
Some points I found to be especially pertinent:
- “The entire apartment is your room,” Ms. Kennedy said, by way of explanation. “If I leave a bra on the kitchen table, I don’t think much about it.”
- In the experience of Ms. Bolick, who has also lived with roommates and boyfriends, living alone breeds “a very indulgent work style.”
- “I can work 24/7 for days on end, and I can let my whole apartment fall apart on me and not wash the dishes,” she continued. “And nobody cares.”
- Sasha Cagen, the founder of the Web site quirkyalone.net, is a kind of unofficial spokeswoman and lobbyist for singletons. Ms. Cagen, who has had roommates in the past but now lives alone, in Oakland, Calif., said that rather than cooking a big meal for one, an unappealing prospect, she fashions dinner out of “discrete objects”: “I’m often, like, here’s a sweet potato,” she said. “Let me throw this in the oven with aluminum foil and eat it.”
- It’s a solution to the problem that many face with food spoilage. But for Ms. Cagen, those makeshift dinners also underscore one of the pleasures of going solo. “There’s a freedom to really let loose and be yourself when you live alone that a lot of other people may envy,” she said.
- For people who are comfortable and even good at living alone, there is often another concern: a fear that the concrete has set, so to speak, on their domestic habits and that it will be difficult to go back to living with someone else. “It’s definitely something that worries me,” Ms. Kennedy said. “I can’t take the quirks back.”
- The longer she lives alone, she said, the less flexible she becomes — and the less considerate of others’ needs. “If I go on vacation with a group of friends, I feel a little overwhelmed,” she said. “I’ve got to share this room with other people? We have to organize showers?”
- When and if she lives with someone again, Ms. Kennedy said: “I think I’ll need to be with someone who has lived alone. We can commiserate and help each other resocialize.”
