I have absolute control over my environment, if I don't like a noise or the heat or a smell I fix it, this isn't the reality most people have so when my financial/employment situation changes I will have to adjust very rabidly, with that in mind I've made the decision to move into an environment less desirable than the one I have now (working from an office) but I think it's for the best. At least I'll have a 2 bedroom apartment to myself to hide in at weekends if it is terrible.
Living alone is wonderful and I always find it strange how people can live with others, I can understand the desire people have for human interaction but being able to wake up and then go to bed without having seen another person in the waking period is just so great, true freedom. Maybe it just comes down to control.
This is why I don't live alone.
After a few years it got old. I realized I actually really like living with people, I just happened to have been living with selfish assholes. :-)
Boredom only sets in if you have nothing interesting to do. My apartment is sparse; no television, empty walls, no game console (asides from 3DS/iPad), no way to entertain people who come over outside of whatever I can display on the computer.
How the hell is that enjoyable? You find the things you like and focus on that. Personally I like to code, workout, and consume stuff on the net. Coding takes up 60% of my waking hours, 20% at the gym, and 20% for everything else. I just really enjoy doing those things. Rarely do I get bored.
I've also lived with siblings when younger, and multiple roommates in college. There are ups and downs to being alone and being with other's. The nice thing about being alone is you're responsible for yourself and nobody else. With roommates, you have to take on extra overhead unless everyone pitches in 100% (rare). A downside of being alone, you have to do "everything" yourself, and can't offload to someone else.
If you're a very social person, or need other's around to talk to and keep you entertained, living alone probably won't work out so well. If you like lots of alone and quiet time, and can entertain yourself, living alone may be something worth trying out.
And for the record, I don't do any of that weird stuff they mention in the NYT piece. ...except for walking around naked sometimes in the morning. That seriously kicks ass. ;)
P.S. I've also grown up with siblings, lived with other people - I don't like that, I really like privacy, I guess :-)...
So I think you can be less social and more bored, but you can just as easily use it to become more of those things, by socializing with more people more often instead of a single room mate more often than not. It also depends on what you mean by social. For example, you can probably explore sexual interests more easily if you're living alone.
Basically, you remove any forced social interactions by living alone. You have to build and find them for yourself.
Glad it's not just me who does that :-D...
By the way, this schedule only starts happening when I don't have anything to do during the day - if I have anything scheduled, I'd stay awake (although feel quite tired sometimes)...
My take on it is that news pieces like this aren't really meant to be "news". One of the primary reasons for reading news articles is to have something to talk about when you talk with people. Pieces that focus on things that are common knowledge pick up traction not because they're breaking stories, but because they let us have dialogues about things that just don't come up in ordinary conversation.
I'm sure theres plenty of "singletons" who love the opportunity to use this news piece as a talking point to reflect on the experience of living alone.
You know, like how water boils at 100 oC but only sometimes (when you are on the sea level).
Come to think of it, with the exception of physical laws and tautologies, everything elses fits in the "holds true sometimes but not always" category.
Its important to categorize knowledge as facts, opinions, wild theories, witchcraft, lies. Can't do it all by myself, my life is too short. So got to trust somebody (grandma, textbook, blogger, writer, televangelist).
In contrast, my friends who are married or living together treat those temporary thrown-together situations as maximally distasteful. They want a separate private room, they disdain sharing rooms at conferences unless they have to. When I've asked about it, I'm often given a line about how "when you're older" you want your private time, but many of them aren't that much older than me (and a few are younger), so that's always rung hollow. I wonder if it's just that this is their time to have a "Day of Chad"? ;)
Believe me, even a few hours of solitude are things to be treasured. I wouldn't give up the life I have now for anything, but in my "grass is greener" moments, that's what I wish for the most. Long stretches of time in which to do my own thing entirely unpreturbed.
Eating poorly; sleeping poorly; having too much dust, filth, or random junk around the house; not going outside; not exercising enough; not getting social interacting in the minimal needed amount, obsessing over the wrong aspects of your work.... This sort of things.
Not all of these are problematic for all people, but to the extent some are problematic for a given person, they tend to form a vicious cycle - people do bad things to themselves from lack of awareness or temporarily depleted willpower, and those behaviors in turn cause even less self-awareness and reduce the willpower reserves further.
For that reason I am contemplating some sort of a software-based aid that helps one person to periodically check on the other person's daily routine from a distance to make sure they haven't fallen into this sort of a "depression trap". I tentatively call it "a brother's keeper" project, although realistically it's more likely to be the subject's parents or childhood friends who will bother to check daily on how many minutes he or she spent outside and how many meals did they have per day, and whether there were enough nutrients in it. The point would be not to nag the subject daily, but to catch the moment they are falling off the bus, so to speak, and either intervene, summon other friends, or get professional help.
Although perhaps less likely, these problems can also easily happen, if you are hanging around the wrong influences.
It's even better though, because if I lived alone I'm pretty sure I would never eat or go out. Having her with me means someone looks out for me and keeps me fed. Plus whenever I just need a break, she is more than happy to let me lay next to her as she unwinds from her day. I've always been a great listener because when I need a break I don't want to think, and thus don't feel my normal need to solve all her problems, another think she really appreciates.
I guess this turned into a brag session, but I think if you can find someone to live with who you can totally be yourself with, then that is possibly preferable to living alone. Plus it means reduced costs, etc. I can certainly see the appeal of living alone, but it seems strange to me as anything other than a temporary solution while you find someone to live with, whether that's a roommate/life partner/spouse.
Living with someone has weird effects though. I've forgotten how to get or prepare only enough food for one person at a time.
I live with 2 other roommates and I don't seem them much these days because I work at home during the day. I feel so quiet sometimes being at home all alone. It is interesting that I will never know how an introvert feels staying home alone. The opposite is true an introvert will never know how a social person feels staying at home all alone.
For instance, a quote from from this article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2062934/Quick-better...
"The data showed those living alone was associated with a 21 per cent greater chance of dying of all causes, when compared to those living with someone".
That's pretty much the only thing I liked about the roommate thing (aside from the financial situation).
I like being alone a good deal when I'm home. It helps me think, and I can be as weird as I want. I think there's a great thing to be had when living alone, especially if you can find a physical social life that you fit into. Looking forward, I'll be living with a SO, and that will be a new experience. We'll see how it plays out.
Now that I live alone, I often find myself missing having other people around. I'm on Couchsurfing and host almost everyone who applies, but the timing tends to be haphazard.
The article last week about the woman who funded her startup via Airbnb really intrigued me. I'm considering putting my apt up on Airbnb now, just to have more people around.
Who would stand to benefit most? People with a stake in property.
