Over the years, I've heard a lot of people who have never lived alone talk smack about what living alone must be like. While I'm sure there are plenty of exceptions to this, in my experience, most people who have always lived with roommates and/or romantic partners seem to think getting your own place turns you into a sad, lonely, socially-awkward hermit who masturbates excessively. In reality, though, living alone is actually awesome most of the time. At least, it has been for me.
Speaking as someone who currently lives alone — but spent more than 20 years living with family, about six months living with roommates, and a little over three years living with my now-ex partner — I can tell you from experience that living alone spoils you in the best way. Unless you're entertaining guests or expecting a package, pants are never required. You can have sex as loud as you want, all the time. And the only people you ever have to clean up after are your guests and yourself. So, yeah, it's pretty awesome.
Of course, living by yourself does have some drawbacks. There's no one to help you pay rent, falling asleep after watching The Walking Dead is a tad more challenging, going out of town means finding someone to feed your pets and water your plants, and it can get lonely at times. Personally, though, I think living by yourself is fun AF. Here's why I love living alone:
1. Clothing Is Almost Always Optional
Like I said above, when you live alone, every day is a naked day if you want it to be. I sleep naked, eat naked, and walk around my apartment naked on a daily basis. In fact, unless I'm on my porch, expecting company, or working from home, I'm pretty much never fully clothed — and it's awesome.
I mean, sure, when you live with roommates you can always walk around naked when they're not home. (As I did many times when I was living in Brooklyn.) When you live with your partner, you get to walk around naked a lot, too. In my opinion, though, it's just not the same. There's nothing more relaxing than knowing you have complete and total freedom to walk around bare-ass naked without being caught by your roommates or propositioned by your partner when you're just not in the mood. (Although that first scenario would make for a great story, and the second possibility can lead to some super sexy bedroom times when you are feeling DTF.)
2. You Get To Make All Of The Decorating Decisions
Unless you're just wanting to make some changes to your room specifically, when you live with other people, you pretty much have to run all of your home deco ideas by them before you get to work. At least, you should do that, because not doing that really isn't cool.
When you live by yourself, your home is your castle — so you can do with it what you damn well please, all day, erryday. If you want to paint your walls hot pink, no one (except maybe your landlord) can tell you no. If you're really into comic book stuff, you can nerd out to your heart's desire, free of judgement. If you're minimalist as hell, you can keep things simple instead of struggling to ward off an anxiety attack as your roommates and/or partners clutter up the joint. You're the queen of your domain, period, and it's totally bomb.
3. You Don't Have To Wait In Line To Use Your Own Bathroom
Is there anything more frustrating than waking up late for work, yoga class, or brunch only to discover that you're roommate is currently camped out in the bathroom, undoubtedly mid-dump? Or, your partner just hopped into what will surely become a 20 minute shower, but your hair looks so Snape-level-greasy that heading to work un-showered isn't an option? Well, yes, there probably is — but I'm sure you get my point.
Waiting in line to use your own bathroom sucks big time. When you live solo, you'll only ever have to hold your pee when you have guests over. Otherwise, the bathroom is always available to you. Plus, you never have to worry about keeping your bathroom door locked. Heck, you don't even have to close it if you don't want to — and I, for one, typically don't.
4. Indoor Pets Are A Non-Issue
I love cats, OK? Fortunately, since I live alone, the fact that I have two indoor cats is no big deal. (Unless I host a friend who's allergic to cats in the near future, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.)
5. Working From Home Is Way Easier To Pull Off
Admittedly, these days I work at libraries and cafes just as much as I work from home — because there are some days when leaving my house is the only way I can focus enough to get anything done. (Plus, it keeps me from turning into that guy from The Shining who got cabin fever and went all homicidal.) That said, thanks to my easily-stimulated, ambiverted nature, the fact that my menstrual cramps tend to be straight-up heinous, and the utter lack of 24-hour coffee shops where I live, I'm always going to need a quiet home to work from.
In my experience, there's simply no way to guarantee that you'll come home to a quiet atmosphere unless you live by yourself. My former roommates were the most extroverted dudes I've ever met, so they had guests over a ton. (As they should have, because it was their home, too.) When I lived with my ex, he spent a lot of time gaming at our place with his buddies, and that was also super distracting for me. So speaking as someone who has enjoyed working remotely for almost a year now, but has only lived alone for about two months of that year, believe me when I tell you that remote work and living alone is basically compatibility at it's finest.
6. You Get To Have A Lot More Control Over Who You Spend Your Time With
As I briefly mentioned above, I'm an ambivert, which means I'm mostly an introvert. Because of this, I'm probably more picky than most people about who I spend my time with. Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-social. Actually, since I moved back to Missouri two months ago, I don't think I've gone a single day without seeing my friends, my partner, and/or my family. I've enjoyed meeting a lot of new people, too.
Since I live alone, though, I'm never really obligated to hang out with anyone I don't want to hang out with. If I don't feel like being around certain people, or I just need to be alone with my cats and Daenerys Targaryen for a bit, all I have to do is go home — and I couldn't be happier about it.
7. Having Super Loud Sex Is Also Totally OK
Stealth sex can be super hot — but I'm naturally vocal during sex, and I like it that way. I also like my sexual activities to contain a reasonable amount of ass-smacking, bed-shaking, and dirty-talking. Lucky for me and my partner, we can be as loud as we want during sexy time at my house, because I don't have any roommates to worry about waking up in the middle of the night. Equally awesome? As long as I live alone, never again will I wake up at 4 a.m. to the sounds of my roommate pleasuring the socks right off of his very expressive lady friends. Halle-friggin'-lujah.
Images: Getty Images (3); Giphy (5)
