What to Know About Living Alone (From Someone Who Will No Longer Be Doing It)
It’s been three years since I last moved. This has been the longest I’ve gone without moving since I left home in 2013 - almost ten years ago! Between 2013 and 2016 I was back and forth between college, abroad, and my childhood home. In 2016, I graduated early and moved into an apartment in downtown LA on my own and lived there until the fall of 2017 when I moved to Calgary, Canada to be closer to my then-boyfriend. When that relationship ended, I moved back to Chicago in the summer of 2019 and have been in the same apartment since that move. That brings us to today, where my current boyfriend and I just signed a lease together on an apartment starting in about a month!
Although I’ve moved in with partners and lived with roommates before, it never crossed my mind that my time living alone was limited. But this time, that thought hit me like a semi-truck. Obviously, I don’t know what the future holds, but from where I sit, this very well could be my last month living by myself.
Altogether, I’ve lived alone for just over four years, this last stint making up three of those four. Living alone had always been something I pictured for myself, even when I was younger. I had this vision of eating a beautiful breakfast alone in an apartment that I could never realistically hope to afford (although I didn’t know that then). As I got older, I realized that my vision of living alone is not all that common for someone in their early twenties. When I moved to my apartment in LA, I remember my mom even mentioning to me once that she wished she had lived alone for a bit in her life. She, along with most of my friends, has followed this trajectory - graduate college, live with friends from college, and move in with a partner. No space in there for living alone.
I recognize that being able to afford to live alone is also extremely privileged. I don’t really have to compromise any element of my standard of living even though there is no one to split bills with me. When I first moved out on my own, it was partly because I didn't have anyone I actually wanted to live with. Because I graduated before all my friends, I was in a much different place in my life, and living with strangers held no value since I could afford to avoid it. Additionally, I started to find out that if you move away from the area you went to college in, like I did, finding roommates becomes even more difficult because you’re not really on the same cadence as everyone else. Consequently, I oscillated between living alone or with a partner.
But now that I’ve signed a lease with my boyfriend, and it’s hitting me that this could possibly be the last time in my life that I live alone, I wanted to compile all the lessons I learned from the experience so far.
Loneliness does happen, but not as often as you’d think. The only times I felt truly lonely were the first year I lived alone and during the pandemic. The first year was because I was the only person in my friend group who had graduated so I generally felt socially isolated. And during the pandemic? I think that’s understandable. Otherwise, I’ve only ever felt lonely very briefly. I truly enjoy my own company and living alone forces me to reach out if I do end up craving social interaction
In the same vein, you may feel that your social life takes a hit if you go from living with roommates to living alone. In a best-case scenario, you live with people you like, and in that case, there is always someone to talk to, to tag along with, to plan activities or parties with. Your friends become theirs and vice versa. You don’t have this when you live alone. There is no automatic or default social time. Honestly, if there’s anything I miss the most, it’s these little moments that come from living in the same space - Little jokes or late-night conversations. You can, of course, create your own little moments, but they just aren’t the same.
You get used to not being visible. This sounds like a weird thing to say, but when there are other people around, we are a little more put together, even if we’re totally comfortable with them. After just a short time of living alone, you will probably start living at your most raw. Yesterday, for dinner, I sat on the floor of my living room in my underwear and shoved chicken tacos down my throat while I let the juice drip down my face. Would I have done that if someone could see me? Probably not. 4 days ago, I did a full face beat and taught myself a TikTok dance (that I never posted). Would I do this if I knew people could hear me? Honestly, I don’t know. Your free time truly is your own, and you get used to doing things that you might second guess if there were someone else around.
You become very particular. When your whole space is your own, you exert complete control over it. It’s your domain. You choose how clean it is, where everything goes, what you put away in the evenings, and what system of organization you use. It’s extremely helpful for developing your own tastes and routines because you’re not dependent on anyone else - you get to experiment and choose only what works best for you. However, it also can be a barrier if you ever decide to live with someone again since you’ll most definitely have to alter some of these.
A couple of people have asked me if I would miss anything about my apartment since I’ve lived here for a relatively longer period of my adult life. My answer was that I won’t really miss anything about the apartment itself but I will miss living alone. I’ve gotten attached to having my own space and after a time I had made a promise to myself to not move in with anyone who wouldn’t make my living experience better than I already had. I’m extremely excited to live with my boyfriend but I do know I’ll have to compromise more, I’ll have to pick my hair up off the bathroom floor (it never ends, what is the point?!), and that I’ll have to take someone else’s opinions into account much more often. On the other hand, I know he’s a good partner and that living together will probably make both of our lives better. At the end of the day, that’s really the best thing about living alone - for a time, you get to be completely selfish with your time, energy, and space. Having that experience allows you to set standards for your own life and I believe everyone can benefit from that experience.
Weirdly enough, I never drink alone