Category: house

Living on my own

This is one of those posts I meant to write ages ago but then got distracted by many things.

There are lots of things that have been distracting me since I lived on my own in fact. I seem to get caught up in awesome but largely meaningless projects, such as playing through all of the Pro Evolution Soccer games based on a pun or watching all of Battlestar Galactica so that I don’t accidentally kill people for playing in character when we play the board game.
I have been living on my own for coming up to two years now. Initially I thought the best and worst things about it were:

Best – No one steals your milk
Worst – There is no one to steal milk from when you have run out
As time went on, I realised that this things changed and that Tescos is only 5 minutes walk away so if I can’t be bothered to walk that far for milk then I clearly don’t want it enough. Which is a lot actually, but that’s largely due to laziness. However, I have also learnt that if I wake up and there is no milk for my fake Frosties then I get exceptionally grumpy.
For around 10 years after moving out of home, I had houseshared with between 1 and  4 other people at various points. There is always someone hanging out for a chat or to play a game or to “banter” with, as I believe the kids are calling it these days. I used to just call it “picking on Lewis because he was ginger*”
This is one of the things that I have missed most about living on my own. There isn’t someone around to get me out of a slump if I get into one. I have spent a lot of time just doing very little productive (see the aforementioned projected) on my own and being quite anti-social. 

As part of my new year’s resolutions mentioned on my bucket list, I am going to try to reconnect with people I haven’t spoken to enough recently and also spend more time with those around me. This is what you need to do to prevent yourself going completely crazy. 

I would say that is the main downside of living alone. The other downside I’ve found is due to having bought my flat, when things go wrong is that you have to be a Grown Up and work out who it is that you have to call or how to fix it yourself. There is no landlord to phone up and tell to fix things. 
However, having spoken to a few people who lived on their own before I did, they all said they couldn’t go back to sharing and I can see why. Having your own space is awesome. You can do whatever you want. These are some of my favourite benefits to living on your own:
  • You can go to the toilet or shower with the door open. I have no idea why this is good but it is. It makes you feel a little less enclosed, I guess.
  • You can wander around naked. Admittedly I don’t do this very often, partly because my friends Amanda and Ian moved in directly opposite me (personally I think they were stalking me very badly) and could see directly into my flat.
  • You can put up the Christmas decorations whenever you want. You don’t have to wait until Lewis has seen the Coca Cola advert or for it to be December or any other silly conventions like that.
  • You have complete control over the TV. This means there is no-one to get annoyed that you’re watching The Muppets for the 15th time.
  • No-one will take the mickey out of you when you want to listen to Avril Lavigne.

So in conclusion, I don’t think I’ll go back to sharing a home until I get married to Drew Barrymore.

* Please note that there were many other reasons why I picked on Lewis other than just his hair colour.