an article from
THE NEW YORK TIMES
I Live Alone. Really, I’m
Not That Pathetic.
Dec. 9, 2022
By Frank Bruni
Mr. Bruni is a contributing Opinion writer who
was on the staff of The Times for more than 25 years.
The New
York Times is starting to give me a complex.
Late
last month, it published a long
article defining a new problem: More baby boomers and Gen Xers are
living alone than forebears of their age did, and that apparently poses physical,
psychological and financial challenges. Born in 1964, I’m the fumes of the
boom. I live alone. And reading the article, I suddenly felt like some
cautionary tale.
Last
week came another
article: “Who Will Care for ‘Kinless’ Seniors?” It noted, with alarm,
that “an estimated 6.6 percent of American adults aged 55 and older have no
living spouse or biological children.” I’m 58. I have no spouse, no children.
That makes me kinless by the article’s definition. Luckless, too, by the sound
of it.
I’m
being tough on The Times, and I’m half-kidding. Both articles were important.
They rightly expressed concern for older Americans who don’t have the resources
or the kind of extended family that I do. They’re at risk. We should attend to
that.
But the articles
nonetheless reminded me that in an era that exhorts everyone to respect the
full range of human identity and expression, there can still be a whiff of
stigma to living uncoupled in a household of one. There’s puzzlement over it,
pity for it. Surely, you didn’t choose this. Possibly, you brought it on
yourself.
If
you’re alone in your 30s, it announces an inability to commit unless it signals
a failure to attract anyone decent. Take your pick: sexual vagabond or romantic
sad sack. The six seasons of “Sex and the City” alternately explored, exploded
and capitulated to that thinking — one signature episode was titled “They
Shoot Single People, Don’t They?” — and “Bridget Jones’s Diary” had page upon page
devoted to how awkwardly conspicuous its protagonist felt all by herself. Not
by accident am I using pop-culture examples of women flying (or flailing) solo.
They get the brunt of the scrutiny.
That
remains true with loners in their late 50s, 60s, 70s. “Spinster” applies to an
older woman; for an older man, there’s no term with the same cruelness and
currency.
But I’m
less interested in issuing a cultural indictment than in correcting impressions
and complicating the picture. For many people, yes, living alone is a present
or incipient danger. For many others, it’s bliss.
It’s
loud music when you crave that energy and silence when you need to concentrate
— no negotiations, no complaints. It’s mess when you can’t rally to impose
order and order when you can no longer stomach mess.
It’s the bedtime of your
choice, meaning 4 a.m. if you happened to start watching “Mare of
Easttown” or reading “Bad Blood” at 9 p.m. and couldn’t
stop. It’s a morning routine contoured perfectly to your biorhythms and quirks.
It’s
plenty of space in the refrigerator and ample room in the closets and the
possibility of seeing and understanding yourself in a particular light, one
that’s not shadowed or filtered by the doting, demands and dissatisfactions of
others.
And if
that sounds selfish and shallow, well, answer this honestly: Don’t people who
live in larger households have their own indulgences? Are they ipso facto more
generous in spirit? Their domestic arrangements are as driven by personal desires
as mine is. It’s just that they have different wants.
As for
generosity, many of us who live alone tend to our friends with extra care
because we don’t have constant company at home. Those friendships can be richer
as a result. We’re hardly hermits, though we can play that part for whole
weekends if we’re feeling unusually tired or especially reflective. What a
sweet and singular freedom that is.
Maybe
it makes us a bit more stubborn, a bit less elastic. There are character flaws
much worse than those.
And
there are mitigating factors. Mine is named Regan, and if she doesn’t get a few
miles on our neighborhood’s forest trails in the morning, she prods me with her
snout and curses me with her eyes. But once she’s contented and ready to curl
up at someone’s feet, mine are the only game in town.
It’s
not a bad way to live.
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