Living Alone

 I saw this article some time ago in the New York Time: One is the Quirkiest Number. Apparently this is what I have to look forward to next year.

http://cdn.freshome.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/apartment_bar.jpg

I guess as a college student this entire article seems strange to me. I mean, many of us students live on our own. But this seems to emphasize, especially for other older adults, that those who don't live with another person are strange weirdos who talk to inanimate objects (wait, you mean the "normal" population of American don't to this? I think everyone I know has yelled at their computer at least once; maybe they should rethink this). I get the feeling this article is saturated with the idea that those who live alone are destined to become odd, reclusive hermits that will never get married and have two hundred cats. You know the stereotype.

You can guess how I feel about this.

(Also, I don't know who's apartment looks like that photo, but let me express my extreme jealousy. I live in a brownstone; I can't quite fathom how apartment units like the above exist (or how anyone can afford them.))

And yet, New York Times ran this other contradictory article as well: Living Alone Means Being Social. Basically, the author states that living alone actually leads to more social interaction.

Two articles, published in the same paper in the same month, saying different things. Not completely contradictory things (I mean, the author of the first never says that the quirky live-aloners are exactly hermits). But there's definitely a different portrayal of the two. The first living alone sound freeing if perilous; the second makes it sound European and chic.

Here's the deal: people live alone. It's not going to be the same experience for everyone; you can't just come out and say "all people who live alone are like blah." Because I know basic psychology and that's crap. Probably, this is just my beef with journalists trying to clearly state how things are in culture when nothing is quite clear. And I'm still pissed that they think living alone will cause me to eat peanut butter completely naked in my kitchen; for all you know, I already do that (hahaha, I don't). Point is, saying that because more people are now recently living alone doesn't mean "the human species is discovering a new way to live;" it might be a little early to call the card on that trend (considering the study of suburbia and urban life is a rather recent phenomenon in itself). But maybe there is something to it (from a cultural standpoint, I say yes).

Doesn't mean I'm going to start eating peanut butter from the jar while completely naked in the kitchen though (and in retrospect, that seems like an extremely precise idea; perhaps the journalist was trying to tell us something :P).