The Trials of Living Alone

With no one to watch you live in your home, your worst tendencies become exposed

You gradually find yourself living alone. For whatever reason, for whichever cause, the fault of yours or someone else's mistakes, you look around a rental environment and the only furniture, artwork, clothing are yours and yours alone.

The bathroom has only your toothbrush, your cologne, your soap. The kitchen cabinets are filled with your plates and bowls, pots and skillets.

All in all, it ain't bad. There is a certain sort of freedom from judgment in the solitude of living single. You can walk around your place stark naked without even thinking about it. Jerk off when you feel like it. Talk to yourself about the plans for the day. Turn on all the lights at 2:14am and dance around to a playlist you've made on Apple Music entitled Rando Cool. It has everything from Clifford Brown to Beastie Boys, John Williams to that anthem of ear worms The Final Countdown. Even though the building is a strict non-smoking building, with your ceiling fan on high and with the window open, you can break those rules with impunity.

A bit of peace, a bit of zen, a bit of privacy.

It's good but there are a few challenges to acknowledge in the misanthropic dwelling space.

You were a heavy drinker in college but the frequency of waking up knowing somewhere in the back of your alcohol-soaked brain you'd been in a bar fight and may have done something stupid and possibly criminal motivates you to chill out on that. Except, now, you can drink in your place without wondering if you'll damage something or someone out in the world. So you buy some beer and a bottle of whiskey. You tell yourself that you'll ration it some. Just a shot and a chaser to wind down from the day. Except, with no one to see you and pass judgment on your poor choices, once in a while you say to yourself "Yeah. That was good! How about another shot? And then, of course, another beer. But then I'm not quite finished with this beer so why not another double over ice?" No bar fights, which is universally better, but you still wake up wondering what happened on Yellowjackets because you recall starting the latest episode but you can't remember quite how it ended.

Your mom points out that booze is a depressant and maybe that isn't what the doctor ordered for you after the year you've had. So you nurse the hangover and promise yourself to not buy any more liquor for the following week but none of us is really good at holding ourselves accountable to promises made with no one else to hear them.

You work almost daily to drop fifteen pounds of post-divorce weight (which the hooch absolutely does not help in this quest) and your diet is solid, healthy, high in protein, low in calories. You work out every day. Then, one night after working late, you decide you really just want a slice of pizza. Not even good pizza necessarily. You casually swing by a Pizza Hut and get a large and tell yourself this pie can last at least a few days so what's the harm?

The first slice is delicious if not transcendent. Crust and cheese and meat and grease. A sort of perfection that only mediocre pizza and sloppy sex can achieve. So you have another slice. You do the math—eight slices. You could eat just the two and have pizza for three more days if you control it. But then there's the third. Gotta round it out with four, right? Symmetry? Then there is horrifyingly only a single piece and what's the fucking point in saving one slice of pizza? You wolf the remaining wedge and feel so full and grotesque and like you just set your weight loss goals back a month.

You should feel some sort of self loathing but you don't. There's no one there to shame you for your lack of self control, no one to look at you with disgust. Like buying a brick of cheese, you used to make yourself aware that that brick is to be shared. No one to share with so you can consume the entire brick while watching an episode of Survivor. No sweat.

You go to get a haircut. Just a trim. The woman who gets your name from the waiting list is gorgeous in that way that really floats your boat. Pretty, tattoo'd, thin. Your type. Just like your ex-wife. She's funny and cute as she cuts your hair so you let her cut more off than you intended. You make the standard haircut small talk. She likes country music. She has a fourteen-year-old daughter. Originally from Texas, she loves Kansas. The entire encounter lasts around fifteen minutes. You tip her well and get on with your day.

You get home. You find yourself thinking about her. Was there a connection or are you just behaving like a guy at a bar thinking the hot bartender is nice because she wants to get in his pants?

For a moment, you think about asking her out. Then you start to spin the date in your mind. The Mt. Kilimanjaro of trust issues you find strapped to your chest like a straight-jacket kicks in and you begin unraveling the potential romance. You envision having to explain why you're against ever marrying again and why your ability to gauge her honesty has been put into question. Then you think about the many things about the savage you've become since getting divorced that will either repulse her or (even worse) she will decide she can fix. You realize that you might be Amanda Plumber but she sure ain't Robin Williams and the whole thing is doomed anyway so why bother?

See, the greatest challenge with living alone is your roommate. You have to listen to him, respond to him, be him. On the other hand, he's a solid chess partner and doesn't mind when you eat a pickled jalapeño egg for breakfast.

You decide that while there are both advantages and disadvantages to the solo ride but, on the whole, the good outweighs the bad. I mean, who else has a playlist called Rando Cool?