“Hell is other people,” wrote Jean-Paul Sartre in 1944 – a quote whose meaning has been the subject of hot debate ever since. Some say it should be taken literally; some clever dicks say it’s more about the loss of identity we suffer via the company of others. But are we absolutely sure he wasn’t referring to his chambre-mate who ate the last of his Cathedral City? Because that is seriously annoying.
We may never know what prompted his existential zinger, but what we do know is that the number of people living alone is rising fast, at least in the UK. According to the Office for National Statistics, the figure went up by as much as 16% between 1997 and 2017, and will hit 10.7 million people by 2039. That’s a lot of unanswered “honey, I’m home”s. But as someone who lives alone I can attest to the joys of such an arrangement. And so, with apologies to the genuinely brilliant housemates I had for many years, who could reasonably see this as a needlessly passive-aggressive revenge article, and with apologies to my temporary cohabitee, Dan, who is clean, considerate and coherent (“the three Cs”), here are six reasons why living solo is easily the best thing I’ve ever done, bar none:
Continue reading...from The Guardian http://bit.ly/2Ufwjjz
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