Living alone now. Never living with anyone else again. If I ever get married, I’ll have to insist on seperate apartments.
I’m almost 44 years old and from the time I graduated from college I’ve only lived communally once, for about 9 months. I have never liked living with roommates - I am the only girl in the family and the idea of having to share living space is not something I grew up with. I am also happy with my own company - something I learned from my Mom who, to this day, still has a room of her own in the house where she keeps her projects and can go and read in peace.
I love living alone. I lived alone from 18-25, then settled down, married, had kids. Now one kid lives 75% with his dad, the other is at college, and I have my glorious solitude back! It’s really nice until I get, you know, lonely.
I don’t count singles in college as living alone, since I lived on a very social floor, and we all had our doors open most of the time. When I went to grad school, I lived in a dorm for a year, then moved out to an apartment, and lived alone there and after I moved to another school until I got married, about five years. I liked it fine, but I like not living alone fine also. It’s the who I live with that is good. I doubt I’d want to live with random person just for the company.
I’ve never lived alone. I was seriously thinking about giving it a try, but then I met Mr Cazzle, and that was the end of that.
The closest I ever came to living alone was three months as “the working homeless” (everything I own in storage; sleeping in my car* usually, sometimes sleeping at friends) and about a year sharing a townhouse with my sister (I worked days, she worked nights, so we barely saw each other.) Beyond that, nope, never had a place to myself.
*TIP: If you think you might be in this sort of situation and own a mid-seventies Camaro; Sell it and get something with a comfortable back seat
Peace - DESK
I lived either with my parents or with roommates until my second year of grad school. After that, I tried living with a roommate again to save money and because I thought I’d enjoy it again.
Nope. Couldn’t take it. I’ve been livng on my own for the past 13 years. I enjoy it.
I’ve never really lived alone.
I lived with my parents,
went to college,
had a roommate in the dorms my first year (loved Phish)
lived in a single my second year (alone, but not really, as I was surrounded by other kids in the dorms),
then I moved into an apartment with a roommate, (sweet girl, we can’t cohabitate)
then into another apartment with two (really four with girlfriends) roommates,
then to California with two roommates (a couple),
then back into the previous apartment (with the four roommates),
then in with my fiance. (parenthetical!)
He lived in another place for a while, but it was all his stuff furnishing my apartment and he spent every weekend with me, so it was like having a really busy roommate. 
I hated the weekdays when he wasn’t around. I felt… unsafe somehow. I like having another person around, and being able to wander naked around the apartment without him minding ( :eek: … 
) is just gravy.
No, and I regret not having done so. I was never in a financial situation to do so in my younger years…now I am, but am in a LTR and like living with him. If something should ever happen between the two of us I would definitely try to remain single for at least a year, and live alone.
If we’re talking roommates:
I have lived with roommates most of my life. Even when I was married, we had a roommate. I like having people in the house laughing, singing, talking, whatever. It just feels more like a home that way. I’ve met some great people that way too, and am still friends with some of them.
I have lived alone, too, and the upside is that when you return from work, your place will look exactly as you left it. No one has left toast crumbs on the counter, or used the last paper towel, or drank the rest of my milk. But I find that I miss the hustle and bustle of roommates, people always coming and going, the phone ringing, guests visiting.
If we’re talking boyfriends:
There was a time when it was important for me to live alone so that I could figure out who I was without a boyfriend. Some of my girlfriends, for example, jump from one relationship to another, mostly because they say they “don’t want to be alone.” They have trouble identifying as a single person and feel they aren’t “complete” unless they’re in a relationship. I am not one of those people. And I think they’re doing themselves a disservice.
But I do miss living with a man. I miss the sex, the intimacy, the spoonin’, and the spider-killin’, pretty much in that order.
When I first moved to Japan, I lived on my own in an insect-and-spider-infested apartment that my school owned. Later found my own place and lived there by myself (though with frequent female companionship) for about a year and change before moving to Tokyo. Lived in Tokyo by myself for about a year and a half before my future wife and I found a new place and started living together.
Altogether, I spent 4 years living by myself. I enjoyed it quite a bit, and don’t recall ever wanting to get a non-sexual roommate.
Nope, never.
Lived with the parents until I got (pregnant and) married, by the time the marriage dissolved I was a parent so there wasn’t any time between to live alone.
Yeah, again in Japan. Did the whole university flatting thing in my early 20’s, which was cool: lived with some fantastic people, and some total psychos. After hooking up with the best friend of the worst psycho for a couple of years {never a wise move} and spending a couple of years living with her on and off, jettisoned that relationship and went to Japan.
Lived for a month in a gaijin house, then moved in with a psycho French guy who used to claim to have a grand piano in order to pick up chicks. That lasted another month, until I got into a fistfight with him over a girl I was seeing at the time. She was a nutcase, admittedly, but that didn’t give him the right to try and kick her.
Was sick to death of living with other people after about 5 years of them, so found an apartment of my own, in the middle of the red-light and gay bar district in Osaka. Loved it: there’s nothing quite like coming home and not having to give a shit about anyone else once the door is closed. I could play what music I liked, cook what I liked, watch what movies I liked, sit around in my shorts drinking beer and scratching my nuts, bring home dirty girls…do what I liked, and not worry about anyone else.
A lot depends on how much you like your own company, and I’m quite fond of mine, and quite happy to be left in peace for a few days with books, music and movies. When I did get bored, there were always friends to call or bars to crawl in search of the aforementioned dirty girls. I was quite domestic after 5 years of flatting, and always cooked for myself and kept the place clean.
This solitary idyll finally ended when I’d being going out with Missus Case for a couple of years, and we decided to move in together: lived with her in peace and harmony for about 4 years, then lower case was born 4 years ago and we’ve been living in noisy familial turmoil ever since. Much as I love the pair of them, it does feel guiltily nice when they go away for a while: they went back to Japan for a month or so late last year, and I could get in touch with my inner bachelor again.
Reminds me of my mom: She went from her father’s house to her husband’s house, and they divorced in '86 but my brother didn’t move out until '98 (I left in '94). So she learned how to run a household when she was 38, but she was 50 years old before she ever lived alone.
Same with my mom, just about. Her dad was gone when she was 3, and she spent a good part of her childhood raising her little brother, because her mom worked night shifts. She went from home to married life, and by the time they got divorced, she had had me. Then it was living with me and her mom, whom she cared for until her mom died.
So she was a little happier than I thought was perhaps warranted when she booted me out. 
But I can hardly blame her for being pleased at her first shot at being alone after 48 years of life without any solitude.
Never lived alone. I was the only adult in the home for about five years.