IMHO… The ideal situation is when your partner has their own place and you have your own place within about a mile of each other.
I’m nearly 60 and I live alone.
I love living alone and I do not wish to live with anyone ever again.
That said, I hate being single. I want a partner, but one that lives somewhere else and does not want to live with me.
So, mixed bag here.
Thanks for all the thoughtful responses. Wanting to live alone at my age is not as unusual as I thought. It’s comforting knowing that for anyone who finds themself alone at my age, it’s not the end of the world. I love living out my life exactly as I want, and while I occasionally miss having a partner, I don’t miss all that goes with it. My dog Milo and I are doing just fine on our own.
"I’m gotten used to
Livin’ alone,
With nobody’s fate to consider
But my own.
I can watch any television program I choose,
I don’t have to settle
For football or news,
Livin’ alone.
Hey – I’m used to sleepin’
All by myself,
Don’t fight for the covers
With anybody else.
I can eat crackers in bed if I please,
I can have onions
And Limburger cheese,
Livin’ alone,
Livin’ alone."
– Marie Cain, Livin’ Alone
For anyone here who is unattached to anyone anyhow, it’s easy enough to be that way while 60 or 70 and reasonably physically and mentally capable. But that fuze is burning and the day will come all too soon when you are not. Best to plan for that somehow.
The term of art for this seems to be “Solo aging”. A quick poke through Amazon books or your local library can get you lots of reading material. The time to plan is when you’re 100% OK. Because later today may be the day you fall down the stairs. Or have a mild stroke.
I’m 64 and have lived alone with a dog or two for the past 22 years.
I used to have friends, people I’ve gamed with since college days, but in 2020 fell out with one group and later fell out with another group. My friendships are mainly online gamers now. I work from home and have doctor-prescribed meds to keep me happy and healthy.
I dropped my FB account (and by extension IG) and never picked up Twitter/X because I think it will lead to the downfall of mankind. I have Tiktok, but the friend I follow rarely posts videos anymore. My biggest online interaction is this board.
I have some regrets that I’m not going to detail here. This is the path I settled into and don’t have any real desire to change.
I’m over sixty and if I squint, I can see 70 coming down the road. I stayed in an hellacious marriage for way too long, thinking it was the best thing for the kids. Turned out to be the opposite, and one is in therapy and no contact with her father, and the other refuses to talk about it. I’m hoping he goes to therapy soon. .
Around the time I was leaving, a friend said, “Don’t leave so you can find someone else. Leave because you’d rather be alone than in the marriage.” It didn’t really apply to me, but it’s excellent advice.
Living alone has been a tonic for me. I miss having kids around (both grown, gone, and happily married), but to be out of the malevolent house of mirrors is still a relief 16 years later. I’ve loved and lost since then and am at the point where I’m done with high-maintenance men and am not motivated to look for low-maintenance partners because I’m happy as I am.
Most of which is the same for me. Except for having loved and lost-no men, high or low maintenance, have evinced the slightest interest in an uppity, irrepressible woman like me. Their loss.
Three extremely miserable, expensive roommate debacles later I’m finding my Siamese cat to be an ideal solution to any possible drawbacks to living alone.
As someone who is currently occupied as a caregiver to two parents and one in-law, all in their 80s, I heartily endorse this message.
In a sense, I am their plan, and I can be because my wife makes a whole lot of money at her job (and hopefully will continue to do so at least long enough to get our kids though school). But have a plan, and a plan B, ready because life comes at you fast and you want to be ready - physically and mentally - when it does.
It’s not unlikely that I never find out what it’s like to be single after 60, since my wife is a couple years younger and women tend to outlive their husbands. If I found myself single while in my sixties I’m sure I’d be in mourning for a good while, and on top of that I never was successful at dating despite being married for close to 30 years. It just took one time being successful. I’m guessing that I’d just resign myself to living alone, since I wouldn’t want to be a pain in my kids’ butts.
I’m so glad you started this thread! I’m in my 70s and have single friends my age who whine (and even cry) about how lonely they are.
(Although if they get out and do something social, they complain even more about that!)
Meanwhile, my wife and I actively plan events without each other. I recently took a cross-country train trip by myself, and have a few solo road trips planned. I am SO happy being by myself!
And, after a lifetime of a wife and kids and dogs, “coming home to an empty house” sounds blissful.
I’ve thought about this a lot, as I refuse to live with my kids. (Wonderful people who’d take me in, but I won’t subject them to that, full stop.) I looked into long-term care insurance when I was 59, the age Susie Ormond said I should. Holy frick, it’s expensive, and it only pays a fraction of what a nursing home or other facility costs.
There is little I can do about this. I’ve seen people desperately seek their next partner so they’re not alone and have someone to care for them in their extreme old age, and it’s pathetic. I mean, I sympathize, but it’s pathetic. My late uncle lost his wife when he was 70, and single women were literally lining up at the front door with casseroles when his wife was still dying. My ex got engaged to a woman he’d only known for a week because of that same desperation. That marriage lasted about 18 months.
I figure I’ll end up in some urine-soaked nursing home that takes Medicaid (if there IS still Medicaid). I’m not thrilled, but teaching doesn’t pay well, so despite my lifelong frugality, I may not have a choice. I’m sure as hell not going to marry again just so I can have a partner when I’m infirm.
The best answer of course is some kind of multigenerational group living arrangement that is not predicated strictly on blood relatives or in-laws. Some few of which exist in the USA and there was some growth trend in that until the “me-firsters” utterly took over politics about 9-10 years ago.
Good luck to us all in old old age. We’re gonna need it.
Another 60+ never-married solo dweller here. Have shared homes with roommates and boyfriends at various times, but alone is just fine.
Not dissing marriage and companionship, but completely concur with nelliebly that I’m not going to scrape up somebody to marry just to get them.
Sounds like we could use a Doper co-housing cooperative for seniors! Goodness knows we’d always have something to talk about.
Sign me up! Must allow pets.
I’ve had people ask me, “But who will take care of you in your old age?” Me? If I need assistance, I’ll take that money I saved by not having kids, and hire people to do it for me, assuming I don’t lose it in the stock market crash. Besides, I wouldn’t want my nonexistent children to destroy their health, careers, and marriages because of me anyway.
As for nursing homes, less than 20% of seniors spend time as a patient in one, and most of those are short-term. My dad was literally a short-term nursing home resident; he was admitted for rehab and the next day had to go back to the hospital! And that was it. At the end of that readmission, he was able to go straight home.
Thank you, Whack-a-Mole. I can’t see myself adjusting to assisted living since I’m sensitive to noise and need a free-standing place without any shared walls. 
And my experience with a criminal in-home caregiver for my parents has left me reluctant to bring a stranger into my house.
Once you’re nearly deaf, that is not nearly the issue you think it is now.
So we all have that to look forward to too 
And have gardens.
I’ll sew or bake for you if you’ll garden for me.