I’ve been having an irrelevant discussion with my current GF, about our individual preferences for doing various things in our various seperate domiciles, but what I’d like is some quirks you have (or have observed) that you’ve indulged yourself in because you’re living alone (and which you would probably compromise pretty quickly on if you had someone living with you, out of simple courtesy.) One egregious example, which I can’t persuade my GF is sincere, is that I often will forego flushing the toilet for 12 or 24 hours at times, out of laziness or a wish to save water or something. The point is that I leave the toilet bowl unflushed as a matter of course, so she doesn’t have to take it personally when I do it in her house sometimes–of course it’s an error, of course it’s rude, but I am not doing it because I have no regard for her personally, etc., and it’s an unproductive approach to the conversation. That is to say, “Listen, you fucking deliberately insulting slob, I am furious with you” is less productive than “Uh, hate to point this out again, baby, but…” which would result in an immediate and sincere apology.
Anyway, I don’t need people to chime in on this subject so much as to respond with disgusting or unsociable habits they indulge in while living alone–I figure if I can bring up such things as examples that aren’t currently offending her, then I have a better chance of making my point.
I think the word is clutter. When I had a roommate, the shared areas were always tidy… not so much, now I have my own place. Same thing with dishes, I can leave them out for a week.
The hardest thing to get used to was my husband’s idea of personal space and alone time. As in, he needed no alone time, so he constantly followed me around the condo. In his head, he was helping me by keeping me company. In mine, I was in another room for a purpose - to be alone. Having someone constantly try to keep me company made me nuts. I had never been in a situation where I actually had to tell someone to keep away from me, so we had a few fights before I finally got better at asking nicely for some space before I got to my breaking point.
Also, my apartment when I lived alone with spotless; he is a hopeless slob. And he eats like crap when left to his own devices, which I can’t handle too frequently. Now that we have kids, the cleanliness kinda goes by the wayside (we do make sure things aren’t filthy, but clutter has become a way of life); however, I cook most nights so we eat better. We only started eating more healthfully, though, after an incident where he’d eaten Hardees all week for lunch and got so constipated he came close to having to go to urgent care. He found the situation absolutely mortifying.
I maintain my own apt and still live with my girlfriend. I do my hobbies on the coffee table and kitchen table. I like to keep out 1 set of dishes which I use and wash as I go but don’t put away. Once weekly I clean the entire house but inbetween it’s a free for all. She cleans constantly and puts things away within minutes of being finished and drives me nuts.
I ended up staying up late. I’d go to bed at 2 and wake up between 10 and 11. I’d already gotten a job and changed back to a normal schedule when I met my husband, but I think it would have been rude to be on such a wack schedule while living with someone who has to work regular hours.
Something I thought of last night was, I’d cook and eat whatever I wanted at meals, instead of trying to cook a “normal” “balanced” meal. I thought it because, after nearly four years of cohabitation, last night was a night when dinner was a free-for-all and I suddenly decided I wanted to sautee some plums, drizzle them with honey, and eat them over Greek yogurt. And I did. No meat and two veg there! Probably this wouldn’t have been so extraordinary before our daughter was born and dinner time got institutionalized, but it sure felt fun.
I live alone (mostly) and work from my home office.
My hours are genuinely whatever I set them to be so long as I get my contractual obligations fulfilled. That means that I might wake at 0500, work for 4 hours, eat a meal and then sleep until 1200 or so. Then more work for a few hours, work outside when it gets cooler and then another nap until 1900 or so, when I wake up, eat and play until I get sleepy.
So, that is going to be quite annoying to anyone who lives with me.
Yeah, I can be bad about that one. Unfortunately I do share my dresser…err…dryer with another flat. Thankfully they’re friends and tolerate my occasional sloth with good grace.
I live alone.
I do a lot of camping in the summer. I usually leave my camping gear in my living room, spread out all over the dining room table. I figure there’s no point of going down to the basement to put it in storage since I’d just be bring it back up to sort out and clean in a couple of weeks.
If camping gear isn’t there it’s board games, right now I have an AH Third Reich game going on the table.
I have a great queen size bed with, one of those fluffy I don’t what you call it under the sheets to give it extra cushion. I haven’t slept in that bed in the past four months. I like the sofa.
An additional one is having full control and full responsibility for everything in my home. On the positive side, I know nobody is going to eat the last slice of pie and it will be there waiting for me when I want it. On the negative side, if I put the pie plate in the sink afterwards, it’s going to sit there until I wash it.
I have to speak up for your girlfriend. There’s something about man-pee that’s just way worse than woman-pee and so it’s really gross to go to use the toilet and find a bowl full of foamy, dark yellow pee.
I think it’s because men pee standing up so the extra height makes it all foamy and I think the foam bubbles make it extra stinky.
No, I’m with you entirely: I don’t want anyone to be looking at anyone’s pee in the bowl. Where I differ from her is that I’m not being deliberately rude in leaving my pee unflushed–I’m just in the habit of laxness about immediate flushing, and I sometimes forget that I’m sharing space with another.
Staying in my nightgown all day.
Watching Law & Order marathons.
Eating whatever and whenever I feel like it.
One day I woke up and started reading a book. I liked it so much, I sat there all day and read the whole thing.
Being on the computer first thing in the morning.
Being on the computer late into the night.
Having to give any thought to someone else.
Even things that I do that are not particularly obnoxious… I don’t want anyone even commenting on them. I just cannot be totally off duty, relaxed, unconcerned about another’s thoughts and opinions unless I’m alone. So sue me.
I’ve been married twice (divorced once, widowed once) and have been in a couple of live-in relationships, and nothing suits my personality as well as living (mostly) alone. In my last R, my BF and I each had our separate residences and spent 80 percent of our time together, but we each had our own home base and we did spend time alone with no need to clean up or put away stuff because the OP was coming “home.” This, to me, if you can swing it financially, is THE best way to maintain a happy couplehood.
TV marathons. If it’s a show I really love, I can watch it for hours on end. My husband gets bored and restless after one or two episodes of anything. I once spent an entire weekend watching Friday Night Lights in my pajamas while he was away for work, and it was seriously the best weekend ever.
I can also listen to the same songs over and over. This baffles him as well.