I’ve Wanted To Live Alone For Years & Now That I Do, I Freakin’ Hate It

I’ve dreamed of having my own place since I was little. Being able to decorate how I want, leave my dirty dishes in the sink for as long as I want, and have friends over at all hours of the night without anyone to tell me no felt like the dream. However, now that I actually do live alone, I’m realizing it kinda sucks.

1. It’s a complete waste of money. Living alone is expensive as hell! I knew how much my rent would be and I had a rough idea of how much utilities would cost me, but having an idea and actually seeing the money drain away from my bank account are two very different things. Paying significantly over $1,000 a month for my small one-bedroom apartment is a complete waste of money but I’m doing it because I’m an idiot, clearly.
2. My expectations were too high. For some reason, I thought living alone would make me a cooler person. I thought having my own place would push me to cook more, host more parties, travel (not sure why traveling and living alone went together in my brain), and just do all the things I’d been wanting to do. Unbeknownst to me, living alone makes it even harder to do all of those things because I’m pretty much broke all the time.
3. I’m often lonely. My old roommate and I weren’t best friends. In fact, I’d be lying if I even labeled her a “buddy.” However, there was something kind of comforting about knowing I was sharing a space with someone else. I never felt lonely because even if I was alone, I knew someone else lived there with me. Now, I’m always by myself. The worst part is that whenever something exciting happens, I have no one to share in that immediate moment with. I either have to call a friend and wait for them to pick up, or… nope, that’s really my only option.
4. I’m always taking the damn trash out. There’s no one there to take turns with when it comes to chores. If I want my living room to be vacuumed, I have to do it every single time. If I don’t want the trash to stink up the apartment, I have to take it out. No lie, I’m probably at the trash can like twice a week. It’s basically the worst.
5. If someone breaks in, I’m dead. One thing has become very clear to me: I have no idea how to defend myself. I took a couple of kickboxing classes but I don’t think I retained any information because I couldn’t be a weaker human being. If someone were to break into my apartment to do me harm, they would definitely succeed, which is a very terrifying feeling!
6. My parents come over unannounced all the time. Now because I have my own place, my parents (mainly my mom) think they can stop by whenever they want to. It probably doesn’t help that I only live 10 minutes from their house, but still. I’m not lonely enough for my parentals to be coming over all the time, especially without asking first, while I sit naked on the couch watching The Office for the hundredth time. Like, hello. I need my “me-time.”
7. I spend a lot of time talking to myself. I don’t know if this is because I’m lonely or because now I feel comfortable enough to let my freak flag fly, but I spend a lot of time talking to myself out loud. I’m slightly concerned by that fact, but I also welcome it at the same time.
8. No one’s around to take care of things. I saw a bug the other day in my apartment. It was just sauntering along my bathroom vanity and I had no idea what to do. My roommate always took care of such things because she was a bug’s kind of girl. Not me. Besides the fact that I’m typically too scared of bugs to take action, I never feel right about killing them. After all, they are one of God’s creatures and what if they have friends that seek revenge and attack me while I’m sleeping? It just seems like a slippery slope.
9. People are weirdly comfortable in my space. My friends and lovers are way too comfortable at my place now that it’s just mine, which is weird because I thought they were comfortable at my old place when I lived with a roommate. It’s even crazier now. Those MOFOs come into my apartment, take off their shoes, plop their butts down on my chic living room couch and help themselves to my electrolyte water like it’s a freakin’ open house. Rude.
10. I don’t think I could ever live with someone again. Living alone has forced me into a very specific routine. I do what I want when I want and with who I want, which might sound great, but now I’m even more selfish and set in my ways than I was before I lived solo (which says something because I was already pretty selfish). I truly have no idea how on earth I’d ever be able to live with another human being again. Ah well.