Living Alone

'You're your own boss you can do as you please
Open a window and let in a breeze
You sit down to dinner, yeah, you cooked your own
You light a candle, you're living alone.' - Loudon Wainwright III

Despite appearances, my determination to buy my own place was not primarily so that I could fancy it up with clocks and cushions and oversized lamps. I'm pleased that the textiles and colour scheme accurately reflect the inside of my soul but those things are not my greatest self indulgence. My greatest self indulgence has been living alone. I have wanted to live alone for a long time. I've lived in 8 different flats/houses/hovels since I moved here 7 years ago. I have had some wonderful homes and shared them with some fascinating people. Some were dickheads. Some have become close friends. Most I look back on with great fondness, with appreciation and retrospective wisdom. But living by myself has always been my holy grail - perhaps in the same way that others fantastise about travel, I fantasised about being home alone.

Sometimes it's so great it's almost overwhelming. I talk to myself constantly. I sometimes eat my dinner in the bath. I relish opening the fridge and being the master of all I survey. I would happily spend days here without ever leaving, but I'm worried I'm unlearning a lot of my co-habitation skills which I may well need again at some stage in the very distant future. What if I meet someone who one day wants to move in? I can barely stomach the idea of my books being mixed up with someone else's, let alone foreign hair in the plughole. That person would have to be extraordinarily wonderful, and also incredibly tolerant and kind. In a sad, selfish way I'm almost hoping that person doesn't exist.