These are, statistically, boom times for middle-aged people who are living alone. Their numbers have nearly doubled since 1999, rising from 13 percent to 21 percent of the 55-to-64-year-old population. Singletons in general tend to dwell in large cities: Manhattan and Washington households are half-solo-occupant (by contrast, Idaho and Utah households are less than one-fifth so).
And there are, in fact, those who’d say this is healthy. In his 2012 book Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone, sociologist Eric Klinenberg led the rallying cry. In Klinenberg’s formulation, the freedom to live alone is one of the triumphs of wealthier societies, and loneliness is but a memory thanks to, among other things, social media. The studies of UCLA genomics researcher Steven Cole, however, yielded somewhat-conflicting results. Cole did an analysis of gene activity in people with varying loneliness levels as measured by a survey. He controlled for factors like age, weight, and the use of prescription drugs. The result? Chronic loneliness (social isolation, that is, as opposed to mere stress or depression) correlates to actual changes in gene expression. Genes for bad things like inflammation get overexpressed, while genes for good things like antibodies are stifled. This could make a person more prone to infection, heart disease, and even cancer. The study also found the size of one’s social network matters less than the strength of one’s ties. Never mind all that liking on Facebook; medically speaking, a few close friends is better than many casual acquaintances.
In the end, is stability limiting — does it quash our vibrating uniqueness — or is it, in fact, stabilizing? In our youths, many of us suspected that being tied down to a partner and family might constrain us. But after 40, even that landscape starts to shift. Many singletons turn inward and start longing for the things so many of us longed to be free of in our 20s. One bachelor friend of mine decided at 46 that, after too many Trader Joe’s single-serve Indian meals (plus those all-too-handy microwaveable burritos, Kettle Chips, and chocolate-covered espresso beans), he had suddenly become too fat to appear in public — not even for a home-cooked dinner with three single (very friendly, and not too anorexic themselves) women. Another bachelor, another ex of mine in fact, became obsessed, as many do in L.A., with traffic patterns. When I invited him to a play — by James Joyce, his favorite author — he declared proudly and obstinately: “I won’t cross the 405 after 4 p.m.!,” practically waving a cane. Speaking of traffic, I admit that I couldn’t get out in the evenings at all by this point without my partner. He loves to drive — so that’s my personal Uber; he’ll flag the toothpaste spots on my collar (why so many? It’s because I vigorously brush my teeth without putting on my glasses); and if there is the sort of obligatory vaguely work-related L.A. party where you are “greeted” in the lobby by a wide-eyed intern crossing you off on a clipboard and the only real “mixing” offered is snatching both veggie bruschetta and Thai meat skewers off passing trays, at least we have each other to talk to before driving home and roundly complaining.
But what does that mean for all those people who don’t have that person to complain to? Or who, after nights spent apart, don’t have someone to come home to, to reassure them that, no, that wasn’t rude to say, and no, they didn’t really mean that, and no, you weren’t so drunk (or perhaps were, more than you realized)? All those people who spent all those years coming home only to their own thoughts. The more time I spend thinking about living alone, the more I kept coming back to that endless vacuum of mental space.
For writers who are mothers, like me, our customary complaint has always been that we never had time to ourselves. More recently, I’ve started suspecting that the belief that if we are alone with our thoughts, brilliant things will occur (a novel! An opera! A screenplay!) may be a myth. In fact, the opposite may be true — that, left solely to its own devices, one’s mind tends to go into endless fretting circles. There are the emails sent that drew no answer — do they not like you? Did you offend them? Did you ask too much? (And now we have social-media anxiety — if enough people don’t like our Instagrams right away, we might quickly take them down.) Let alone the stress over one’s impossible-to-fulfill ambition. And then there is the mole that you watch anxiously, day after day. (I am currently in a slightly alarmed relationship with a back molar that has me flossing four times a day.) One does retirement-account and property-tax sums in one’s head over and over again. To a certain extent, these are the worry beads of life, and a calming partner (if you have that sort of partner) can simply say, “There, there.” Or, “That’s enough for today — let’s shake up a cocktail, light up a bowl, and watch TV.”
And if you don’t, never mind socializing, even keeping our lonely caves relatively civilized can start to become challenging, though few will be quite as bizarre as legendary outsider artist Henry Darger. A solitary custodian who lived alone in a small apartment, in Chicago, Darger left behind not just a 15,145-page tome detailing wars between massive armies of girls (with penises) but also, less dramatically if no less tellingly, a ten-year daily weather journal. Think about that: a ten-year daily weather journal.
Sandra Tsing Loh, The Cut | Read more:
Image: The Big Lebowski’
And there are, in fact, those who’d say this is healthy. In his 2012 book Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone, sociologist Eric Klinenberg led the rallying cry. In Klinenberg’s formulation, the freedom to live alone is one of the triumphs of wealthier societies, and loneliness is but a memory thanks to, among other things, social media. The studies of UCLA genomics researcher Steven Cole, however, yielded somewhat-conflicting results. Cole did an analysis of gene activity in people with varying loneliness levels as measured by a survey. He controlled for factors like age, weight, and the use of prescription drugs. The result? Chronic loneliness (social isolation, that is, as opposed to mere stress or depression) correlates to actual changes in gene expression. Genes for bad things like inflammation get overexpressed, while genes for good things like antibodies are stifled. This could make a person more prone to infection, heart disease, and even cancer. The study also found the size of one’s social network matters less than the strength of one’s ties. Never mind all that liking on Facebook; medically speaking, a few close friends is better than many casual acquaintances.In the end, is stability limiting — does it quash our vibrating uniqueness — or is it, in fact, stabilizing? In our youths, many of us suspected that being tied down to a partner and family might constrain us. But after 40, even that landscape starts to shift. Many singletons turn inward and start longing for the things so many of us longed to be free of in our 20s. One bachelor friend of mine decided at 46 that, after too many Trader Joe’s single-serve Indian meals (plus those all-too-handy microwaveable burritos, Kettle Chips, and chocolate-covered espresso beans), he had suddenly become too fat to appear in public — not even for a home-cooked dinner with three single (very friendly, and not too anorexic themselves) women. Another bachelor, another ex of mine in fact, became obsessed, as many do in L.A., with traffic patterns. When I invited him to a play — by James Joyce, his favorite author — he declared proudly and obstinately: “I won’t cross the 405 after 4 p.m.!,” practically waving a cane. Speaking of traffic, I admit that I couldn’t get out in the evenings at all by this point without my partner. He loves to drive — so that’s my personal Uber; he’ll flag the toothpaste spots on my collar (why so many? It’s because I vigorously brush my teeth without putting on my glasses); and if there is the sort of obligatory vaguely work-related L.A. party where you are “greeted” in the lobby by a wide-eyed intern crossing you off on a clipboard and the only real “mixing” offered is snatching both veggie bruschetta and Thai meat skewers off passing trays, at least we have each other to talk to before driving home and roundly complaining.
But what does that mean for all those people who don’t have that person to complain to? Or who, after nights spent apart, don’t have someone to come home to, to reassure them that, no, that wasn’t rude to say, and no, they didn’t really mean that, and no, you weren’t so drunk (or perhaps were, more than you realized)? All those people who spent all those years coming home only to their own thoughts. The more time I spend thinking about living alone, the more I kept coming back to that endless vacuum of mental space.
For writers who are mothers, like me, our customary complaint has always been that we never had time to ourselves. More recently, I’ve started suspecting that the belief that if we are alone with our thoughts, brilliant things will occur (a novel! An opera! A screenplay!) may be a myth. In fact, the opposite may be true — that, left solely to its own devices, one’s mind tends to go into endless fretting circles. There are the emails sent that drew no answer — do they not like you? Did you offend them? Did you ask too much? (And now we have social-media anxiety — if enough people don’t like our Instagrams right away, we might quickly take them down.) Let alone the stress over one’s impossible-to-fulfill ambition. And then there is the mole that you watch anxiously, day after day. (I am currently in a slightly alarmed relationship with a back molar that has me flossing four times a day.) One does retirement-account and property-tax sums in one’s head over and over again. To a certain extent, these are the worry beads of life, and a calming partner (if you have that sort of partner) can simply say, “There, there.” Or, “That’s enough for today — let’s shake up a cocktail, light up a bowl, and watch TV.”
And if you don’t, never mind socializing, even keeping our lonely caves relatively civilized can start to become challenging, though few will be quite as bizarre as legendary outsider artist Henry Darger. A solitary custodian who lived alone in a small apartment, in Chicago, Darger left behind not just a 15,145-page tome detailing wars between massive armies of girls (with penises) but also, less dramatically if no less tellingly, a ten-year daily weather journal. Think about that: a ten-year daily weather journal.
Sandra Tsing Loh, The Cut | Read more:
Image: The Big Lebowski’
