I’ve been living “all by myself” (complete with Bridget Jones pyjamas and half drunken bottle of wine) for almost a year and a half now, and when I put that down into black and white it seems pretty scary. Most of the time I love living on my own, so much so that I wrote a blog post all about it complete with Home Alone GIFs.

I find myself having to correct “living alone” to “living on my own” because “alone” connotates a girl rocking back and forth in a chair with a ball of knitting, The Way We Were on the TV and sobbing whilst the house crawls with over fed dogs (so they don’t get tempted to feast on my corpse when I’m eventually found dead after weeks of nobody noticing my absence).

The long and short of living on my own is that I have the freedom to do what I want, when I want in a home that is very much mine (and my landlords).

Of course, there’s a flipside to everything and as much as living on my own gives the single, independent female in me a massive sense of empowerment there can be days where it gets pretty damn *whispers* lonely, and I begin to flashback to that “corpse being found half eaten by dogs” scenario. 

Why Living Alone Can SUCK. 

I sometimes have these mild panic moments where I realise that if somebody were to break into my house to y’know, murder me in my sleep, I’d be ridiculously vulnerable.  There’d be no one to shout out to for help.  This mainly happens when I’m in the bath or in bed and its at these moments I find myself scouring the room for the nearest item I could use for a self defence weapon.  A sponge or a pillow wouldn’t do much damage in a dramatic “Taken” style scenario, so I tend to keep my phone nearby (who am I kidding, I’m a single girl, I do that all the time anyway)  and should quite  possibly invest in a baseball bat or  a stun gun JUST IN CASE.

You have no reason to cook elaborate or even slightly interesting meals.  I’m no Jamie Oliver, but I like to think that I can stumble my way around the kitchen and produce some rather paletable dishes.  Living alone means I have zero inspiration to let my inner Nigella out and I therefore tend to eat the most uninspiring of dishes made of what is wilting away or nearing its Best Before Date in my fridge.  I miss nice food.

You know how I said I loved all of these things about living on my own?  Well you have to pay for the privelage of these things, and by pay I mean parting with a substantial wedge of cash money dollar every payday.  Rent day makes my purse wince as I try to work out how many days I can survive on baked beans (the Aldi ones) before turning a funny shade of orange.  And its not just rent.  Council tax, water, electricity and gas all kick my already limited social calendar in the gut as I handover another wedge of money.  Because of this I tend to spend alot of time in bed where its warm, or wearing 22 jumpers until I look like Joey in that episode of Friends “could I BE wearing anymore clothes?”

You can’t leave things and hope that somebody else will do it for you.  When I lived at home it seemed as though there were magic pixies and elves busying away to ensure everything was in order:  food in the cupboards, fresh linen on my bed, clean pants in a drawer – this is otherwise known as “mum”.  When you live alone these are things you end up having to do yourself and the illusions of fairies and elves is shatted into oblivion when you’re looking for a sexy pair of little black pants and all you thats clean and laundered is those big pants you save for a specific time of the month because they providing comforting hugs to your belly.  Comforting?  Yes.  “Come hither sexy man and remove my pants with your teeth”?  Not so much.

I live really close to a pub and my bedroom window overlooks a beer garden.  Not ideal, granted, but its an excellent source of entertainment and gossip.  Not so much so on a Friday or Saturday night when I’m having to abstain from having a social life because of money problems and the fact that everybody is busy having a life with their significant others (read my post about that here).  I sit on my bed writing blog posts, painting my nails, online window shopping and I can hear people in the beer garden laughing, drinking, AND HAVING FUN when I’m bored and I get massively jealous.  Its those moments when I get jealous of those people who houseshare with friends and have conversation at the other end of the hallway or someone to ease the guilt of eating an entire tube of Pringles to yourself.  As it stands I either a) talk to my dog Ted as though he’s magically going to become the canine version of Salem from Sabrina The Teenage Witch or b) stare out of the window wistfully at those with a social life until they spot me and shuffle awkwardly inside.

If I do happen to be in one of “those” moods where the above factors leave me feeling as though I’m a Borrower rattling around in Buckingham Palace or like Tom Hanks on Castaway, I ditch my mugs of instant chai latte and Dawsons Creek Netflix reruns in favour of vodka, and Chaka Khan (2014 alternative is probably Beyonce, lets face it.)

Do YOU live alone?  If so, tell me what you love about it, or hate about it, or or or – lets be friends and promise to comfort eachother/share vodka in times of need.