To live alone or not to live alone, that is the question.

My lease isn’t up until August but this has come up a few times amongst my friends on the pros and cons of living alone or with people. On the last tour I did with BK, the opener called me a ’social butterfly’ I kind of laughed at it at the time, but seriously I think I crave being with people and I don’t know if I could live alone! I’ve always had roommates in college, even when I subletted my apartments in NYC I had roommates. For the most part, I’ve loved having roommates. I love being able to come home and have people to talk to and hang out with. The roommates I had my senior year of college, were really fun. We had show nights and would hang out together, each one of us took a day of the week and we cooked for each other (there were 5 of us), we went out together sometimes too and cleaned together, it was fun. Of course there were drama situations like ‘who keeps drinking all the OJ?’ and ‘who keeps leaving dirty dishes in the sink?’ but other than that, we were able to resolve it.

This year hasn’t really been that different..except it has! I found my roommates on craigslist, actually- they found me! This wasn’t the first time I’ve done anything through clist. I’ve found previous roommates on clist, apartments, sublets, random things on clist. The current house I live in is in the heart of the University of Texas aka West Campus (this has some benefits as well as a lot of cons!! haha) with two upperclassman. I’ve graduated college already so this feels more real to me I think. I’m out of the bubble that is college, my parents don’t pay my rent or my utilities or give me any spending money like they used to when I was in college (I was pretty lucky). Sometimes I feel more like the maid than anything these days. I hate lots of dishes in the sink. One or two is fine but when they pile up is when I have a heart attack. I typically do my dishes after I’ve dirtied them to avoid such sights but already not so much the other way around. I’ve cleaned the entire house several times (we have tile and old wood floors) and the house is 1700+sq. ft. It gets tiring but I like a clean house. This isn’t anything new, this is something I stipulated when I was moving in. Anyways, whatever, having a clean house is supposed to benefit everyone.

Anyways, sometimes I feel like I’m living alone because my roommates are always with their boyfriends. I have a 3 bedroom house all to myself sometimes. Sometimes I revel in the silence, other times it scares me a lot. I still don’t have a lot of friends I call to do things with, and typically I’m a homebody anyways (typical Cancer zodiac sign stuff). My friend Mashaal started living alone this year and she loves it. She loves coming home to an empty place, a place that is hers. She does what she wants! My friend Kaitlyn has a roommate and always has, but now that she’s in law school she just wishes she lives alone! After a hard days of work, she doesn’t want a roommate who yaps in her ear all the time, she just wants to go to her room and veg out without having to worry that her roommate thinks she hates her. I’m afraid that living alone will turn me into a hermit even more so than I already am. I already work from home! I do so many things alone these days, I’ve learned a lot but it also gives me a lot of time to think about things that I don’t want to.

I think that if I found the right roommate for me, it would be better, but at the same time being alone would help me grow and be even more independent that I am because even as I write this, I realize how dependent I am on other people to make me feel happy, important, social.

Things that make me want a roommate:

1. Share costs
2. Someone to talk to
3. Someone to hang out with

Things that make me not want a roommate:

1. Cleanliness issues
2. Being able to sublet my room/apt. to whoever I choose whenever I go on tour
3. Being able to do what I want, when I want it in my own place

Thoughts?