Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site rayssd.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!rayssd!hxe From: hxe@rayssd.UUCP (Heather Emanuel) Newsgroups: net.singles Subject: Re: Re: Living alone Message-ID: <1064@rayssd.UUCP> Date: Mon, 16-Sep-85 13:10:08 EDT Article-I.D.: rayssd.1064 Posted: Mon Sep 16 13:10:08 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 18-Sep-85 03:30:45 EDT References: <1296@hound.UUCP> <5290001@acf4.UUCP> Sender: hxe@rayssd.UUCP (Heather Emanuel @ Raytheon Co., Portsmouth RI) Organization: Raytheon Co., Portsmouth RI Lines: 67 [Bill Ingogly]: > > You choose loaded words, Andy. Why "self-indulgent" and "intolerant?" > > What does a lack of another person under my roof have to do with my > > ability to relate to other people and care for them? > > ....... [Andy]: > My original posting generated more mail than I ever would have > imagined possible. I never said that the mere fact of living alone > automatically made you intolerant and self-indulgent, I merely > suggested that it was a possibility. As for choosing life-styles, I > am living alone right now, and I like it. But to get back to the > original query that started the whole mess, my long-range goal is to > enter into a permanent sharing of my life with someone else.... > > ...Why is everyone so defensive about my suggestion that living alone > *might* make you a little less tolerant???? I'm surprised that I haven't seen one posting supporting Andy's claim that living alone makes you less tolerant and more self indulgent. (Of course, I just got back from vacation and I'm catching up on hundreds of articles and maybe I haven't gotten that far yet.) Amongst all my friends and acquaintances this is a Univeral Truth, and it's not necessarily negative. Maybe it's just the words Andy used that set people off. Of *course* living alone with no one to answer to but yourself puts you in the habit of expecting things to be done "your way" - how *else* would they be done, your cat's way? (In my case, yes...) And of course you get used to being able to do what you want when you want. Who's going to tell you not to? I think it's these things that led Andy to the words "intolerant" and "self indulgent." No one's saying that you're incapable of putting up with anyone else or that you'll always do what you want first, but habits are habits. I've often said that, in some ways, the girls I knew who got married right out of their parents' homes had an easier time adjusting because they never knew anything else. [Note: I don't agree with getting married right out of your parents' home and this is not what we're discussing anyway, so please don't flame me.] To qualify this statement, let me say that I have lived with roommates, alone, and with SOs, and I like living alone probably best. I have found that my major fault in living with my XSO was due to the fact that I had lived alone for three years previously and I wasn't in the habit of compromising at home. No, I wasn't intolerable, I just had to think about things that should have been instinctual, and "sharing" some things was hard to do. I eventually got back in the habit of living with someone else and then we broke up for different reasons. So now I'm back to sharing an apartment with a roommate, both to keep in the habit of living with someone and to share expenses. (Actually, he's the ideal roommate - he works nights and is asleep when I get up in the morning; I work days and am asleep when he gets home at night; we communicate via notes and occasional telephone calls at work and we see each other maybe once a week.) Well, anyway, Andy, *I* agree with you! -- --Heather Emanuel {allegra, decvax!brunix, linus, raybed2} rayssd!hxe -------------------------------------------------------------------- I don't think my company *has* an opinion, so the ones in this article are obviously my own. -------------------------------------------------------------------- "Ain't life a brook... Sometimes I feel just like a polished stone" -Ferron Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com