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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!houxm!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!reed!purtell
From: purtell@reed.UUCP (Lady Godiva)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: living alone - the other side of the coin.
Message-ID: <1903@reed.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 16-Sep-85 17:55:47 EDT
Article-I.D.: reed.1903
Posted: Mon Sep 16 17:55:47 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 18-Sep-85 05:10:36 EDT
References: <285@whuts.UUCP>
Reply-To: purtell@reed.UUCP (Lady Godiva)
Distribution: net
Organization: Reed College, Portland, Oregon
Lines: 73

In article <285@whuts.UUCP> amc@whuts.UUCP (Andy Cohill) writes:

>There does seem to be a dichotomy among posters, though, as evidenced
>by the recent discussion on normal/abnormal "aloneness." Some
>netters seem to wear their singleness like a badge (I'm single and
>alone, and proud of it!), while others have had their singleness
>thrust upon them, and bear it quietly/painfully/joyfully on the way
>to somewhere else.
>
>Is the real issue here that the first group sees the second group as
>not as qualified to be proclaiming singleness? Are we going to have to
>take a test before we are allowed to post?

	I really liked this whole article, but for a lead-in to what I want
to say, only the above seemed necessary. If I remember correctly, I
began this whole discussion, which has led to many little
sub-discussions. I think that it is fairly safe to assume that most
people would put me in the first of the above two groups, and that is in
fact where I would place myself. It's the second paragraph above that
really caught my eye because I was thinking recently that it did seem to
me that people in the first group were only saying, "See how great it is
to be single!" and people in the second group were saying "Yeah, there
are good things, but here are the bad ones." And we in the first group
seemed to get the impression that people in the second group were saying
"It's really terrible to live alone, and it's ok if you *have* to do it,
but you'll be a better person if you don't live alone for too long, and
if you do live alone for a long time, there is something wrong with
you." 
	It seems to me that there are good and bad things to living alone.
There are good and bad things to living with someone, whether it be
roommate, SO or spouse. And people are all different. They have
different needs. For some, the positives of living alone outweigh the
negatives, and for others the opposite is true. And I'm afraid that I,
at least, if not others on the net in "group one", have been rather
unbalanced in my postings. So I now present, for your consideration, the
other side of the coin to living alone, or at least, the other side of
my coin of living alone.

	There is no one whom you can share your joy with immediately when 
something exciting happens.
	There is often no shoulder to cry on.
	There is no one to bitch to about your tough day at the office.
	There is no one to surprise with a special meal that took you five
hours to cook, not to mention the fact that you screwed up on the eggs
in the chocolate mousse and had to do it over again, but that was ok
because you knew how happy they'd be when they saw it.
	There's no one who will wake you up in the middle of the night
because they had a nightmare and are afraid to go back to sleep.
	There's no one with whom you don't always have to be doing
something. No one whom you can just be with, without any pressure to do
anything, even gaze into each other's eyes.
	There is often no one to talk to when you need to most, because
there is often a busy signal.
	There is no one to share the comics with in the morning.
	There is no one who will see you crawl to the bathroom in the
morning, hear you swear a blue streak at the corner of the coffee table,
listen to you rant and rave about your incompetant boss, be kept awake
half the night by your snoring, have to pay $780.00 in plumbing bills
because you tried to fix a leaky faucet in the bathroom ("Really - I can
do it! - What do you think you married, a schmuck?"), and who will still
look at you everyday and say "I love you".

	I realise that most of the above deals only with marriage or a
live-in SO, but that's basically what I was referring to in my original
posting anyway. 
	Oh, and of course, there's no one to kill spiders for you. :-)

	cheers -

	elizabeth g. purtell

	(Lady Godiva)
	


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