Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Living Alone, Dark Sides and Unconditional Love.

The other day while watching my favorite news program I ran across an interview with the author Eric Kleinberg that has finally unearthed a phenomenon I have been living and breathing for years. He says that it "is the biggest social change of the last 50 or 60 years that we have failed to name or identify". What is this change you ask? "It's not just that so many Americans are unmarried, which is something we have talked about, but that people are living alone and for long stretches of their lives."

Here are the facts:
" In 1950, 22 percent of American adults were single. Four million lived alone. They accounted for 9 percent of all households. Fast-forward to today, more than 50 percent of American adults are single -- 31 million, about one out of every seven, live alone. They make up 28 percent of all households. "

Yes folks it's happening. The more evolved human beings get, the more we realize that being alone is really not so bad. I've been single and alone for most of my life and, while that's probably going to have to change if I ever want a family, I am not a spinster or a loser. I am not sad and depressed or socially isolated. It may surprise some of you that I am happy and content. I'm the first to admit that I do have commitment issues but instead of stumbling through relationships where I don't know what the hell I'm doing, I would rather sit back and observe my friend's relationships to see if I can learn anything. Learning how people coexist is still a subject that baffles me, but I hope to learn as much about it as I can before I do it on my own.

What I have learned is this: Find out your lover's dark side before you decide to spend the rest of your life with them. Because the fact is everybody has a dark side and it is usually stubborn. Marriage and kids may shed some light into one's obscure corners of the soul, but it does not change them. These corners make up who we are.

Living alone allows you to flourish in your darkness form a healthy relationship to it and accept it rather than judge it. Most people enter into relationships in the euphoric state of love where all the darkness is cute and adorable. After about five years the reality sets in: the person you married is not a knight in shining armor, he's just a dude with bad teeth and a slight drinking problem.

To me, the reality can be the most beautiful part of love. To say to someone, " I have seen your darkest moments and the moments that shine the brightest and I still love you". That is the only wedding vow I will ever need. So long as we have our separate areas of the house. Because loving someone's dark side is one thing, living with it is another.

The solution to this conundrum is a glorious idea I picked up from a very independently minded girlfriend I know and love: when you do get married live in separate houses. Or , in the very least, have separate areas to do all the dark things you usually do when you're alone. Every man deserves his man cave and every woman deserves their own bathroom. Love cannot exorcise one's demons, but it can do something way more profound. Love can say, " hey I see your dark side, and I love you anyways. Now let me go to my man cave and watch this basketball game while grabbing my package and I will see you after you pop your zits and drink way too much wine with dinner. " Unconditional love at it's finest.

There is one very crucial caveat to my theory. Separate houses, man caves and private bathrooms cost money. And that is the main reason why most people in America can choose to live alone. Eric's research confirms this. "In fact, you see very little living alone in poor nations or in poor neighborhoods. On the other hand, there are some affluent societies where virtually no one lives alone, for instance, Saudi Arabia. One big difference in a place like Saudi Arabia is that women don't have the kind of independence they have in the United States or in other countries where there's high levels of living alone."

So basically people choose to live in families because they have no other choice. And I feel that every month when I pay my rent all by myself. It costs money to live alone. But are the emotional costs of living with someone who's darkness engulfs your own worth having half your rent paid?

The bottom line is this: We have choices now. Choose what is right for you and strive for the ultimate goal: Unconditional love. Because the confidence you feel by getting married and having " your day" will fade, your Prince Charming will one day fart in bed and bust out their "hits of the 90's" CD collection, and while families are beautiful, they are not the solution to every problem that you faced when you lived on your own.

Move over Families. Time to make room for these new singletons. We make up 28 percent of the population now. Like it or not we are here to stay. Dark sides and all.



Work Cited:
Klienberg, Eric. "Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Going Alone."http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/social_issues/jan-june12/goingsolo_03-27.html?print Retrieved 4.3.2012


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