to bloody love living alone in a quiet minimalist flat?

[LeftMyRidingCropInTheMortuary]

I'm 32 and I think I've finally cracked it. I have the lifestyle I want although it is never how I thought things would turn out.

I don't even want to live with a man again. Kids is unlikely to happen for various reason.

I've become increasingly sensitive to noise and mess as I've got older. I work in a stressful people-focussed job and treasure being able to hear myself think when I get home. I am also a control-freak and need to have my environment "just-so".

I have got rid of a lot of "stuff" over the past few years. All my books now on kindle and music on laptop. Everything admin done on-line.

Have I accidentally stumbled on the key to happiness? Peace, space & simplicity?

Or am I secretly kidding myself and want a house full of man, kids, dogs and family stuff?!

Just musing this over whilst my friends socialise tonight and I lie on the couch listening to the swoosh of the dishwasher.

It's bloody great, I'd just add a wonderful cat and it would be perfect!

I have found my people!

Even with a resident four year old, I have a place for everything and everything in its place, no clutter, everything clean and tidy and not a male member of the species to be seen.

The idea of having some size 10 muddy clodhopping male feet all over my beautiful female flat makes me come out in hives.

Love my life

surrounded by whiny children watching loud cartoons and a hoarder of a man who owned lots of ugly technology comprising mangled cables covered in dust.

Have you been looking through my windows?

OOOOhhhhh! I so wish I had kept a pic/bit of the box for my lamp... No idea what type of bulb I should get as a replacement. It's been dead space on my teensy 'breakfast bar' type side for over a year. Lamp and bulb were less than a tenner (and you can tell, if you dare touch it) so not the end of the world, but still...

definitely stealing your plug-labelling idea!

Sounds quite boring to me.

Not for me thanks. Well maybe when I'm feeling overwhelmed/anxious, but I'd only need a couple of hours of it then I'd want to be back in my stimulating chaos again. I had several days in a row of tidy, quiet solitude in my student years and each time by Day 2 I was crying - literally - for something to change. then I'd go to the bar

I've had visitors staying not with me (urgh!) but close by for a few days.

They were under the impression I "could do with some company" in the evenings.

I managed two or three days with them and on the fourth evening had to come clean and send them away. If I hadn't had that evening for solitude my head would have exploded.

It's taken me 40 years but when you find your niche, you know

yanbu. ive just been on holiday with my best friend in the world and all our kids. and i loved it. but now i'm home, shes gone home with her dc and mine are with their dad for a week and i'm completely revelling in the bliss of silence.

Sounds quite boring to me.

Which bit?

Living in silence in a sterile flat with no visitors.

Quiet = bliss

One mans sterile is another mans clean and tidy.

I love clean and tidy. I bleach a lot, and got a hand held Hoover for Christmas :)

Clutter and mess and dirt make my stomach clench.

And visitors make my heart sink.

There are maybe one or two people in the world who wouldn't make my heart fall through my boots if they randomly turned up on my doorstep and wanted coffee.

Living in silence in a sterile flat with no visitors.

Well when you put it in that kind of extreme term then aye. As of tonight the most sterile thing in the house is the dog, since it rolled in fox shit and was thrown in the bath. So I wouldn't really know about that kind of thing.

Pretend - I got a cordless Gtech Air Ram vacuum this weekend!!!
I still have my handheld vax for cleaning the car tho.
:-)

I'm watching Kim & Aggie videos on youtube right now...

Ooh lovely Left!

My mum took the piss mercilessly out of my handheld Hoover. I probably get it out four or five times a day. I was thinking of keeping it on the coffee table for ease of use

ooh I could never live in silence in a sterile flat with no visitors, but that's very much not how living alone works for me. I do sometimes think people think all lone dwellers live that way though.

I guess if I lived with someone I'd have fewer friends trekking in and out because a partner might find it annoying?

and I guess I'd find their friends annoying!

re cables, I have my stuff labelled as well but I am really hoping they will invent magic ways to get rid of them. I have so many ruddy cables - not just a man thing by any stretch! they drive me nuts. Again, small flat = not enough space for stuff so there's constant swapping around of things.

Ideally I'd like a 3 bed house with 2 receptions. 1 bedroom for me, 1 for visitors, one for office. 1 reception for me and my books and what not, 1 reception looking all fab for visitors! Oh, wait, I'd also want a home gym....oh and the kitchen needs to be an eat-in kitchen. I have a tiny kitchen and guests have to eat off the breakfast bar.

Really it's a wonder anyone wants to hang out here!!!

Perhaps spill some cereal on purpose?!

I like those dust magnet dusters as well, the ones that actually pick up the dust.

Watching your trays be cleaned in an oven pride bag is actually better than most box sets.

And putting bicarb of soda then vinegar down the plughole and watching it dissolve the hair is better than sex.

I'm thinking of getting a steam mop for my next gift to myself.

This Christmas I am spending it ALONE for the very first time! Can't wait!
No sulky partners or family members. Just me, food, the TV and the cat which I am going to adopt soon!

Do you just spend all your time cleaning?

I don't think all lone dwellers live like that, just the OP.

I don't live in silence in a sterile flat with no visitors. I live in peace in a clean and tidy flat with select visitors invited by me for limited amounts of time. And a kingsize bed. :)

By the way OP, I have 2+2 pillows. I put 2 in the middle and one vertically either side so that I sleep in a sort of pillow nest. I love it.

Left - dust magnet duster? I live on a busy road and dust is the bane of my life, will these help? Any recommendations?

Trays being cleaned in an oven pride bag...?

The thing I find with sleeping in a king sized bed - if I ever have to stay somewhere in a single, I'm convinced I'm going to fall out!!!

That sounds lovely, glad you are sorted now for the next 50 years of life. To me it sounds a tad dull (not sure why/how a single 32 year old gets exhausted going out) but each to its own!

I like my own space but I also love life.

I've spent the last 2/3 Christmases alone, and it can be really great. For the first one, I was genuinely missing the family I couldn't see due to me having to move for work and travel for a non-driver like myself being impossible. I did rather miss my da cracking out the port and getting to trade gifts in person!

For the second I was better prepared. Had ALL THE TREAT FOODS (mostly cheese) in the fridge, ate nothing but pizza and cheese platters, had nice walks planned on the moors, ate a few twiglets just to keep me going, grabbed a few books I wanted to read earlier but couldn't 'cause Christmas is out busiest time of year business-wise.

I'd still trade it all to sit on the sofa with my da and compare our cheese comas, but it wasn't half bad, and I got to visit and stay longer with him in the 'off season'.

I was a little amused by the 'on no! you're alone at Christmas! Come to ours!' offers though! Very kind, but really, I'd rather stuff my fat self in private and play Fable 2/3 than sit around somebody else's Christmas table as 'that poor sad neighbour from up the village'