Property

13 things you learn when you live alone for the first time

Enjoy living alone for the first time
Enjoy living alone for the first time Enjoy living alone for the first time

IF you’ve spent most of your twenties living with housemates, always having people to come home to and never having enough space for your food in the freezer, moving into a place all by yourself is a big deal.

It’s equal amounts of great and scary. Here’s what you learn the first time you move into a place by yourself.

1. You wonder how anyone has a big house with kids.

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Seriously, where does anyone find the time time to wash five people’s clothes? Keeping a one-bedroom flat tidy and organised takes a hell of a lot of effort.

2. Fridges are actually massive. 

If you’ve spent all of your twenties sharing a fridge then having an entire fridge to yourself is a strange sensation. It will always look a bit empty, but at least no one will steal your cheese.

3. Bills are expensive. Way too expensive.

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Suddenly council tax isn’t split between four or six people and you realise it’s actually loads.

4. One person actually produces a LOT of rubbish.

If you’re used to living in a shared house, it’s easy to blame all the empty cartons and food waste on the other five wasteful people you live with, but living alone puts your waste disposal business into rather harsh perspective.

5. Getting used to your own company can take some time.

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Sure, you decided to be independent and live alone but that doesn’t mean being alone doesn’t take some getting used to. Even with the most busy of social calenders, job and/or relationship, spending lots of time with yourself is a big change from being constantly surrounded by people.

6. But it’s strangely liberating. 

Knowing you can live alone is a great tool to have for the rest of your life, when you never know when you will haveto live alone.

7. Somehow you have more time in the day than you did before.

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Naturally your home life will feel less busy and you’ll have a bit more breathing space to think.

8. You have to be much more organised about your social life.

Because you won’t bump into someone in the kitchen and get swept up in their evening plans. While sometimes you’ll miss the spontaneity, other times you’ll be glad you can curl up with Netflix in peace. It means when you want see other human beings you actually have to go to the trouble of, you know, arranging it.

9. And you realise which friends were friends just out of convenience. 

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While some will trek out to wherever you now live, regardless of the distance, others won’t. But in the same way, your new living situation means you’ll naturally only make an effort to see people you really want to spend time with. 

10. You will live with patio furniture in your living room for months.

Or a mattress on the floor, or no curtains in your bedroom, if you’ve bought or rented somewhere unfurnished. No one is organised enough – or rich enough – to buy everything you need to make your home look like an actual grown up home immediately.

11. Deciding how to decorate is both awesome and overwhelming.

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Without anyone compromising your choice of wall colour or mattress hardness, your place is your oyster. Although they are decisions you alone will have to live with if you’ve spent loads on a giant picture you come to hate.

12. You learn how to adult pretty quickly.

However accomplished as an adult you thought you were, living alone makes you re-evaluate everything. No one else is going to volunteer to call the electricity company or arrange to get something broken fixed. You get shit done now.

13. Doing other stuff on your own no longer seems like a big deal if it once did.

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It’s weirdly empowering knowing you can survive on your own – and you might feel like it translates into other parts of your life.