The last time I had legit roommates with whom I was not in a relationship, they lost one of our two kittens and ganged up on me to increase my portion of the rent six months into our lease. That was pretty much the icing on Katie’s Anti-Social Cake, which tastes a whole lot like I CANNOT LIVE WITH OTHER HUMANS. These last seven months have been my first real stint in the world of living truly alone, unless you count my dog as a person, which I mostly do. How does it stack up?

Pros:

Privacy. I catch up on my NBC comedies totally sans clothes in my living room because I can. I haul the gallon of apple juice from the fridge to the couch and drink straight from it not because it’s convenient (it’s certainly not – drinking from a full gallon jug without incident is about as easy as tying my wrists together and frying bacon without incident), but because I can. You have no idea how often and with what ferocity I pick my nose. I have grown so accustomed to being able to do these sorts of things that now whenever I have guests for an extended period of time (4+ hours) I get a little peeved that I am not at that moment sitting on my couch naked, drenched in apple juice, with a finger jammed up my nose.

If shit doesn’t get done, it’s my fault. The fact that I’m 75% English means I have a finely tuned sense of passive-aggressiveness that makes even the smallest of confrontations positively heart attack inducing. Why are there dirty dishes in this sink? I didn’t eat off these dishes, who has failed to wash the aforementioned dishes? It wasn’t me, that’s for damn sure. I am a timely and talented dish washer. Who do I have to write a note to about this? What should it say? Should I use big words so as to immediately establish my position of power? Should I speak more colloquially so as not to belittle the object of my criticism? And then my note comes across sounding something like, “Sup, roomie! These dishes be whack, yo! It would be terribly awesome if you would consider washing your portion of the used kitchen items in a timely manner! LOL, <3 you lots, -K8ie.” I’d much rather look at a sink full of unwashed dishes and be able to say to myself, “Katie, this is your responsibility. You should get it done because no one else will.” A shitty thought, you say? Because that places the burden of proper housekeeping squarely on my shoulders? Well it also means I can look at an empty sink and say to myself, “Katie, nobody is going to put a dirty dish in that sink unless you do. If you find a dirty dish in that sink, no need to write a note – just call the police, because it probably means an intruder has been eating your food.”

Domestic altercations are exactly nil. Aside from the occasional tiff I have with Henry Balthazar Sisneros 1^st, Esq. about his tendency to barf on the carpet (My house is 90% hard wood floor, Henry. And you ralph on the carpet? Really?), I don’t need to worry about collecting rent checks, doling out household chores to unwilling roommates, or Macgyvering a bedroom door lock with naught but a woman’s belt, four rubber bands, and a pad lock for fear of my 13” TV/DVD combo getting pilfered. Best of all, items stay exactly where I put them. For a borderline OCD with serious anxiety issues, this is absolutely essential. Living alone cuts out an entire category of social interaction on which a lot of people expend way too much energy and time.

Cons:

OK, it gets a little lonely. I like my “me” time as much as the next socially inept introvert, but sometimes a little forced company can mean a lot. When I cab home drunk and slightly belligerent, frustrated at the hour I spent having a conversation about the merits of bagged cereal with a squeezably adorable boy who, of course, is dating/engaged/married/gay/uninterested/an extraterrestrial/literally dry heaving at the sight of me, I’d much rather ball up on the couch and cry whiskey out my eyes with someone else in the room. Someone who’s not likely to lick my face.

The rent is too damn high. I live alone, and I pay for it. While my friends gaily traipse around their ginormous multi-story houses in uptown for which they split rent a dozen ways and spend the rest of their income on exciting prescription drugs and Pizza Rolls, I write monthly checks for more money than I’ve ever actually held in my hand at one time. I know, I know. It’s my choice. But I’m going to bitch about it, because I’m a Professional Whiner. Deal.

Grocery shopping for one is about as efficient as lighting buckets of money on fire. I buy a bunch of bananas thinking to myself, “I like nanners! I’ll eat this bitches all up before they go all brown and goobery!” I always forget, however, that bananas start browning precisely 1.2 seconds after you leave the store with them. I buy a packet of lettuce thinking I’ll salad it up for a while, maybe pair it with some awesome radishes and gnarly broccoli florets. Within a week, all three of these items have wilted in my veggie drawer, disintegrating into veg liquid and pooling at the bottom of their respective bags. It’s super gross. And I can’t seem to win, because you can’t buy three radishes at the store. Or five celery stalks. Or, God forbid, less than one gross of clementines. So I usually default to canned or freezable food items packed with enough sodium to mummify me in my sleep.

Nevermind the fact that the Jimmy John’s in Dinkytown’s delivery guy knows me (and my dog) by name. This has nothing to do with the fact that my food goes bad. Nothing at all.

–Katie Sisneros really really likes living alone.