Solo living + interdependence

June 7, 2023 7:06 PM

Many descriptions I encounter about living life unpartnered/living alone center independence and freedom as key benefits. And I get why this often becomes the focus, and yet…it also seems like a recipe for loneliness for me. Looking for examples of single lives where interdependence and connection are core values.

I’m a woman in my mid-thirties—I’ve been single my entire life and generally have enjoyed living alone. And, at the same time, I have found myself feeling increasingly lonely and isolated. I know myself enough to recognize putting my eggs in the “finding a life partner” basket isn’t the solution for me. I’m not against the idea of finding a partner, but I would rather focus on building a life that is connected and full of love and if a partner appears - that would just be part of what I’ve built.

I am also seeing a therapist and on an SSRI for depression/anxiety. And I’ve found that in therapy, I'm stuck going in circles of recognizing I want more connection in my life, but not being able to articulate what exactly this would look like. I’ve been reflecting, particularly after reading Your Own Harriet: The Tremendous Power of Life Choice Representation by Anne Helen Petersen, about how I’ve never had any examples in my life of people with fulfilling lives outside of the cultural norm of married with kids. Every single adult I can think of growing up was married with children and (from what I saw) filled their lives with other couples with children. Even as an adult, a majority of friends and acquaintances have partnered up and had children. Obviously, people in relationships can still experience loneliness, but addressing the need for connection via a traditional, heteronormative family structure is the only paradigm I've had.

When I’ve looked for examples outside my own circles, so much writing about single lives centers freedom and independence and being unfettered. That’s not what I want - I want to feel connected and rooted and a sense of responsibility to show up and help people in my lives.

I’m not looking for advice on making friends/deepening friendships/dating/building community. I’m looking for examples, so I can better picture the life I’d like to build for myself. Whether it is your own life, the life of someone else you know, or even an example in a memoir/online - please share any stories of what a single life built around interdependence and deep connection looks like!

posted by verity kindle to Human Relations (22 answers total)

Best answer: Jane Goodall's husband died in 1980 and she never remarried, but it's hard to imagine someone more connected than her.
posted by praemunire at 7:36 PM on June 7, 2023 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Dorothy Day was only married for about five minutes, though she did have a child out of wedlock (whose father she eventually cut out of her life).
posted by praemunire at 7:39 PM on June 7, 2023 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I have circles of my fiber friends and my book arts friends and my work and erstwhile-work friends and my courtesy-of-Metafilter friends and things I work on to show-and-tell with those circles and while there are plenty of moments of self-directed time, there’s never a -dull- moment.
posted by janell at 7:42 PM on June 7, 2023

Best answer: While a piece of fiction, I think you may enjoy “Rules for Visiting.” It was also a fairly quick read for me, but as someone who really really values my friendships it struck a deep chord with me.

I’ll also add that hyper local community (my actually neighbors) is growing more important to me. Yes I want friends that I feel a deep connection to, but I also want more than one door I can knock on for a cup of sugar
posted by raccoon409 at 8:28 PM on June 7, 2023 [5 favorites]

(I also find that Metafilter leans towards the “I love living alone! I drink my tea in a quiet moment of reflection in the morning and gently caress on hand lotion in the evening” while I want neighbors who come by with extra White Claw and we sing karaoke)
posted by raccoon409 at 8:31 PM on June 7, 2023 [12 favorites]

Best answer: I just listened to Jane Fonda on the Julia Louis-Dreyfus podcast and it had a lot of meaning for me. SHe touched on a lot of the issues - you know she was married three times and it never worked out and she has decided not to try again. But she talks about how she is creating a life for herself right now.

Probably every podcast of JLD because that is kind of her theme - learning from older people how they lead their lives.

And MARTHA Stewart, OMG she has always been my go-to for inspiration on how to live the single life magnificently. Her podcast is great. She has SO many friends! When I was young I always thought I need to learn homemaking skills to be a good wife - but Martha taught me I need to learn homemaking skills to be a good hostess for the fantastic dinner parties I will have for all my friends!

I think about Brigette Bardot when I think about someone, she is so beautiful, but never met a good guy, at some time gave up and dedicated her life to helping animals. That's a fulfilling life. Oh - Betty White, after her husband died she did not remarry and dedicated the rest of her life to helping animals.
posted by cda at 8:32 PM on June 7, 2023 [8 favorites]

[edit to add - oops Brigette is currently married. but I will stand with she has not had a traditional life. and has dedicated her life to animal rights not being a wife.]
posted by cda at 8:43 PM on June 7, 2023

Best answer: My interconnections are a vital, but relatively small, part of my solo life.

On a social level I volunteer for an organization in the community and in doing so am surrounded by like minded people working for the benefit of everyone. It’s a good feeling of connection for me.

On a more personal level I have my family and four or five long-standing friends. We’re geographically separated right now which I dislike, but since we’re spread out we’re all in the same boat and do what we can online. I’m also cultivating closer friendships in my new home.

I don’t have a huge need for connection, but if any of the above went away I would immediately work to fill in the gap. Connection is an important part of life.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:51 PM on June 7, 2023 [3 favorites]

Best answer: I have quite a few single friends who have pursued having kids as a single person, because it was something they wanted in their lives. That's brought them a lot of connection, in the ways you describe for married folks with kids.
posted by shadygrove at 9:33 PM on June 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Also I feel like some of my relationship anarchist friends are good at this. Also spiritual communities, some of them, if any kind of church speaks to you. Also living/working in artist loft building. Also cohousing.
posted by shadygrove at 9:36 PM on June 7, 2023 [3 favorites]

I would like to briefly suggest you consider in detail why you identify a need for connection, as the reason for that need will tend to indicate where you should go to find exemplars.

Not all connections are the same, IME, and thus to save time on the search it may be helpful to consider the matter in greater detail. I'll not waste your time in narrative, but I have personally found it is better to consider what one wants/needs from "connection" before trying to seek it, lest quite a lot of irreplaceable time be lost. People (hello!) are easily confused about what they really want, and bad things can happen thereby.
posted by aramaic at 9:42 PM on June 7, 2023 [3 favorites]

Best answer: This is also fiction, but: I would encourage you to read Ursula Le Guin’s novella/story Solitude (in her published anthologies The Birthday Of The World and The Unreal And The Real). She imagines a sparsely populated world in which a community consists of solitary women; where children can enter other households freely but grown women never do.

An outside observer of this society sees only sad, lonely lives and is horrified. But her daughter, who grows up there, perceives the interconnections that balance the distance people keep. That the keeping of distance itself is a social bond.

In that story, Le Guin also writes feelingly of the beauty of aloneness, and how one suffers when deprived of it. Food for thought.
posted by Pallas Athena at 1:03 AM on June 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Trailer Park Boys. Ricky is sometimes in a relationship with Lucy, but Julian and Bubbles are single. They live separately (unless one needs help with housing), but seem to spend all their time together by default. It’s assumed that if one has good fortune, he’ll share with the other boys. They’re the type of friends who you can always call to help you move, carry something heavy, pick you up at the hospital - all the stuff most partnered people have their SO do. It’s my ideal relationship structure - a trio of very close friends who live separately but fulfill the obligations typically left to partners.
posted by wheatlets at 5:45 AM on June 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

When I’ve looked for examples outside my own circles, so much writing about single lives centers freedom and independence and being unfettered.

Rather than reading, I'd recommend getting out there and meeting actual people! Like you, I was single up through my mid-thirties. Then I was in a pretty great relationship/eventual marriage with a wonderful guy, but he died (which sucked and continues to suck) and I am once again on my own as far as actually "having a partner" goes (in my mid-forties), and I'm not in a rush to change that.

As I've gotten older I know more and more people who are either single (whether always-single, divorced, widowed) or partnered with no kids (sometimes never having had kids, sometimes with kids who are now grown) who are still very connected - to their friends, to their families (whether chosen family or family of origin), to the communities they have through work, to their neighborhoods and faith communities and the organizations that are important to them. Some people with small kids are able to pull this off but they tend to have a lot of kid-related responsibilities and focus (and people in their thirties are often at peak "having small kids").

Honestly I think one of the great things about being "alone" is that it leaves you a lot of extra time and energy to devote to people and causes that you care about. In some ways you are *more* free to connect with people than you are when you're in a relationship. A couple examples from my recent life:

- a friend of mine was evicted. I was able to let her stay with me for as long as she needed without having to take a partner or family into account
- this year I'm going to spend six consecutive weeks traveling and working remotely (freedom!) but I'm scheduling it around volunteer commitments to organizations that are really important to me - things that take a lot of time and that I sometimes felt conflicted about when my husband was alive
- more generally, I do things like volunteering and taking classes way more when I'm on my own than when I've been partnered, because I don't have one primary person (other than myself) who I'm focusing on

Basically you're allowed to use that "freedom" to do whatever you want, and as for "unfettered" it's more like you can pick up whatever kind of fetters you want rather than adopting a prescribed set that goes with "partner and children."
posted by mskyle at 6:17 AM on June 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

Best answer: While I was in grad school, I lived in a cooperative housing unit. It had 60 grad students living in three consecutive houses on a block, with one large fenced-in backyard, a single communal kitchen, communal meals, with plenty of common space, but everybody had their own room. Everybody was responsible for some amount of chores (5 hours/week) and there were some people who were elected to management positions (and paid for their work).

Many people living there were partnered, but many were single, living a life full of friendship, connection, and interdependence. The friends I made there were the closest I've ever had (and are still my closest friends, although I see them less often now).

Looking back, I think a big part of what made that so special was that, when you live with somebody, you see them without their public mask. You see them bleary-eyed in the morning, in their pajamas, before they've had their coffee. You see them when they're not at their best, when they're sick, when they've just had a messy breakup. And you celebrate with them when they just that fellowship they applied for, when they just filed their thesis, when they just got that postdoc offer.

There's quite a spectrum of cooperative housing for grownups, from shared houses (a traditional co-op) to what's called co-housing (more like individual units with shared common space), to things like the Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, where residents help each other build their own houses.
posted by number9dream at 6:26 AM on June 8, 2023 [4 favorites]

Best answer: I just moved onto a property right outside of a decent sized city, which is owned by a single woman in her 70s. In her younger days she helped found a (still extant) intentional community. This place is less structured but is still a collection of dwellings around a large garden, apiary, and aquaculture setup. There are 3 houses, 2 cottages, and a couple yurts so there's plenty of socializing for those who want it. The heavy lifting on the garden is done by seasonal WOOFers living in the cottages. The rest of us pitch in as we like -- I milk the goat a couple times a week.

I have another friend in her 60s who lives in a tiny house on some property further out of town. She has a rotating collection of younger friends and visitors who come to help out with the garden, do repairs, or just hang out. I generally go up twice a week, we have potlucks and song circles if people are around, or we just hang out around the fire pit if its only the two of us. She often has at least one person camping on the land, though she doesn't have permanent renters.

The key here seems to be having a place that welcomes the community you want, and being open to having folks stay with you sometimes and help you out. I've been learning a lot from both of them about what I want my own life to look like in 20 or 30 years. It's been pretty inspirational!
posted by ananci at 6:30 AM on June 8, 2023 [10 favorites]

Best answer: I was married briefly a long time ago, and I have been across the whole spectrum, from married to uber-single to living together to casually dating to dating long-distance, and now, where I have a committed relationship but we do not cohabitate. I think I like this one best, followed closely behind by dating long-distance.

Your question resonated with me because while I am single, childless, and live alone, I feel FAR from unfettered. (Though I do struggle with feeling rooted. That may be in part because most of my connections are longish-distance -- or maybe because I'm a broke-ass renter who moves every two years.) My partner and I are interdependent, for sure, but because we don't live together, many days out of any given week are fully our own. A lot of what I do with my "freedom," though, is to maintain a couple of very close, very old friendships and care for my large and complicated extended family.

Over the last year my siblings and I worked together to pull our parent out of a long, awful tailspin and settle her into a healthy, secure (if somewhat poor) retirement. Because most of us don't have children of our own, we could afford to do this. Because my partner and I do not combine finances, my financial commitment to this project was entirely my call--but I had someone outside of the family, someone with my interests at heart, to talk through all of the complicated emotions this process brought up.

I share my home with friends, family, and my partner, but it's still my home. That's a great feeling. Also, because I don't have kids, I can take advantage of a lot of "third places" - a regular bar, a brunch spot--where I become a known quantity. I tend to feel connected to my neighborhoods and invested in the fate of businesses and people there.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:30 AM on June 8, 2023 [4 favorites]

It comes up every now and again that single people, single and childless women especially, tend to be more involved in public service - volunteering, running a local nonprofit board, putting together an advocacy group for safer roads, organizing a bowling team for the league, all sorts of the quiet background work that keeps society working smoothly. And you make friends with shared values by doing things like that. It can be hard to start but maybe find one thing, once you get out and meet people who are living their lives in public you start to see more and more of the things there are to do.
posted by Lady Li at 8:33 AM on June 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

cultural norm of married with kids.

Just a note:

In 2021, about 40.02 percent of all family households in the United States had their own children under age 18 living in the household.[src]

Having kids may or not be a cultural norm, but it isn’t reality. The reason it seems that way is that parents (quite reasonably) surround themselves with other parents, so that’s all you see growing up.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:09 AM on June 8, 2023

Best answer: One reason I attend church regularly is so I can get to know about the lives of people who are really different from me. People who have more money, less money, come from different backgrounds, people from different race and ethnicity groups, different sexual orientations... every difference you can imagine. As a divorced, single woman, I have found the lives of two of my church friends who are slightly older than me inspiring -- they are both single, and have found connection in very different ways. One is an animal person, one is sexually adventurous (in her whole life and still now in her 80s!), and both have deep personal webs of connection. Knowing them has given me so much hope for my own life, and also suggested ways for me to build this kind of network. So if you are open to church, I suggest it. I bet there are some awesome single women in many churches in America waiting to share with you.
posted by OrangeDisk at 11:42 AM on June 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

I want to add regarding church: and also single men and single non-binary people. I'm just focused on women because that has been my experience.
posted by OrangeDisk at 11:44 AM on June 8, 2023

I have often found myself living in new cities where I didn’t know anyone. Additionally, when I did make friends, it was really hard to schedule things. I cultivated an awareness of the relationships around me that I did have. For instance, I really liked my pharmacist and trusted him so I considered those interactions as part of my community. Sometimes I would go for over a week without seeing anyone I knew. It was really hard but the connections I made, even people working at the grocery co-op or people I frequently saw at the same bus stop went a long way.
posted by mermaidcafe at 1:54 PM on June 8, 2023