Agreed. In fact, I would expect the opposite. Living by myself allows me to precisely meter how much time I spend with others and how much time I spend alone. If I want some human contact at the moment, then I go out and get some. If I don't, then I go home. The only way that this breaks down is if the amount of time I want to spend with other people is somehow detrimental to my health.
Can I maintain this when all of my friends start getting married is another question...
The variety of people that I interact with socially is exactly the reason why I have not been socially starved by a few of them having kids. Four or five of them having kids is of little consequence to me. A majority of them having kids would be different. Were they all in a narrow age/maturity range, I would run the risk of that happening in a short period of time, but they are not.
I think that anyone who finds themselves, seemingly overnight, in an "all my friends need to find babysitters" situation is really the one that needs to consider the breadth of their social engagement.
>Living by myself allows me to precisely meter how much time I spend with others and how much time I spend alone. If I want some human contact at the moment, then I go out and get some. If I don't, then I go home.
Err, we are not taking about 20-somethings enjoying the xbox, pizza etc nights alone.
We are talking about older people, devoid of social contact. People that cannot just "go out and get some".
I am suggesting that this is the important factor, not how many people are in your primary residence. Using the number of people that you live with as a proxy for your social contact seems flawed to me. You can live along and have a great deal of social contact, and you can nearly just as easily life in close proximity to others and have extremely minimal social contact.
Agreed. In fact, I would expect the opposite. Living by myself allows me to precisely meter how much time I spend with others and how much time I spend alone. If I want some human contact at the moment, then I go out and get some. If I don't, then I go home. The only way that this breaks down is if the amount of time I want to spend with other people is somehow detrimental to my health.
Can I maintain this when all of my friends start getting married is another question...