Sharing an apartment or living alone - What works for you?

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When you are not in a relationship and living at home is not an option, you can either live alone or share an aparment with others. Your roommates can be friends, or they can become your friends. But they can also stay people you don't really know well and in fact don't want to get to know any better and rather avoid.

For me, the place I live in, the place I call "home", is important. The quality of it has a huge influence on how comfortable I am with my living situation.

Right now, I am sharing an apartment with people that have definitely become my friends. I really enjoyed the last years living them, and thinking back to all the things we have been through together makes me smile. However, at the moment I'm feeling torn about wether I'm still enjoying living with them so much. Lately the times I wish for them to just take a long trip and leave me some space and quiet occur more often.

As we will soon have to move out collectively, I am confronted with the question whether I'd rather live alone from now on or try to find another shared apartment, possibly with my old roommates.


What are your experiences? Do you, right now, live alone or in a shared apartment or do you live alone? Were you stressed out by your roommates and have now finally found peace in your own place? Did you feel alone too often and are now more comfortable living in a shared apartment?


I'd really appreciate your opinion on this. I'm not so much asking for advice but I am rather interested in how you feel and think about it.

For me it is a difficult decision. On the hand I do enjoy socializing occasionally and am afraid that living alone I will miss out on that too much since I jdon't approach other people. On the other hand the perspective of having peace and quiet in my own appartment turns out to be something I am really longing for at the moment.

Living alone works better for me. I have so many vintage things that other people might not value. Theycould take that stuff and sell it.

Definately alone, but it does depend on who this other person/people is/are.

If I went off to college, my roomate would be a vampire.... or something freaky like that, and would kill me. Because I snore baddly, I think this would be the true reason for my demise.

Living with another person was OK, although I would often experience a sense of relief when I was left alone even if I liked the roommate. Once I had two roommates and that didn't work out so well. I was glad to live alone after that and that's the way it's going to stay unless I get married. As I get older I find I have growing professional responsibilities which sap my ambition for other things, including relating to other people in a meaningful way outside of work. I would recommend avoiding a situation where you have two roommates because you may find that it develops into a two-against-one situation, and guess who the one will be? One roommate is OK, more than two might be OK, but I'd avoid two.

Currently I live alone and I love it. I'm thinking of getting roommates next year for cost sharing purposes, but I have a short list of close friends I think I would be ok living with. I think it'll be ok if I have my own bedroom and we enforce quiet hours.... I hope.

i've only had an often discordant family to live with, while they were alive and together. now that all us sibs have scattered to the 4 winds, i have been alone for several years now. i've never been fortunate to have friends or acquaintances who wanted to live with me, so i can't say what that would have been like for me. i only know that i value peace and quiet and i have a lot of the latter and some of the former. if i could find somebody else just like me who wanted to be around me a lot, that would be nice but i'm not holding my breath. other than that, i suspect that if i somehow were to persuade somebody else in general [dissimilar to me] to live with me, it would detract from my peace and quiet.

Oh solitary confinement works for me.

I once house shared with a social worker and two post grad students.

The social worker was awesome cause she actually had a job like me and did something useful and had a sense of humour and was actually had a fully formed personality of her own

The other two f*****g hell where do i begin with those waste of gamates.

The guy was a english MA student seemed to have a drug habit once tried to assualt me after he'd had a few too many and I sat on him to restrain him He then tried to punch me a second time but my Gf at the time intercepted and totally owned him with an uppercut I don't know who was more scared me or him after that, be warned these ladies of the north are not to be trifled with.

The lass was some Architect student, a total snob, a f*****g vegan who wanted to shove down her dietary politics down my throat all the sodding time. I used to sneak meat into her food. I used to get on with vegans and veggies before I met her. Think we also used to argue because we both voted for the green party how I could do that and eat meat at the same time....urgh she was thick as pig excrement. And she looked like she needed a good solid meal she looked ill.

Yeah don't live with students stupid morons think they have a future after they get a degree in something really useful to the world like English or Psychology, or god forbig, media studies.

Maybe don't live with student nurses, were moody swines cause we have to get up and work on clinical placements for £0 but hey we get grants not loans muhahahaha no student debt be'yatch

I have lived with others on a temporary basis in the past and I hated it. I didn't have any personal space and I had constant paranoia that my stuff would be messed around with. I also couldn't stim or even watch what I wanted on TV.

I have to either live with my parents or on my own.

My ideal situation would be living alone. Sometimes I second-guess myself when I get lonely, but then I realize I find I'd rather be alone more often than be with someone. There's really no compromise -- can't dismiss a roommate when you feel like it.

If I were to settle down with a lover, the ideal situation would be a duplex with doors in between each dwelling. Sounds crazy, but we'd each have our own space, our own way of organizing our things, and I wouldn't have to worry about my things being moved. I'm not anal, I just have very short-term memory -- if the object is moved and I can't see it, then I wont realize I possess the object anymore. When I would get lonely, I'd knock on the door, and maybe just "sleep-over" on her side for a few nights -- until she tells me she wants space of course.

This is all fantasy.

I shared an apartment with two others for most of this year. They were awesome people and gave me heaps of space and support. Halfway through the year they started seeing each-other which took a while to get used to, but we remain good friends.
Next year I plan to live alone, since I'll be moving around a bit and since I won't be able to live with them.

My opinion? Well, it depends on how much personal space you need, and how often. If you have some good friends who understand your needs, and the ability to laugh at yourself a little when you screw up, living with them could be really enjoyable. I found it gave me the right balance between socialisation and privacy, and it helped my social skills enormously.

Don't go in with people you don't know or people who won't understand your needs.

Definitely living alone.

People that aren't used to my eccentric and quirky habits would definitely not mesh well with me. Also, I'm a musician, who records at all hours of the night. I'd hate to have a song idea slip away because I would disturb my roommate.

People that aren't introverted musicians wouldn't understand, but there's an art to being alone and engaging in the creative process. Another person would disrupt that process.

That being said, it does get lonely sometimes...

I found this topic really compelling, as I've had situations with each. For me, I've always loved living by myself. However, when I was living with NT's, I was undiagnosed at the time. Some drama always happened, etc. But now I know that I have Asperger's, and when I come home I can just relax and be myself, and not worry about what my roommates are thinking about me, etc., communication issues, or whatever. Plus, I have 2 cats. They help when I feel lonely, which isn't often as I have family nearby, and generally I enjoy being alone. Having my own place, I consider it a safe haven.

I prefer living alone. Well, except for my cat. I find it is easier that way, I don't have to worry about a roommate and waking them up or walking on them( ahem) etc...

Sharing works, conversation in small doses is okay, I guess

I'd prefer to house share with a few close friends. I'm quite talkative when I want to be and I'd go mad without someone to have a conversation with, I'd get quite lonely living on my own. I know I'd have friends and family outside of my house but I'm really lazy about keeping in touch with people and I'd lose motivation pretty quick, with people already in the house with me it gives me more reason to make an effort.