Men Are Great, Just Don’t Keep Them in the House

I love men.

I feel like I should establish that right away, because this is definitely not an anti-man post. 🙂

I like talking to them, flirting with them, being taken out to dinner, and having someone taller than me around when something has been inexplicably stored on the top shelf. I like the feeling of curling up on the couch with one, too.

I just don’t necessarily want one living in my house.

That is something I have come to appreciate about being single at this particular point in my life: the profound peace of walking into my own home and finding it exactly as I left it.

My house is a sanctuary.

Not a museum, exactly. There is dog hair, there are boots by the door, and there is probably a coffee cup in a room where no coffee cup needs to be. But it is my particular kind of beautiful, and every object seems to understand the assignment.

If there is clutter, I know when it will get picked up because I am the one who left it there. If I am out at the barn or home late, I do not have to answer to someone waiting for me to return so they can get on with their evening. If something breaks, there is no additional stress or discussion. I just fix it.

Or I stare at it for a while, make a cup of tea, and decide that tomorrow-me is better equipped for the task.

Mostly, though, I am not tripping over things that are not mine.

There is no giant television blaring in the background, no argument over laundry, and no negotiation about when or how to go to bed. Besides the dogs, there is no one looking to me as their primary source of entertainment.

The house is quiet in the way a good library is quiet. It has room for thoughts to finish themselves. It does not demand a performance or ask what is for dinner, where the remote is, or whether I have seen the thing that is directly in front of it.

Increasingly, I am not sure I will ever be able to live with someone again.

I used to think living alone was the unfortunate space between relationships—the waiting room. You lived alone until you eventually found someone and returned to the supposedly superior way of life where you shared everything.

I do not think that anymore.

I think living alone might actually be one of adulthood’s best-kept secrets.

I can eat cereal for dinner, spend an entire Saturday rearranging furniture, go to bed at eight or stay up until two, and leave a half-finished project on the dining room table for three days because it is my dining room table, and I have entered into an agreement with myself not to complain about it.

I can light a candle for no reason, open a window because the moon looks nice, or sit on the couch with the dogs and listen to the house make its little nighttime noises.

There is no resentment accumulating over dishes, no silent war over laundry, and no debate about whether the thing that has been sitting beside the stairs for eleven days is, in fact, ever going upstairs.

There is just peace.

And none of this means I have sworn off men.

Quite the opposite.

Men are great.

Come over. Have some wine. Stay awhile. Tell me a story. Kiss me in the kitchen. Admire the dogs. Pretend not to be intimidated by the number of throw blankets.

And then, at some mutually agreeable point, I would like you to return to the lovely home where you keep your own socks, dishes, and inexplicably placed belongings.

I’ll see you tomorrow.

We can share a great life.

I just don’t think we need to merge households about it.