I love living alone. No annoying/messy housemates and you can do what you want when you want. Got to live near friends though otherwise it gets a bit lonely and boring.

hatter – Member
36 posts and nobody’s mentioned the glaringly obvious way for a single gentleman to unwind at the end of a long day?

I think you find it has been inferred before – and it’s not just a boy thing i’m sure

The things you suffer aren’t a direct correlation to living alone, I often suffer the same issues in the evenings and I have never had the luxury of living alone.

The only thing I find that helps is a note pad by the bed and I have a large whiteboard (flame away..) in the dining room which has lists of things I need to do. In effect if it is on the list I can mentally ‘park’ it until I am ready to deal with it. If it is important it gets done quickly, if not a burning issue things can sit on there for months but I will get round to them.

I have lists for home, personal and work. Recently I’ve been taking an afternoon off here and there just to wade through things. Feels good to remove more things from the list than to add.

Write down everything you are worrying about, hit the things you can get sorted quickly and start feeling you are getting back on top of things.

And if workload is an issue there are plenty of great books out there on time management. I refuse to have a crack berry and deal with my mails 3 times a day. 9am, lunch and 5pm for 15 mins. If it is urgent someone will have phoned or found me. Most emails are business spam. I also hate this bloody instant messenger. The key to getting things done is being able to focus without interruptions.

It doesn’t really help that generally I don’t see, or talk to, anyone outside of work between Sunday evening and the following Friday evening (maybe even Saturday evening, if I don’t go out on Friday evening).

Depends really. I avoid speaking to my partner about work, all it will do is stress her out as I unload my troubles.

How about challenging a work colleague to a game of squash once a week / fortnight. 1 hour game followed a beer and a debrief. You will mainly talk about the game but also a bit of about work which will help. I used to play Thursday evenings so would set you up for the weekend

Weekday evening activities: riding, music and pub with mates help loads. But the bottom-line is <heart-on-sleeve> I simply miss having a good woman around </heart-on-sleeve>

i don’t particularly enjoy living alone, overall, but it has its good points.
my gf lives about 20 miles away too, which is sort of a pain to be honest, but i’m taking steps to change that.

I’m alright on my own. TV, movies, Playstation games, playing musical instruments and singing badly, fiddling with bikes, riding bikes, writing code, messing about on STW and the internet in general, reading books, cooking, eating.. or any combination of all those things.

22 years. It’s all that I’m used to.

hatter – Member

36 posts and nobody’s mentioned the glaringly obvious way for a single gentleman to unwind at the end of a long day?

I know he said keep it clean but come on people!

You could always try reading a complete STW thread before contributing to it. I know that’s asking a lot, but it might help you to relax….

…and not post repetitions… 😈

mikey74 – Member
Do you find you have trouble relaxing in the evenings? I often find myself stewing on things and as a result I either don’t sleep well, or I just feel mentally exhausted.

I do this and haven’t lived alone for over a decade.
Just a worrier I think and once something gets into my head it jsut goes around and around and around…

As above, the only thing that works for me is writing stuff down.

A week or so ago, I had loads of things on my mind; impending wedding & loads still to sort out, impending best man at mate’s wedding and loads of stuff to sort out, stuff to do around the house….etc.
Ended up getting up at about 1:30am and having to go downstairs and write it all down. Filled an A4 page of bullet points before staggering back to bed and dropped off almost straight away.

Get yourself a long distant relationship going….

I live alone, or at least I live without any other people. I have two Greyhounds, soooo relaxing. I sometimes get wound up by work but I find that the bike ride home gets rid of much of that, and walking the dogs gets rid of the rest. Greyhounds are masters of chillin’ – if I lie down on my bed they will come and chill with me. It’s very calming to quietly stroke your dog and listen to their quiet breathing, watch their chests rise and fall with their breath.

xherbivorex – Member

i don’t particularly enjoy living alone, overall, but it has its good points.
my gf lives about 20 miles away too, which is sort of a pain to be honest, but i’m taking steps to change that.

Josef Fritzl sytlee?

adjustablewench – Member

hatter – Member
36 posts and nobody’s mentioned the glaringly obvious way for a single gentleman to unwind at the end of a long day?

I think you find it has been inferred before – and it’s not just a boy thing i’m sure

You could always try reading a complete STW thread before contributing to it. I know that’s asking a lot, but it might help you to relax….

…and not post repetitions…

Oh, the ironing.

I used to get this . 100mph brain speed where your tired muscles are pleading for some restfull sleep , but your brain is trying to solve quadratic equations and wont shut down.

Try comcentrating ona blank blackboard, with no writing on it.
Get a shredder, honsetly. 20 mins shredding water bills from 2005 etc will have a positive effect.

Write list and strike through stuff when its done.

Something big / difficult to do and its causing stress? No problem , reward yourself with a bike ride and flapjack once you have completed the task. win – win . Putting stuff off and riding your bike is a plaster on a bullet hole, short term gain.

Read a book you have already read, works for me.

Good TV, the internet, PS3 games and masturbation.. that’s it.

no_eyed_deer – Member
@ Woody Cannondale

You sound like a very empowered individual.

Do you:

a) actually live alone?

or b) if you do actually live alone, how do you think this life would differ if you were unable to pick up random women (with apparently sounding ease) at salsa class?

…still easy to sleep at night?

Just interested, like

Cheers – when I was a kid I wanted to be “He Man”. It’s still my overall life goal really.. 😉

In answer to:
a) Yes – I much prefer living alone though I occasionally have friends/family crashing from time to time which can be fun or alternatively a nightmare.

b) I didn’t say it was easy – but the practice is fun. If this didn’t currently work for me i’d be looking for some other form of social interaction to chill out. Otherwise i’d probably be going utterly insane like @mikey74 as I tend not to switch off easily.

The point is you need to sort (whether that is to solve or merely manage) the root causes of these issues – then do whatever it is you can to unwind.

Lived on my own for most of the last twenty years. Loved it 🙂

+1 for having a dog. A walk after work, then another just before bed. Worked well for me.

Started living with surrounedbyhills 18 months ago… if anyone can tell me how to cope with this I’d love to know 😉

Ever since I left my parents house I have lived alone (all bar having a lodger for a year or two)and have mostly had no problems with it. I think this is mainly due to being very busy at the day job and in the evenings doing loads of gigs with various bands, being involved in theatre and choirs, going cycling and just doing other ‘stuff’. I have also been very lucky to have loads of friends in the areas where I live.

As for waking up with stuff running round my head, over the years I have learned various mind clearing techniques to deal with it, but mainly I learned that worry doesn’t change anything, and that I can only deal with the present, which at 2am should mean being asleep.

Install Linux and learn to program.

Join some clubs, try some new hobbies.