Life In Lagos #5: Living Alone
Lonely at the top….. Ghen Ghen Ghen
Hi, I’m 28 and single, and I live in Lagos…….Alone.
I recently started living alone, and I think I have a love-hate relationship with this new reality. I’m not quite sure how to describe being alone all day, every day. It’s not exactly a relaxing experience — but it’s also not stressful at all. In fact, it’s kind of like the sweet spot between relaxation and stress.
As an introvert, it’s nice to have my own space, There are days when I feel like the queen of my castle but on other days I get really bored and convinced I might die alone in this big city. No Jokes.
For me, one of the major pros of living alone is the freedom that comes with it. If I feel like eating chocolate cake for breakfast instead of cereal, then so be it! If I want to watch TV at 3 a.m. because there’s nothing else on and no one else is awake, then so be it!
Secondly, it’s more convenient for me because I don’t have to share my space with anyone else. This means that I can do whatever I want whenever I want without having to worry about annoying someone else or getting in their way (and vice versa). For example, I like dark spaces and I barely turn on the lights in my house, I also like to keep the AC at a certain temperature and sometimes I don’t turn it on at all. I can only do all of these in my space because I don’t have to explain to someone else without looking like a crazy person. 😎
You also control your own schedule. When you live alone, you get to decide when you wake up in the morning and go to bed at night. You don’t have to wake up at 5:30 in the morning or stay up until 11 pm at night because your roommate has to go to work early or come back late. You don’t have to worry about scheduling things around other people’s schedules and this gives a lot of room for spontaneity or flexibility. The choice is yours!
But let’s be real: there are definitely some downsides to living alone in Lagos.
As much as I love having my own place, there are definitely some things that make it difficult to live alone. The first con is that you have to do everything yourself — from washing dishes to cleaning the bathroom to fixing things. When I lived with people, we would split the chores, but now that I don’t have anyone else around and have to take care of everything myself, it can be really hard sometimes.
You also have to wear many hats. You need to be able to figure things out as quickly as you can because no one else will do it for you. These include finding out where to get things, the nearest pharmacy, banks, police station (for obvious reasons) and so on. The other day, I found myself trying to fix a broken door handle, I wasn’t very good at it, but in that moment, I realized that that was just one of many things I’ll have to learn to do by myself.
Also, no one talks about the paranoia that comes with living alone. This might not make sense to everyone, but it is actually a thing, especially in Lagos where anything can happen at anything time. When you live alone, you become very sensitive to your environment, you notice everything and you question the littlest things. I am lucky enough to stay in an area that is relatively safe, but I still use a two-factor authentication lock anytime I am home. My doors are always locked and I have developed a Spidey Sense.
You’ll be alone for most of the day, so you better be ready for some serious self-reflection, don’t worry — you can still make friends! (They’ll just be imaginary.😉) But hey, we can always find a way around this. Read books, binge-watch movies, take a stroll in the evenings, or maybe even register at a gym near you.
I know that it can be scary to live alone — especially if you’ve never done it before — but once you get used to it, it’s actually not so bad!
Yours in adulthood struggle, That Ordinary Girl. ✌
