The reality of a life of solitude is looking much brighter.
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The proliferation of solitary dwellers is going almost unnoticed in our frenetic world of breathless non stop events and dramas.
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The reasons for it are many and varied.
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However it is a natural product of economic and current social development.
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The communications revolution and selfishness.
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And mass urbanisation and speed of life.
When Joseph Schumpeter predicted the decomposition of the family unit in 1942, the very idea was laughed at.
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But today his forecast looks prescient.
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Individuals can often lead a more comfortable life when free of family ties.
Despite America's culture of individualism and Europe's changing social norms.
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Solo home-life is only just becoming mainstream.
About one in seven American adults now live alone.
Other nations boast even higher rates of independent living.
30% of all households in Japan contain just one person.
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While in Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark the figure is 40-45%.
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The idea of a person living alone, free of supervision, was once seen as a moral threat.
Solo life was thought to encourage licentiousness, depression, selfishness and other social problems.
When did this attitude change?
In 1957 a group of psychologists surveyed American attitudes about marriage.
They found that about 80% of adults thought that people who preferred to be unmarried were sick, neurotic or immoral.
Today, that seems like an hysterical answer.
Our opinions about being single have changed dramatically over the last 50 years.
How have these opinions changed?
One of the biggest changes is the rise of the women's movement.
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Another the dramatic incorporation of women into the paid labour force.
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Coupled with the rise of birth control and the change in our attitudes about sex.
You have two of the rewards of marriage—economic security and sexual activity—becoming decoupled from the institution.
When that happened, more and more people began to delay marriage or break out of bad marriages.
Our attitudes about being single have been revolutionised.
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Traditionally many young men have lived alone for a variety of reasons.
Today we have many sexually active women committed to their aspirations and mostly satisfied with their lives.
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Living alone for a young woman goes from being a sign of success, an achievement of domestic autonomy if you will.
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To somehow being a sign of social failure when she reaches her mid-thirties.
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This too is changing as more women choose to forgo marriage or living with partners.
This is beginning to call attention to an experience that has become incredibly common.
Singleton life seems to be something that every person experiences as a private matter.
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But in fact it's a major and widely shared part of our social condition.
We need to step back and think about how we got here and what it means for us now.
For example this shift might exacerbate existing problems.
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Like the isolation of the elderly.
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Or the vulnerability of the poor.
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Our generalised anxiety about being alone distracts us from the real dangers related to it
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In the 1995 heatwave in Chicago, hundreds of people died alone.
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In the last two colder winters many old people have died alone.
There are though specific things that we can do to make living alone, or ageing alone, a less isolating experience.
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Including the development of independent living facilities for old people who want to preserve their autonomy but need additional support and services.
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Today with our modern technology living alone need not be dangerous for older people.
For those choosing to live alone the attractions of enjoying the freedom to do what they want to do when they want to do it are strong.
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Whether this means going out late at night or leaving the country on a whim.
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They are enjoying their solitude.
Being productive in their work and in their own personal lives.
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Now that we delay marriage as long as we do, living alone is a vital part of becoming an adult.
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One could say though that our increasing selfishness ill equips us for the compromises necessary to make a living relationship work.
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We could say this however it is only a part of our unfolding choices about how we want to live.
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A story central to our own experiences.
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Yet one only now becoming mainstream in terms of our consciousness.
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And from here to who knows where?
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