Living alone makes it harder to find someone to blame.
There have always been hermits: people who want to get away from other humans. Literally, some of the first extant books and poems found in Mesopotamia and China mention people living alone in the woods. It's this primal fascination that exists across all cultures and all times.
In late 2009, I returned to Baghdad after a lengthy absence. I was living alone, in the Hamra Hotel, the twice bombed-out de facto international news bureau.
It's amazing living alone. I'm very lucky. It's like a refuge.
When I hear about something allegedly happening in the world I always ask: 'Who is doing it?' Trends break out because they're based on real demographics, like there being fewer nuclear families or more people living alone. If 10 people in Shoreditch are doing it, it's a 10-minute fad.
At 16, I got housing benefit, and I had my own flat in an old woman's house. I was the only 16-year-old I knew living alone.
You know, one of my fears about living alone so long is that you get used to doing everything your own way.
If there's anything worse than a woman living alone, it's a woman saying she likes it.
The truth is that at age 19, I was a teenage mother living alone with my daughter in a trailer and struggling to keep us afloat on my way to a divorce. And I knew then that I was going to have to work my way up and out of that life if I was going to give my daughter a better life and a better future, and that's what I've done.
