Single Occupancy

One friend said she could "have cereal for dinner, or put the furniture wherever I want." A male friend echoed, "If I want to drink a Coke for breakfast, I can. And I often order an entire large pizza and two-liter soda for dinner, and sit in my underwear watching sports."

"Dishes get done only if someone else is coming over," a guy told me. Another confided that he enjoyed not having to fight over the remote. Yet another male friend is building a wooden boat in his living room. The pipes of a bathroom sink of a fourth male friend are scattered on the floor; when I visit, I have to wash my hands in the kitchen.

Almost everyone—or everyone who was honest—mentions getting so used to farting whenever they need to that they have often forgotten where they were and farted embarrassingly loudly in public.

I enter my space and immediately kick off my shoes and take off my bra; a male friend similarly disrobes: "I never have dinner with my underwear on; why ruin a good meal feeling crunched and confined?"