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Why worry about finding a new relationship when there are so many benefits to being single? Here are the top ten reasons why living on your own is better than being hooked up.

1. Your time is your own. You have no obligations to a significant other or to his or her friends, family, and work schedule. You can come and go as you please, cook and eat when you're hungry, and go to bed when you feel like it. You never have to call home to explain to the fish that you're going to be an hour late.

2. Plans can be made or changed at the drop of a hat. There will be no asking another person if they mind and no taking into account whether your lover hates your best friend. If you want to do it, you do.

3. On top of the last point, you also are free of social obligations on behalf of your other half. Company functions full of strangers are banished and no longer are there "friends" you can't stand but feel required to entertain.

4. Menu planning can be as simple or extravagant as your mood desires. You can eat a bowl of cereal standing at the sink for dinner or you can cook asparagus quiche without concerning yourself with the taste buds of another. If you want to eat out, negotiation is not required.

5. Decorating is as simple as making a decision and doing it. Your home can reflect your taste and everything in it is yours. No one will rearrange the furniture while you're at work or insist on hanging a truly hideous painting over the couch. Your house plants or lack thereof will never be a bone of contention.

6. Budget issues are as straight-forward as keeping track of what you bring in and what you spend. Someone else is not writing checks or using credit cards or forgetting to pay the water bill. And you can buy that pair of shoes or new golf clubs without explaining to anyone why you "needed" them.

7. Everything is right where you left it. Your keys are still on the counter, your iced cream is still in the freezer, and the remote is still on the end table.

8. Not only can you find your things, but you do not find things you did not put there. No garbage will appear on your table in your absence. No dirty dishes will mysteriously arrive in the sink. Muddy tracks will not print themselves on your floor. Your toilet is always as flushed or unflushed as you left it.

9. You are free to focus on a task without interruption. The television will not magically turn itself on at high volume to display something you have no interest in watching but from which you cannot escape. No one will stop you mid-thought to ask where the double boiler is and then leave you to wonder why they want to know.

10. Your favorite slippers and polka-dot jammies are your little secret. Whatever unattractive item in which you choose to lounge about your home is not subject to critique by a well-meaning person who doesn't understand just how comfortable and broken in it really is. And the fact that you are still in it at 1:00 on a Saturday afternoon is nobody's business but your own.

Learn more about this author, Mel Bergen.
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