网帖翻译

My solo living anniversary snuck up on me quietly. I’d done the paperwork to renew the lease months before. I only remembered my move-in date because it happened to coincide with my friend’s birthday; messaging her sparked a recollection of doing the same thing 12 months earlier, surrounded by cardboard boxes and bits of flatpack. So I celebrated it pretty quietly too – by cooking a nice dinner, burning a posh candle I’d been given years ago, and setting up some fairy lights around my shelves. Oh, and by sending a monthly meter reading to my utilities provider (no one else was going to do it).

我一个人独居一周年的日子悄然而至。几个月前我就已经办理了续租的手续，甚至都忘了具体的入住日期。直到我给一个朋友发消息祝她生日快乐时才猛然想起：12个月前的这一天，我也是一边发消息一边被周围的纸箱和平板家具的零件包围着。于是，我也很低调地庆祝了一下这个纪念日——做了一顿美味的晚餐，点燃了一只朋友多年前送我的高档蜡烛，还在书架周围挂上了一些小彩灯。哦，对了，我还给电力公司提交了月度电表读数（毕竟也没有人帮我去做这件事）。

But I wanted to mark the occasion in some way, for two reasons. The first is that when you’re a single woman in her thirties, who isn’t a homeowner, parent, fiancee or wife, it can feel like you spend your life celebrating other people’s milestones and trying to squeeze yourself into the spaces in between. And the second reason? Living alone happily is, I’ve come to believe, a bit of a skill, and it’s one that I’m proud to have honed a little over the past year.

但我还是想以某种方式纪念这个日子，原因有两个。首先，作为一个三十多岁、未购房、没当妈、未订婚、也未结婚的单身女性，你会感觉自己总是在为别人的重要时刻去喝彩，而自己的生活却只能在这些夹缝中努力寻找立足之地。其次呢？我渐渐意识到，能够独自生活并感到幸福其实是一种技能，而过去一年里，我为这项技能的精进感到自豪。

Of course, it’s also a privilege. I’m only able to (just about) manage it financially because I moved back to Merseyside a few years ago, after sharing London flats with friends, housemates and assorted rodents throughout my twenties; having done the sums, I know I couldn’t afford to rent alone in a similar place in pricier Manchester, the next city along from Liverpool (not that I’d want to, for deep-seated regional rivalry reasons – apols, Andy Burnham).

当然，能够独自生活也是一种幸运。我之所以能（勉强）负担得起，主要是因为几年前搬回了默西塞德郡。在我二十多岁的时候，一直和朋友、室友，还有各种老鼠一起挤在伦敦的合租公寓里。如果是在房租更贵的曼彻斯特，我根本不可能负担得起一个人租房（虽然说实话，我也不想搬去那里，毕竟我内心对两个城市的“宿敌”关系还是很执着——抱歉了，安迪·伯纳姆）。

There’s no getting around the fact that living solo is brutally expensive. It’s not just the fact most one-beds are priced on the assumption that there’s two of you: it’s fixed costs for broadband, the TV licence, the standing charges on your energy bills. It’s the single-person discount on your council tax that knocks only 25 per cent off the payment, rather than halving it. It’s the reality that, for all the zeitgeisty chatter about how being on your own can be empowering, in practical terms, life is very much set up to be navigated as a pair.

不可否认，独居生活的成本确实高得惊人。不仅是一居室的租金通常是按两个人分摊的标准定价，还有宽带、电视频道费、能源账单的固定费用。即使有单人优惠，市政税也只是打个75折，而不是减半。尽管如今到处都在宣扬单身生活如何令人自信独立，但现实是，从实际操作的角度来看，生活的方方面面似乎都更适合两个人一起面对。

And because of that, it is very easy to slip into a mode of thinking that positions living alone as a sort of stop-gap situation or consolation prize, something that happens en route to coupledom rather than being a legitimate end in itself (is it any wonder, when you’re constantly seen as lacking for not being one of two?). From there, it’s even easier to fall into what I’ve come to call “‘only me’-ism”. As in: should I bother making a proper meal if it’s only me that’s going to eat it? Do I really need to put the heating on yet if it’s only me that’s feeling chilly? And should I go to the effort of properly hanging up my prints and pictures when it’s only me that’s really looking at them, and I don’t even know how long I’ll stay here for?

因此，很容易把独居生活看作是一个过渡阶段，或者是没有伴侣的“安慰奖”，好像它只是通向二人世界的过渡，而不是一种独立的生活方式。于是，就很容易陷入我称之为“‘只剩下我”的思维方式。比如：如果就我一个人吃，做顿好饭有必要吗？如果只有我一个人觉得冷，是不是还不需要开暖气？如果只有我一个人而且也不知道会在这里住多久，挂上画和照片真的有必要去做吗？

The answer to all of those questions, of course, is yes, and realising this to be the case was probably my first step to enjoying living alone. In my house-sharing years, I’d surreptitiously hoarded screenshots of the interiors I loved – nothing particularly avant garde, just tall bookshelves draped with plants, gallery walls and posters from Swedish designers – but imposing my own taste on communal rooms didn’t feel right. Plus, aesthetics were a secondary concern when we were spending so much time trying to rid the walls of black mould.

这些问题的答案，当然是肯定的，意识到这一点可能是我开始享受独自生活的第一步。在合租的日子里，我偷偷地收藏了许多自己喜欢的室内设计截图——并不是什么特别前卫的风格，只是高大的书架上挂满了植物，墙上有画廊风格的挂画，还有瑞典设计师的海报——但把自己的喜好强加到公共区域总觉得不太合适。而且，当我们花了很多时间清除墙上的黑霉时，审美早已变成了次要问题。
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

Now, though, I can make my space look exactly how I want it to look. For me, that means lots of plants, lots of patterns and multiple colour-coordinated bookshelves (yes, it’s a bit basic; no, I don’t care). In Arrangements in Blue, a memoir-slash-manifesto about solo life, the writer Amy Key suggests that the “creation of [her] own private domestic space is a kind of romance”, which is, I think, a wonderful way to reimagine the act of making a home your own. She also notes that living alone means she hasn’t “had [her] taste neutralised into an unthreatening benign palette by the need for compromise”, another sentiment I love. Of course, I went a bit over the top at first. High on my own ability to rearrange knick-knacks and plonk dried flowers in vases, I told my friends I was considering training as an interior designer. I’d almost definitely been streaming too much Interior Design Masters at the time – when you live alone, you can watch whatever you wish.

但现在，我可以把自己的空间布置成我想要的样子。对我来说，这意味着很多植物、丰富的图案和多个色彩协调的书架。在艾米·基（Amy Key）的回忆录兼宣言《蓝色布置》中，她提到“创造自己私密的家居空间是一种浪漫”，我觉得这是重新定义把家打造得独一无二的方式，十分美妙。她还提到，独自生活意味着她没有因为妥协的需要，而让自己的品味变成一个无害的、温和的配色方案，这也是我非常认同的观点。当然，一开始我有点过于投入了。沉浸在自己能重新布置小饰品和把干花放进花瓶的能力中，我曾告诉朋友们，我在考虑去学室内设计。那时，我几乎肯定是看得太多《室内设计大师》了——毕竟，独自生活，你可以随心所欲地看任何节目。

The irony of living alone is that however much effort you pour into making your home feel right, spending time outside of that home is incredibly important too. I launched straight into living solo while working remotely from home, which is a bit like turning up to, say, an advanced dance class with no prior training and expecting that you’ll miraculously be able to manage the moves – an intense way to start things off, and arguably a little bit foolish. I soon learnt that my work-life situation means that I need to be scrupulous about planning my weeks to ensure that I don’t get stir-crazy, or get trapped in my own head.

独居生活的一个矛盾之处在于，不管你多么努力地让家里变得舒适，外面的世界同样非常重要。我在开始独居生活的同时也开始了我的远程工作，这就像是没有任何基础就去参加一个高级舞蹈课，指望自己能马上掌握动作——这种方式开始确实有点动荡，也有点冲动。我很快就意识到，由于我的工作和生活方式，我必须认真规划每周的安排，避免陷入孤独或过度思考。

Structure is vital, and so is fostering your own sense of community, whatever that might look like. When I first moved here, I was training for a half-marathon (yes, another thirtysomething cliche) which meant lots of long solo runs; I was spending plenty of time with my own thoughts and the Pet Shop Boys’ greatest hits for company. Since then, I’ve realised that group classes are a much better fit for me, whether that’s pilates at a welcoming city centre studio or the weights session at the women-only gym down the road, where you can chat in between rounds.

规律和社交都非常重要，无论它们呈现的形式是什么。当我刚搬到这里时，我正在为参加半程马拉松做训练（是的，又是三十多岁的人常做的事），这意味着我得做很多长时间的单人跑步；我常常和自己的思绪为伴，背景音乐则是宠物店男孩的经典歌曲。之后，我意识到，团体课程更适合我，无论是在市中心那家温馨的普拉提工作室，还是在附近的女性专用健身房里做力量训练，大家在每轮训练之间还能聊聊天。

Essentially, if socialising isn’t an incidental part of your day, you probably need to go out of your way to work it in (and ignore the cynical side of your brain that tells you that doing so is naff and try-hard). Right now, I have more hobbies than I’ve had since I was a very earnest eight-year-old. I’ve started going to art classes again, having previously put down the oil pastels when the invigilator announced the end of my GCSE practical exam, half my lifetime ago. I’m part of two book clubs, because my instinctive favourite activity, reading, isn’t exactly sociable. In a roundabout way, living alone has made me more conscious of the fact that my time is my own, to fill with stuff I enjoy. And if I don’t make things happen, meter readings and utility bill wrangling included, no one else will.

实际上，如果社交活动不是你日常生活中的一个自然而然的部分，你可能需要刻意去安排它（并且忽视你内心那个告诉你这样做很矫情、很做作的声音）。现在，我有的兴趣爱好比我小时候八岁时还要多。比如，我又开始上艺术课了，曾经在很久以前，当监考老师宣布我的GCSE实操考试结束时，我放下了油画棒，直到现在才重新拾起。我还参加了两个读书俱乐部，因为我的本能最喜欢的活动——读书，并不是一种特别社交的活动。通过这种方式，独自生活让我更加意识到我的时间是属于我的，我可以用它来做自己喜欢的事情。如果我不主动去安排这些事情，包括提交电表读数和处理账单，没人会替我做。
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

Doing this has allowed me to meet lots of new people, including other solo dwellers. When you’re always being told, implicitly or explicitly, that your life doesn’t quite fit into the expected paradigm, it’s important to spend some of your time with those in similar situations. This helps you to sense-check the voice in the back of your head telling you that you’re some sort of anomalous outlier. Recently, though, I must admit that I’ve mainly become pretty jealous of their pets. My family’s allergies mean that a cat is out of the question, but my goal for 2025 is to adopt a dog.

这样做让我结识了很多新朋友，包括其他独居的人。当你总是被明里暗里地告知自己的生活似乎不太符合常规模式时，和有相似处境的人在一起度过一些时间是非常重要的。这可以帮助你打破内心那个不断告诉你自己是“另类”的声音。不过，最近我必须承认，我开始有点羡慕他们的宠物了。因为家里有过敏问题，我不能养猫，但我的2025年目标是领养一只狗。

When people learn that you live on your own, the most common follow-up question is: but don’t you get really lonely? The honest answer is yes, a little bit, sometimes. But right now, the independence, the freedom and the sense of fulfilment that comes with doing things on your own terms just about outweighs that. And frankly, I’ve felt far, far lonelier when I was stuck in a terrible Spare Room houseshare, dreaming of an escape route and a living room of one’s own.

当人们得知你独自生活时，最常问的一个问题是：难道你不觉得很孤单吗？坦率地说，答案是的，有时候确实会感到有点孤单。但现在，独立、自由以及按照自己方式做事所带来的成就感，几乎能够弥补这一点。坦白说，我曾经在一段糟糕的共享房屋生活中感到更加孤单，那时我常常梦想着能逃离那个困境，拥有属于自己的客厅。