Most of us have savored the joys of living with a roommate at some point during college: lower bills, lower rent, split cases of beer - It's the way to go.
But it is likely that in time, many of us will find ourselves living in a different style: alone, surrounded only by our stuff, paying full rent and buying all the beer.
About 26 percent of adult Americans live alone, according to the Christian Science Monitor, a number that has been growing steadily over the decades; the Monitor observes that this booming demographic is causing both large-scale cultural and economic shifts. Individualism is on the rise. As that happens, the adage "we can't always get what we want" is becoming less true.
One effect of this trend is the growing market for individually wrapped goods. Obviously, if you live alone, you can't buy the Costco-sized block of cheese or the gallon jug of milk - that stuff would go bad before you ever had the chance to use it. So often, you end up buying the over-processed, wastefully packaged, not perishable, plasticky cheese, a product that shares its name with the aforementioned demographic: singles.
The type of woman portrayed on "Sex and the City" offers another stereotypical picture of singleness: four overbearing, very single and nauseatingly trendy friends. From what I gather, they get much of their empowerment from their shoe collections and one-night-stands. These are women who change clothes before every meal, women who can barely function outside of a full-service environment.
And I'm sure you've seen those Bank One commercials on TV, the ones featuring uniquely annoying characters who talk about all the different things they need from a bank. "I want 'Great Dane' checking!" says one. Whatever "Great Dane checking" is, surely she can find it at Bank One. The commercials are intended to show that Bank One can fill the quirky, demanding needs of individual people. But the people on the commercials come across as whiny, pretentious and impossible to please.
These examples of the individually wrapped singles market are just a corner of what can be read as a much larger societal issue: Perhaps this increasingly single living drives the inability to share and unwillingness to compromise. A country that is becoming more demanding and more "single" over time stands to lose those abilities.
I don't mean to suggest that everyone who lives alone ought to go out and marry, or find a roommate, or move to a hostel. But the unnecessary empowerment of the already capable singles might turn this country into a band of overly fashionable 'metrosexuals' who will eventually lose the ability to solve simple disputes and won't be accustomed to, when pressed, managing their own needs and shortcomings.
If people are able to get precisely what they want almost all of the time, we'll end up with an array of products that are specialized, difficult to manufacture and economically impractical (like the fake cheese slices).
During times when there are millions who can't afford to eat, much less buy a pair of heels or learn about "Great Dane checking," the sheer amount of waste that accumulates under such a system of single living will surely be negative.
Emily Lyons is a journalism senior. Reach her at emily.lyons@asu.edu.
