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| Lonely Montreal guy |
There's a case to be made that Montreal is one of the Can-Am's loneliest cities, as one in three Montrealers lives alone, putting us behind only Quebec City and Cleveland for the highest percentage of unihabitationists.
Coming in right near the bottom of that scale is Toronto, where about one in four people live alone, which suggests that the high cost of rent in Toronto has forced many to get roommates.
Some have linked Quebec's tendency to uni-habitate as a contributor to mental illness as we apparently consume more than our proportion of anti-depressants compared to the rest of Canada.But the only study I could find on the subject suggested that there's no difference in mental states between unihabitationists (Stop making up words - Chimples) and those who live with others.
The study suggested that there's a slightly higher percentage of drug use and alcohol abuse among the people who live alone however.
Quebec's higher divorce rate, lower birthrate, aging population and relatively lower rents might partially explain the trend here.
Those who live alone often face a higher financial burden, as there's nobody to chip in for those cable and heating bills, so the retail-restaurant-entertainment economy is likely suffering, while the real estate owners benefit from this trend.
Nobody seems to have asked the simple question, do people want to live alone?
I lived alone most of the time between ages 18-33 and loved it and never recall feeling lonely at all.
There were no annoying roommates and my social life was quite lively, as there seemed always to be someone who wanted to pop in and visit.
I once almost choked on a steak that I had cooked when there was nobody around to give me the Heimlich, otherwise there were no regrets.
So I ask you: do you live alone, or have you lived alone and do you like it?