that’s really well said, lis! you two certainly are accomplishing this on onely. thank you so much for tending to my comment so carefully. i’m grateful and really appreciate the thoughtful, interesting, smart response!

>“And, I would venture to add, we do experience activities such as naps and nut-sucking (for example!) in a different way than those who are coupled…”

i imagine that’s true, that the experience of enjoying secret habits or caring for/indulging oneself is different* for non-single people who live together (i’d be interested in hearing from those who do not live together). and, yeah, you’re right. one can’t ignore the other person in the house and probably will squeeze in nut-sucking or a long luxurious shower when he/she isn’t around to say “hey, aren’t you being a bit wasteful!?” but doing these things by oneself is definitely the main issue here for me. i wasn’t trying to say that i enjoy my smelly body in my own time around my spouse or not—but specifically when i am alone (not to say that he is “turned off” by the grime of the outdoors).

what accounts mostly for the difference*, i think, is the amount of alone time one has. i can’t always count on being alone; it must be especially hard for couples who have similar work schedules. and (to use your word “responsible”), when you are jointly responsible for keeping your two lives on track, time by yourself might be time to go to the store or clean the house or time to practice your own personal projects, visit friends, weed the garden. there are opportunities but most likely fewer opportunities to pamper yourself and be creative with your time. however, i’d also say that single people have other people they are responsible to and also have to make time for pampering.

there is quite a stigma against doing things for oneself. no, we don’t want to be the guy who wastes every weekend watching wrestling in his underwear or the woman who eats bonbons for breakfast and then naps through election day. and i think it’s good we don’t want that—that we want to earn this time for reveling. right, your hard work pulling up invasive species in the park earned you the time to nap and relax? but for couples, this time might be less easy to get or given lower priority. unfortunately some often forfeit completely their right to take time off. and although i believe there are economic reasons for this for everyone, there are also cultural reasons. women especially are not supposed to enjoy themselves (e.g., only men masturbate, right?) when there is too much nurturing to be done in the world. i mean, why would a pretty, smart girl like you want to enjoy her day alone when she could be serving a husband and raising the kids up right? one great thing about your blog is that it will help all kinds of people contemplate their issues with this. and if you are coupled, you might question what is it YOU might be lacking, not the other way around.