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[zarathustra]

I had to learn how to ask for help when I lived alone in a foreign country.  You get used to it.

When I've had surgery, I've been able to line up colleagues to pick me up at the hospital, get my meds at the pharmacy, etc.  I try to spread it out over several different people so no one particular person is overly burdened.  I'd do the same for them!  I have a security system for when I go out of town, and I hire a student to bring in my mail and feed my cats.  I have some friends down the street that I use as ICE contacts.  

The only other time when I notice that singleness can be a PITA is the divvying up chores. Sure, there's less to clean with one person, but it would be nice to send someone else to the grocery store once in a while.  

I plan on being creative when I get older and "infirm." I'll get roommates or move to a foreign country where my retirement dollars go farther or take up a super dangerous hobby that will make a retirement home less likely.  

In meantime, I'm trying to take awesome care of myself.  

[chaosbydesign]

I also live alone, and I like it. While I would like to have someone here at night occasionally, I think that living with someone all the time would drive me nuts. I need my space, especially if I've had a bad day in the lab or if I'm just really tired. Living alone means I can sleep on the couch every night if I feel like it, and it means I can stay up all night on the internet without someone nagging at me for being antisocial, and I don't have to fight anyone for the TV remote. I honestly think that if I lived with an SO again, we would need to have two bedrooms -- not to sleep separately, but so that I had an area that was completely mine. Maybe that makes me weird, but I don't really care.

I haven't given much thought to an emergency contact, to be honest. I'm not entirely sure if I have one; if I do, it's someone who lives 4,000 miles away and is not a relative. There are people in ChaosCity who would, I think, notice if I vanished, and they know where I live. Also, the place I'm most likely to get in an accident is in the lab and that building is connected to a hospital, so that's not much of an issue. If I was sick or needed help with something that required two people, I would ask a friend, and I would hope that my friends would feel comfortable asking me to help them too.

I wish I had someone to clean out the cats' litterboxes for me, though.

[elsie]

My dad has moved into an independent living community, which has been a good support to him as a widower. I will probably do the same when I become elderly. His church also keeps an eye on him as an elderly man living alone. My brother also lives alone, and I find myself wondering if he has worried about these issues for himself as well.

[mystictechgal]

Yeah, I've considered the "move to a foreign country" thing. I've been considering it for decades, even before I was alone, It seems to be something that anyone living outside the US is able to figure out and do, but difficult to do if you're a US national. I've yet to figure out how that works. For any country, not just Canada, where I have wanted to live for years, or Australia, where both my husband and I agreed we'd move in a a second, but even those in the Caribbean, I seem to be banned. Looking for advice online hasn't provided a viable route in the decade or more my husband and I were considering it. I've given up on that "retirement" plan, even now that I'm fully free to pursue it without worrying about another (except pets).

[hegemony]

I know someone who was involved in doing an academic study of why people don't get colonoscopies that have been recommended to them.  One of the top reasons was that people don't have someone to drive them home.

I think the implications of this go several ways.  One: we should not hesitate to ask someone to drive us, not least because then they will hesitate less to ask us in turn.  Second: our system should allow for the fact that many people live alone, are hesitant to ask for help, and will forgo important medical procedures for these reasons, even if it's "silly" to do so.  There ought to be options in place to accommodate this -- a service that drives you home, for instance, and that the doctor orders as a matter of course, not something where you have to make yourself face ordering it.  Ours is a "don't ask for help" pressured culture, and as lamentable as that is, and as much as we should try to change it, we should also recognize that it's the way it is and set up every work-around we can.

[grasshopper]

I know someone who was involved in doing an academic study of why people don't get colonoscopies that have been recommended to them.  One of the top reasons was that people don't have someone to drive them home.

I think the implications of this go several ways.  One: we should not hesitate to ask someone to drive us, not least because then they will hesitate less to ask us in turn.  Second: our system should allow for the fact that many people live alone, are hesitant to ask for help, and will forgo important medical procedures for these reasons, even if it's "silly" to do so.  There ought to be options in place to accommodate this -- a service that drives you home, for instance, and that the doctor orders as a matter of course, not something where you have to make yourself face ordering it.  Ours is a "don't ask for help" pressured culture, and as lamentable as that is, and as much as we should try to change it, we should also recognize that it's the way it is and set up every work-around we can.

Yes - a thousand times, yes.

A few years ago, I had a medical procedure and needed someone to drive me home. Someone asked who would be picking me up, and when I said "I don't know anybody who can," the nurse said "NOBODY???" She was incredulous. Like it doesn't happen all the freaking time.

Now, I'm okay with being a single woman of a certain age, but I could just imagine someone who was sensitive trying to deal with Little Miss Incredulous. Oooooh, the look I gave her. I hope she thought twice before reacting that way with another patient.

[infopri]

This thread hits home for me.  A very, very close friend of mine lived alone, and this summer he unexpectedly died, in his home--and wasn't found until more than a week later (in 100+ degree heat).  My Better Half and I had just returned from two months in Somewhere Warm, and when the friend didn't return our phone calls, we thought he might be traveling.  (He would sometimes just take off without telling anyone.)  Just as we were starting to worry (because he wasn't answering email either), we got the call that he'd been found.  It was awful--not only losing him, but seeing the evidence of what the heat had done to his remains during the week or 10 days that he was lying on the floor, dead.  (His ex-wife and I supervised while the house was cleaned by the bio-remediation professionals.)

The irony that haunts me is that he and I had once talked about this very possibility.  An acquaintance of ours (and a former colleague of mine) had died in much the same way a few years ago and wasn't found for three weeks.  When we heard the news, I noted to my friend that he lived alone, and that some day either My Better Half or I would be alone.  None of has any kids, and we never will.  Who would know, if we were to die?  Would we lie there, unfound, like our acquaintance?  But, lord help me, I thought we were talking about, say, 25 years from now.  I never in a million years thought it would happen to him now, when he was still relatively young.

Because I'm married, I use My Better Half as my emergency contact, but you can authorize anyone to receive medical information on your behalf.  There's no reason you can't have a friend be your emergency contact.  And, as someone upthread noted, even married people sometimes have to look to friends to "be there" for them, because the spouse is unavailable for some reason.  The friend I just lost, for example, took me for a nerve block when My Better Half had to be in class.  I can't count how many times we've had friends and neighbors look after our animals, either letting our dogs out while we were gone for the day, or taking care of our cats for periods as long as a month. 

Yes, I hate to impose on other people--but I try to reciprocate whenever and however I can.  I drove my now-dead friend to the airport all the time, and at all hours.  I catsit for my neighbors.  One former neighbor (and a close friend) has always been there for us in a variety of ways; now, when she travels, I check her house every day to make sure her live-in daughter hasn't accidentally burned it down (long story), and I help to care for her dogs.  When another friend had a massive stroke, I drove his wife (who can't drive) to the hospital--and, later, to the rehab center--several times a week for a year, until they moved out of state to be closer to their son.

We do what we can to help one another.  Don't be hesitant to ask.  As long as you don't take advantage, people are very willing to help out.  Wouldn't you be?

[voxprincipalis]

Ours is a "don't ask for help" pressured culture, and as lamentable as that is, and as much as we should try to change it, we should also recognize that it's the way it is and set up every work-around we can.

I would argue that it's not a "don't ask for help" culture per se, but rather one of "what do you mean you don't have a spouse or children? How do you LIVE?"

The duties involved are ones that are, in popular thought, clearly allocated to spouses and/or children. Otherwise, elsie wouldn't have had to raise this question in the first place. She is not asking, for example, about finding a dentist. For the kind of things she's asking about, "help" exists, but the clear societal expectation is that if you have to resort to using a work colleague or (OMG) hiring a prostitute paid service, because you don't have a spouse or children, you are somewhere between an object of pity and a pariah.

VP

[golden_ticket]

Ours is a "don't ask for help" pressured culture, and as lamentable as that is, and as much as we should try to change it, we should also recognize that it's the way it is and set up every work-around we can.

I would argue that it's not a "don't ask for help" culture per se, but rather one of "what do you mean you don't have a spouse or children? How do you LIVE?"

The duties involved are ones that are, in popular thought, clearly allocated to spouses and/or children. Otherwise, elsie wouldn't have had to raise this question in the first place. She is not asking, for example, about finding a dentist. For the kind of things she's asking about, "help" exists, but the clear societal expectation is that if you have to resort to using a work colleague or (OMG) hiring a prostitute paid service, because you don't have a spouse or children, you are somewhere between an object of pity and a pariah.

VP

This sums it up perfectly

[itried]

I live alone and absolutely cherish my space and privacy. I lived with two (consecutive) SOs for more 20 years, and the next man who tells me how I should be chopping the carrots will be out on his a## in one second flat.

I have cats and I travel abroad a lot. It's uncomfortable asking friends to care for them, but some friends are much more generous than others; I've learned this over the years and now avoid asking the "friends" who say "yes" but complain the whole time. Sometimes I pay a student to cat sit; I feel better asking if I pay. After having an SO to rely on, counting on friends did take some getting used to, but I ask for help when I really need it. I find my single friends and friends with grown children are more willing to help, maybe because they really understand what it's like to be alone.

[zarathustra]

I know someone who was involved in doing an academic study of why people don't get colonoscopies that have been recommended to them.  One of the top reasons was that people don't have someone to drive them home.

I think the implications of this go several ways.  One: we should not hesitate to ask someone to drive us, not least because then they will hesitate less to ask us in turn.  Second: our system should allow for the fact that many people live alone, are hesitant to ask for help, and will forgo important medical procedures for these reasons, even if it's "silly" to do so.  There ought to be options in place to accommodate this -- a service that drives you home, for instance, and that the doctor orders as a matter of course, not something where you have to make yourself face ordering it.  Ours is a "don't ask for help" pressured culture, and as lamentable as that is, and as much as we should try to change it, we should also recognize that it's the way it is and set up every work-around we can.

Yes - a thousand times, yes.

A few years ago, I had a medical procedure and needed someone to drive me home. Someone asked who would be picking me up, and when I said "I don't know anybody who can," the nurse said "NOBODY???" She was incredulous. Like it doesn't happen all the freaking time.

Now, I'm okay with being a single woman of a certain age, but I could just imagine someone who was sensitive trying to deal with Little Miss Incredulous. Oooooh, the look I gave her. I hope she thought twice before reacting that way with another patient.

I got that same reaction, only more absurd, when I couldn't find a way to get home newly framed poster that was too big for my car.  If I feel like I'm imposing on friends to ask if they can drive me to the hospital, how am I going to feel about them making a trip to Hobby Lobby to pick up a freaking poster?!!  This woman tried to run down a list too: "What? You don't own a truck? What about your friends? What about your parents?"

My PARENTS?  I blew up at that.  Not everyone lives within 5 miles of their PARENTS.  Oy vey!

[elsie]

Zarathustra,

I've had that situation with Pier 1. What kind of store sells bulky furniture with no system for delivering it?

[history_grrrl]

What a great thread. My (geographically) closest family members are far away, in another country, and I've had to deal with the medical end of this dilemma a lot in the past few years.

I have a couple of very close friends here; both are married and one has kids, but they both have a certain amount of flexibility and have been beyond generous in offering their time. But when I need tests that require sedation, I have to travel about an hour away. So I not only need a ride home, but I need someone who can go there with me and hang around for hours. These friends are happy to do it, and have done it, but I can't stand asking them to devote five or six hours of their time. (Usually they can combine the trip with a visit to friends or something.) If it were just "Could you pick me up downtown at X time?" it would be a lot easier.

Recently I had to do this on a day when these friends were out of town, and dealing with the logistics of getting home was far more stressful than the test itself. I ended up calling my mother, who's retired and has resources, and she hopped on a plane with one of my sisters. They made a mini-vacation out of it, but I felt ridiculous for having to ask.

The latest dilemma: last year I had open-heart surgery an hour from where I live. Turns out I may need it again, but my surgeon is relocating and he'll now be two hours away. I don't see how I will manage that if I need tests or whatnot. I love Miss Marple's idea of hiring a home health person to do pick up, but I'm not sure it would work with this kind of distance. So although I know and trust this surgeon, I suspect I will have to switch to someone else if the need arises.

For as long as I can remember, I've had this *thing* about being independent and priding myself on not needing help. I'm not sure why it's so hard to ask; I suspect it has to do with not wanting to be a burden to anyone -- or at least not anyone who isn't related by blood. It doesn't help that, as others have pointed out, there's a presumption that everyone has a partner to do these things. It's good to commiserate!

[miss_jane_marple]

I live alone and absolutely cherish my space and privacy. I lived with two (consecutive) SOs for more 20 years, and the next man who tells me how I should be chopping the carrots will be out on his a## in one second flat.

Ah, so you've met my ex....

For the kind of things she's asking about, "help" exists, but the clear societal expectation is that if you have to resort to using a work colleague or (OMG) hiring a prostitute paid service, because you don't have a spouse or children, you are somewhere between an object of pity and a pariah.

Exactly.

[scampster]

For as long as I can remember, I've had this *thing* about being independent and priding myself on not needing help. I'm not sure why it's so hard to ask; I suspect it has to do with not wanting to be a burden to anyone -- or at least not anyone who isn't related by blood. It doesn't help that, as others have pointed out, there's a presumption that everyone has a partner to do these things. It's good to commiserate!

It's good to commiserate but really, we need to get over ourselves sometimes too. You can be independent and still ask for help on occasion (the most independent person in the world can't carry a couch up a set of stairs alone). I think we partially contribute to our own isolation in this regard. I think the airport scenario is apt - once you get into the habit of exchanging airport favors, no one seems like they are burdening anyone by asking for a ride. I don't see why it is any different with hospital trips or whatnot (besides the whole privacy issue).

Never count on other people to notice when you need help, especially when you only obliquely reference your need and then hope someone will offer the help you need. Even the most attentive of us can be distracted and not notice a subtle request for help from our friends. But that doesn't mean that I don't have time to pick you up from the hospital next Saturday.

That's not to say that there are not structural issues as well (seriously, if my mechanic has a van that will drop me off at work and pick me up at the end of the day, would it really be that difficult for a hospital to implement something similar?)