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Being alone is the new being married. There, I said it, and it's either penetrating, zeitgeist-attuned wisdom, or possibly utter nonsense, but think about how Kate Bolick's Atlantic Monthly piece about women embracing singlehood (on purpose) is still making waves across the media world. And now, the New York Times chimes in on the matter with Eric Klinenberg's opinion piece "One's a Crowd."

Klinenberg writes, "The mere thought of living alone once sparked anxiety, dread and visions of loneliness. But those images are dated. Now the most privileged people on earth use their resources to separate from one another, to buy privacy and personal space." After studying the numbers, Klinenberg suggests that living alone has become desirable for adults of all ages. After all, "living alone comports with modern values. It promotes freedom, personal control and self-realization — all prized aspects of contemporary life."

And that's not all. People who live alone actually spend more time being social, seeing their friends, and attending cultural events than married people. Even families who live together tend to spend their time in separate rooms, ensconced in separate media experiences. In other words, lonely and alone often have nothing to do with one another.

Read the entire piece for Klinenberg's interesting revelations on what the increasing numbers of middle-aged and older people living alone means for all of us.

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