[Reading level: C1 – Advanced]
The global proportion of people living on their own has doubled since the 1960s.
In the middle of the day recently, I received a text message informing me that a good friend had been diagnosed with stage-four cancer at 33 years old.
She and I went to university together. We lived together. We spent a lot of nights singing songs and languishing at friends’ dinner parties together.
It was the first time anyone this close to me, this young, had used “the c word” in reference to themselves.
In the following days, I was added to a WhatsApp group chat made up of people who, like me, wanted to be kept up-to-date on our friend’s condition. I saw how loved ones sent cards, gifts, and money to help with her medical bills not covered by her health insurance. Because her father lived in another city, he flew in about a day before her chemotherapy began.
Then, suddenly, a message appeared in the group chat from her mother. It stated that at 4:20 am, her daughter had passed away, 13 days after her diagnosis.
“I am so grateful for her beautiful life and the 33 sweet and lovely years I knew her,” she wrote.
I locked myself in the bathroom stall at work and cried.
The frailty of independence
Perhaps as a way of staving off grief and delaying having to deal with the sorrow, I seized up and became fixated on logistics. I wondered: Who’s running the Whatsapp group? Who’s delegating tasks? Who’s helping the family?
In the absence of a spouse or partner, it seemed that this work was mainly taken on by friends from different stages in my friend’s life. I though about how the support system would have had to look if her convalescence had extended for months, or years.
A similar thought crossed my mind months earlier, when I broke my arm. While obviously a completely different situation, the experience nonetheless exposed how utterly frail my independence is as a single person in my 30s.
Because I broke my dominant arm, I couldn’t brush my teeth properly. Getting dressed in the morning and tying my shoelaces became an entirely new type of challenge.
It showed me how, no matter how successful and respected I become on my own, I am one crisis away from debilitation.
Eventually, our problems cannot be solved by money, or a new app. At some point, we just need people to literally be there.
If you live alone, do you die alone?
Perhaps because of experiences like these, I’ve started to spend more time wondering things like: If I died in my apartment, how long would it take before someone found my body?
It’s a morbid thought, I know, but it’s not actually so far-fetched. People in Japan die alone in their apartments so often that an entire industry has been created to deal with the aftermath of “lonely deaths,” where paid professionals go into people’s homes and clean up the remains of the solitary deceased. It can take weeks for anyone to notice the smell, and then days of bureaucracy for the police to get clearance to open the door and enter the premise. Once that is finally achieved, strangers mop up the mess and scramble to find someone, anyone, to notify.
The thought of this scenario unnerves me to my core because, to be frank, the dots between those people in Japan and me are not difficult to connect: I live alone and I’m single. Given that I often work as a freelance writer, if I were to perish alone at home no colleagues or boss would be puzzling about my whereabouts if I didn’t show up to work at the normal time.
Even if my editors were annoyed that I missed a deadline (pun intended), they would send some emails, maybe call if they felt particularly pressed, but then probably assume I was just being flakey and vow never to work with me again—unaware of just how right they would be.
Singles digits
In Berlin, the city where I live, around 50% of residential apartments are single-person households. I only know one of my neighbors’ names. Most of them are single males who represent various stages of the bachelor entropy.
For instance, my ground-floor neighbor, whose apartment I can see into, seems to be unemployed. His living-room floor is littered with beer bottles that have been converted into ashtrays, each refracting flickers of light from the always-on flat screen. He usually wakes up after 2:00 pm and proceeds to smoke so much marijuana that I have to close my windows in order to get some fresh air.
In the hypothetical event of my own solitary death, not only would my neighbors likely be unbothered by the smell of my decaying sinews (as it would likely be hard to distinguish it from the smells they produce in generous amounts), I doubt they would care enough to soldier through all the bureaucratic tasks it would take for my body to be cleared, processed, and laid to rest in some form.
My neighbor and I are both part of the more-than 300 million single-person households around the world, accounting for 15% of the global population.
This ratio tends to be larger in many European countries: More than 50% of households in Sweden, Denmark, and Lithuania are made up of just one person, and its 40%-50% in Germany, Finland, Estonia, the Netherlands, France, Latvia, and Austria. In the United States, it’s 28%. In developed countries, the proportion of people living on their own has doubled since the 1960s.
The marriage construct
Don’t get me wrong—I love my life. I have work I enjoy, friends I cherish, and a bunch of hobbies that are only possible to maintain in a vibrant city like Berlin. After having shared apartments with roommates for more than 10 years, I am relieved to be able to come home at around 11:30 pm most nights to the quiet of my own place and recede from my busy schedule, which can include anything from performing standup comedy to attending the opera. Yet, despite how happy I am in the hubbub of my yuppy life, I sometimes forget just how unprecedented this mode of existence is, in the grand scheme of things.
At least since the modern period, humans have gone from living in family units of varying descriptions to starting their own families—with a brief transition period in between in which they might sow some so-called wild oats.
In accordance with societal norms, we have eventually tended to settle down and enter into the community life, with our own families at the core. Barring divorce, marriage has not only provided us with companionship in life but also with an established mechanism for body disposal upon death.
But a lot has changed in the last 50 years or so. For many people, this wild-oats period is lasting longer and longer. And for more and more people, it may be permanent—for some by choice, for others it’s a source of frustration, and sometimes it’s just a practical matter of circumstance.
The vows that bind us
But however we single people arrived at our singular status, most of us have found ways to supplement what used to only be available inside a marriage. Sex can be obtained guilt-free with very little to no relationship commitment at all. More young professionals are able to meet their financial needs on their own. Children can be obtained in various extra-monogamous constellations.
To put it another way, the “to have and to hold” part of the traditional Christian wedding vows can now be comfortably outsourced.
We haven’t quite worked out how to replace the “in sickness” part of the vows, though. Or, in the superlative case, the “till death” clause.
We haven’t worked out how to get a support system that takes care of the grunt-work of human life—the act of making someone proverbial (or actual) chicken soup when they’re sick, or compensating financially when they lose their job. For single people, these tasks, which otherwise would have fallen to a spouse or family members, must now be taken up by other parties.
But by whom? The state? Friends? Colleagues? Tinder matches?
Perhaps that is what I find so jarring about the Japanese singles death industry: That strangers in masks might eventually have to handle my body, or even worse, call my mother to inform her of my passing, feels particularly repugnant.
As society’s views on singleness evolved over time, it certainly wasn’t anyone’s intention to saddle strangers with all of these costs and responsibilities. But it doesn’t seem like anyone has developed a good alternative.
Source: https://qz.com/1764682/more-people-around-the-world-are-dying-alone/?fbclid=IwAR14_16Jx6v-o4PhM3fvcJ5Lzp0Ms5OFPAUAtQUGTTkrSXm0BY3Ae_yttWk
WORD BANK:
proportion /prəˈpɔː.ʃən/ [C1] (n): tỷ lệ
diagnose /ˌdaɪ.əɡˈnəʊz/ (v): chẩn đoán
languishing /ˈlæŋ.ɡwɪʃ/ (v): uể oải
health insurance /ɪnˈʃʊə.rəns/ (n): bảo hiểm
chemotherapy /ˌkiː.məʊˈθer.ə.pi/ (n): hóa trị
frailty /ˈfreɪl.ti/ (n): sự mong manh
stave off /steɪv/ (phr.v): chống lại
grief /ɡriːf/ (n): nỗi đau, đau buồn
sorrow /ˈsɒr.əʊ/ [C2] (n): nỗi buồn
seized up /siːz/ (phr.v): tê liệt (thường do cảm xúc hoặc áp lực mạnh mẽ)
fixate on /fɪkˈseɪ.t/ (phr.v): ám ảnh, tập trung
logistics /ləˈdʒɪs.tɪks/ (n): công tác hậu cần
spouse /spaʊs/ [C2] (n): vợ, chồng
convalescence /ˌkɒn.vəˈles.əns/ (n): quá trình hồi phục
nonetheless /ˌnʌn.ðəˈles/ [C1] (adv): dù sao đi nữa
utterly /ˈʌt.əl.i/ [C1] (adv): hoàn toàn, cực kỳ
shoelace /ˈʃuː.leɪs/ (n): dây giày
debilitation /di,bili’teiʃn/ (n): tình trạng suy nhược, yếu đuối
morbid /ˈmɔː.bɪd/ (adj): u ám, ảm đạm, không lành mạnh
far-fetched /ˌfɑːˈfetʃt/ (adj): xa vời, khó tin
solitary /ˈsɑː.lə.ter.i/ [C2] (adj): đơn độc
deceased /dɪˈsiːst/ [C2] (adj): chết
bureaucracy /bjʊəˈrɒk.rə.si/ [C2] (n): thủ tục hành chính
clearance /ˈklɪə.rəns/ (n): cho phép
premise /ˈprem.ɪs/ (n): hiện trường, khu vực
mop up /mɒp/ (phr.v): lau chùi, dọn dẹp
scramble /ˈskræm.bəl/ (v): vội vàng
scenario /sɪˈnɑː.ri.əʊ/ (n): tình huống(có thể xảy ra trong tương lai)
unnerves /ʌnˈnɜːv/ (v): làm lo lắng, làm mất bình tĩnh
to be frank /fræŋk/ (adj): thành thật mà nói
perish /ˈper.ɪʃ/ (v): chết, qua đời
puzzle /ˈpʌz.əl/ [C1] (v): băn khoăn
whereabouts /ˈweə.rə.baʊts/ [C2] (n): nơi ở
flakey /ˈfleɪ.ki/ (adj): thiếu nghiêm túc, không đáng tin
vow /vaʊ/ (adj): thề
entropy /ˈen.trə.pi/ (n): tình trạng hỗn loạn
be littered with /ˈlɪt.ər/ (v): tràn ngập, rải rác
ashtray /ˈæʃ.treɪ/ (n): gạt tàn thuốc
refract /rɪˈfrækt/ (v): khúc xạ
flicker /ˈflɪk.ər/ (n): lấp lánh
proceeds /prəˈsiːd/ [C1] (v): tiếp tục
marijuana /ˌmær.əˈwɑː.nə/ (n): cần xa
hypothetical /ˌhaɪ.pəˈθet.ɪ.kəl/ (adj): giả định
sinews /ˈsɪn.juː/ (n): gân
laid to rest (idiom): chôn cất, an táng
don’t get me wrong (idiom): đừng hiểu nhầm ý tôi
relieved /rɪˈliːvd/ [B2] (adj): nhẹ nhõm
recede /rɪˈsiːd/ (v): thoát khỏi, rút lui
standup comedy (n): hài độc thoại
hubbub /ˈhʌb.ʌb/ (n): sự náo nhiệt
unprecedented /ʌnˈpres.ɪ.den.tɪd/ [C2] (adj): chưa từng có
mode of existence (n): lối sống
sow one’s wild oats (n): trải qua những giai đoạn phóng túng hoặc thử nghiệm trước khi ổn định.
in accordance with /əˈkɔː.dəns/ [C1] (n): theo
frustration /frʌsˈtreɪ.ʃən/ [B2] (n): sự thất vọng
circumstance /ˈsɜː.kəm.stɑːns/ [B2] (n): hoàn cảnh
bind /baɪnd/ [C2] (v): ràng buộc
guilt /ɡɪlt/ [B2] (adj): tội lỗi
obtain /əbˈteɪn/ [B2] (v): đạt được, có được
outsource /ˈaʊt.sɔːs/ (v): thuê ngoài
work out [C2] (v): tìm ra = figure out
superlative /suːˈpɜː.lə.tɪv/ (adj): nhất
grunt-work /ˈɡrʌnt ˌwɜːk/ (n): công việc nặng nhọc
compensating /ˈkɒm.pən.seɪt/ [C1] (v): bù đắp, hỗ trợ
jarring /ˈdʒɑː.rɪŋ/ (adj): khó chịu
repugnant /rɪˈpʌɡ.nənt/ (adj): ghê tởm
evolved /ɪˈvɒlvd/ [C1] (adj): dần thay đổi, dần phát triển
saddle /ˈsæd.əl/ (v): đặt trách nhiệm, đẩy trách nhiệm
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