Does relating to others ever get any easier?

I wonder if the ironic twist in life is that by the time we actually develop enough patience to deal with another person, we're locked up in some nursing home drooling in our oatmeal.

Question...Is living alone easier, or just less irritating?

I enjoyed my alone years, and then the years I was single and a mom of a toddler. It was a little lonely at times and I wanted companionship, but I had the trade off of freedom and a simple life. My friends and I got together and did movies, dinners etc... The only thing I was missing was sex, really. I wanted a partner, but I wonder sometimes if I was very smart about that. I think, had I known what a person has to get used to in partnership, I would have settled for a boyfriend and not a live in relationship.

I wonder sometimes if my husband and I would have been able to maintain a relationship that didn't require us to live in the same house together? I wonder why that's such a hard fast rule? It seems a foolish plan that leads to the demise of fondness for one another...living in the same house, listening to the other person's noises, always seeing their mess, or some evidence of their constant existence...and I don't mean that cute picture of us on vacation together. I'm talking about the stuff that every woman complains about.

I mean really...we're all pretty weird in our own ways, right?

Here's my take...I've thought this for years...

Women create a commune with art, music, childcare, and community. We feed the men by having the eldest children deliver their meals, we have those same children bring the laundry back for cleaning, and we enjoy our surroundings that we've created sans the loud obnoxious farting and burping, free from the know it all chest beating...the men we've chosen to mate with can visit when we need sex and yardwork.