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For Christmas last year, Santa Claus gave me a single napkin ring.

Okay, so it was my mother who tucked it into my stocking. And no, my mother, who lives in England with my father, doesn't make a habit of playing Santa every year.

But we were together for a family reunion, and as I am spouseless, she added to the stocking stuffers my children buy for me.

That little sparkly napkin ring was a reminder, as mothers are accustomed to give, about what it means to live alone - it is an art, and it takes practice and discipline.

Before I go further, let me outline the categories of being alone.

You can be single-single. You live alone - divorced, widowed or never married - and are not romantically involved with anyone.

You can be single-double. You live alone but have a live-out squeeze.

You can be double-single. You are married, but your spouse is frequently away.

"I avoid cooking from scratch," a friend of mine reports about her life. She has relocated to Toronto for a job, but her long-time husband can't join her for several months.

"I buy frozen vegetables."

The double-single category also includes people who are alone in their marriage, despite the constant presence of their spouse. (That's an issue worth a column of its own.)

The truth is, each state of living alone has its joys and challenges, none of which changes the fact that you often open the door to a dark, empty place with no one to cook dinner for but yourself.

And that brings me, speaking of single-double Tim Hortons-ish language, to Lisa Summers, author of the semi-autobiographical novel Men are like Mocha Lattes.

Ms. Summers was single-single for a long time, desperate to marry.

"I tell people to embrace that [single] stage in life," she explains now.

Her lesson, she says, was that it wasn't until she made the most of being single that she attracted the man of her dreams.

"The biggest mistake is trying to find someone who is an antidote to that [single] life instead of making changes to your life on your own," she says.

That she uses her celebration of single life as advice on how to catch a man only underscores the stigma our culture imposes on being alone. It is a state to cherish only when in transition to the double life, it seems.

Which is also why there are people who enthuse about their live-alone lives in a way that comes off as falsely positive.

It feels like overcompensation, which only accentuates, rather than diminishes, the anguish of aloneness.

Consider a woman named Marja Adriance quoted in Arianna Huffington's book On Becoming Fearless in Love, Work and Life.

Ms. Adriance thinks it's swell being single-single because, among other pleasures, "I can go all day long without getting dressed or brushing my teeth and no one cares."

I don't want to be a killjoy, but honestly, does that reinforce the love of living on your own? If anything, slouching toward the Frigidaire in your PJs with cotton-woolly teeth should be enough to scare someone into staying married.

Which brings me back to Santa's napkin ring. Does living alone mean you start down the slippery slope of reduced standards? Among other benefits of marriage is that someone else is a buffer between you and yourself, helping you not to fall into bad habits such as drinking too much wine, leaving your clothes on the floor and, worst of all, eating your dinner out of a container as you stand beside the sink.

"A good meal is like a present," writes Jenni Ferrari-Adler in the introduction to Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant, a collection of essays on single cuisine.

That may be so, but preparing food for one is the greatest challenge of living solo. The act of cooking is an act of generosity, done for others. It's an expression of love, so it can feel weird doing it for yourself, a bit like culinary masturbation.

"It took me several years of such periods of being alone to learn how to care for myself, at least at the table," admits legendary food writer M. F. K. Fisher in one of the book's essays.

Which reminds me of one more distinction in the single-single category. Being divorced or widowed in middle age is a shade different than being a young single who longs to be married.

You are aware that you may be on your own for a long time, not only because you have learned to enjoy it, but also because you have no delusions about the challenge that marriage presents, and you are not keen to wade back into the fray.

"It's not about standards," one divorced fiftysomething friend of mine, who is single-single, explains. "It's about honouring yourself," she says of her habit of cooking herself wonderful, fresh meals. She also buys herself beautiful flowers every week.

Living well alone is an interesting encounter with oneself. You can hear yourself think. You can watch yourself act. As a result, you learn to really like yourself.

"You have to be comfortable in your own skin," a 55-year-old divorced man from Calgary explained recently. He has lived alone since his divorce 15 years ago.

As my weekly flower friend says, "People who are afraid of living alone have not faced a lot of things about themselves."

I can't say that I am always making myself gourmet fare when I eat alone. I'm more like the single-double (and divorced) man I know in Toronto, who confesses that he envisioned he would "come home from work, check the mail, hang up my manly winter coat, fix a drink made with premium spirits, and cook a nice meal with a real sauce for myself." He sometimes did, but often he'd grab a bite and watch television.

Still, on the nights that I eat quick, simple fare by myself, I enjoy the snug solitude. It's me, my soft-boiled egg, a glass of red wine and my sparkly napkin ring against the world.