By which 'single' is referring to the fact that they're the only Sim in the household rather than their relationship status. Do you treat them the same as your regular married-couple-2.3-kids households?

For me, I have a tendency to put them into apartments. If there's enough room and they roll the want I sometimes give them a roommate. One of my original Sims was a multi-millionaire business tycoon who ran half the businesses in town and a string of lovers (gay lovers, at that - he was gay himself) and yet he still lived in a small apartment he first moved into - lavishly furnished, of course.

My self-Sim lived in the same building, but eventually moved out to an actual house because she ended up with six large dogs and the landlord wasn't exactly happy with that. She used the second bedroom in the house she got for a hobby room.

Anyways, what are your story?

I've always treated them like all my other families pretty much. I've had issues in the past with apartments (mostly EA ones, I could build my own and they'd work better or at all, EA ones caused errors...o.O) and haven't got apartments yet in this Strangetown but plan too soon for my Uni students that aren't able to afford a starter home. I plan on backing up first though (just in case) and building my own (as i've had more luck with those) and if for some reason it doesn't work I can just fit say 2 couples or a few friends in one starter home, pool their money and that'd work, so it's not like they'll be homeless if it doesn't work for some reason.

Anyway I got off-topic. That's generally the only reason I use apartments, is the Sim can't afford a house yet (not necessarily because they are fresh from Uni). If the apartments work this time around maybe i'll change that...

I only very rarely play with just one sim in the household, and if I do, they don't stay single for long. Most of my sim families tend to have at least a couple of adult sims, and since I love playing with kids (babies and toddlers, really), the couple rarely go for long without getting any. I tried to do that whole 'start with one sim (and a cat) and play without cheating' legacy thing, but I got bored pretty fast, and went back to regular family/photoshoot playing.

I don't treat my single sims any different from others.

When they cannot afford any of the common starter homes, there's is always the lovely and cheap home found at what in the English version of the game is called 10 Oak Street in Pleasantview. I love that place, so I've copied a slightly edited version of it to the lot bin, so I can reuse it whenever and wherever I want.

I treat them as normal families. I give them lots of space and, since they live alone, they have more freedom. Sometimes they stay single forever, sometimes they get abducted and become an intergalactic parent, sometimes they get families. I'd treat the Lothario family no different than the Ottomas family. They buy what they can afford and live how they want.

Unless they have something special to do I find single sims very boring and find them a partner as soon as possible.

Combine them as fast as possible! If they don't have anybody to marry, find a reason for them to have a playable roommate or to move in with family or friends.

If a sim is single, and clearly prefers to remain so, it's on me to find interesting things for him or her to do. Running a business, adopting a pet, dating around, interfering in the lives of their friends, hustling for a living, throwing lots of parties, going on lots of outings - anything like that.

Depends on personality and family status. Some will go back home, strike out on their own, or sensibly partner up with a compatible roommate.

However if they're completely new to the canvas I've taken to the practice of having a small 1x1 lot on the edge of the map with a placeholder sim in it throwing them in there and playing them as "renting" a room out of the B&B until they find their place in the story. Most likely though they end up in some crappy apartment in downtown as most of my main map is for large sets of community lots and core family homes that feature prominently in scenes.

very few of my 1-sim households stay alone for long; they tend to also be single. I generally pair them with another single character shortly after they become Adult.

It depends on the Sim, and on the neighbourhood story. Most of my Sims do marry fairly quickly, but in the meantime they'll generally live in a one-bedroom house or apartment (except for one version of David Ottomas, who moved straight from college into a three-bedroomed apartment because his parents had lost custody of Tommy and twins, and he wound up adopting all three of them).

I also had a game in which I set up community living for Knowledge Sims who wanted to max out their skills: there was one house for males and one for females, and I treated them pretty much as monasteries. In one of my farming settlements, there was a staffed YMCA downtown where impoverished farmboys looking to make it big in the city could rent a cheap bed until they could afford an apartment and take a wife.

In my current Strangetown, since I haven't installed AL on the new computer yet, the two older Grunt boys wound up sharing a two-bedroom house with Lazlo Curious; Tank and Lazlo later married (not to each other) and moved out, so Ripp has it to himself for now but doesn't own it -- if he moves out, he only gets to keep his family funds, not the value of the house. Chloe Singles kept the bungalow the four girls bought together, and takes in female lodgers as long as they don't interfere with her lovers.

My single Sims tend to be the ones who roll the 50 First Dates. So lots and lots of dating. Like Peni mentioned, they also usually own a business (either at home or a community lot), throw parties every other day and most usually live in apartments so they can mix it up with their neighbors and not be too lonely.

I do have one single elderly Sim who is Crumplebottom-y in the way that she HAS to maintain a bad reputation (what?! it's fun!), so she gets to go out and terrorize the neighborhood on a daily basis, make prank phone calls and wake people up in the middle of the night. Needless to say, she NEVER has a newspaper, haha! (I did install a mod to quit the can kicking though, as that was annoying. The paper stealing is just funny to me.)

I play them! In my game being single and living alone doesn't mean being bored. I think all my Sims have rather full social lives. My single Sim, who was planning on a quiet night in, finds at 5 to midnight that there are 7 guests in the house and wonders how on Sim-earth he can politely get rid of them all and get to bed. He has work the next morning! Did he really invite them all in?

My single Sim may be in a relationship. He/she may be looking for a relationship. He/she may have a job or he/she may run a business. He/she may even be a teenager and still go to school. Or a teenager who has dropped out of school. He/she may invite another Sim in to share the home, or may prefer to stay living alone. He/she may even get married one day! Whatever my Sims choose they are unlikely to stay bored or lonely for long -- there's too much happening. Life is for living and I encourage all my Sims, married or single, young or old, to live full and interesting lives.

He/she won't live in a rented flat because I don't have Apartment Life, but anyway I don't like the idea of paying rent to a landlord all your life for a place that's never your own. As with married Sims, the houses my single Sims live in are determined by what they can afford and what they like. Sometimes comparatively well-off Sims stay in a cheaper house because they feel comfortable there: it's home! "Rich Uncle" Milburn Pennybags lives in a §360,000 mansion in the middle of Monopolis. Gloria's boyfriend Councillor Garry Mackay lives in a §9,000 ranch house in Westside (Italian) Veronaville. Both are single.

Sleepovers are frequent and guests are often invited to stay the night. Even when there's just one double bed in the house! Single Romance Sims usually have someone in bed with them at night. The normal state of my Sims' social bars is full -- even Sims who theoretically live alone!

I have all kinds of households in my game and the married couples with 2.3 children are in minority.

I don't think I have anyone living alone right now. Honestly, I don't really like it. Especially if there are many household with just one single sim. I put my students in dorms and greek houses together, my recent university graduate Whitney King I moved into the new hostel I just created and Dustin Broke has his roommate Ashley Pitts who is his best friend. Some sims I can play as a single household like Darren Dreamer. He rolled wants I actually liked, like doing pottery so I liked playing him but since then his son Dirk has moved back in and opened up a business, a dog was adopted and Dirk's daughter Sascha was taken in so he's not a single household anymore either. Maybe when some people graduate, but probably not.

Oh I have a lot like that though it's a main family lot for the Porters. It's meant to be a borders' lot. They rent rooms, mostly to students coming out of college while they sort their careers out and love lives but Bernie Johnson has lived there for ages. He was a necessary sim for a story (to do with the prison, he's one of the warders). He's one of my least-interesting (to me) sims and I never developed a life story properly for him like I did with the others. So he moved into one of the Porters' rooms and lives with them. It means he gets played when I play their home and can have some personality development but I can continue to have the same lack of commitment to his story. He's friends with Danny Morgan, the night porter at the prison and has turned into a bit of a creep actually. He started by flirting with Sandra Handy (lesbian) and didn't get anywhere there and then started trying to hit on the young women who passed through the Porters' home on their way to developing their own lives. He thought he had made a real connection with Betty Cook who had arrived in Sirencester to make a life for herself and even beat up Bob Newbury (the LC version of Bob Newby) over her but Betty got scared and ran for it and moved in with Bob. Bernie hates Bob and his dog (Trudie will growl at him).

It kind of depends on how I see them. Most the time they somehow end up with a roommate, partner, child, or pet eventually, but I don't mind them being a single household even if they bore me a little more than others. Businesses, hobbies, making friends, going out to community lots, parties, and having romances always help make it a little more interesting, and I tend to do that with all my other households too. :D

I treat them the same as the my regular families.
They live alone when they can afford it. The one I have ATM is Terry Granville-Carver. He was fortunate enough to afford one of Jo's council house. I was expecting him to marry her girlfriend met during uni. I feel he's hesitant now.

Nowadays sims fresh out of uni start with very little money. When they can't or don't want to move back to the family house, they take a room at Isabella's house (kind of B&B). They have to get a job, put the earned money in common and keep their bonus for themselves. When they left, they get money according to the money order mod rules. Since kids aren't allowed there, pregnant sims must leave.

I used to pair them up quickly because I had geneticized all of my skins and eyes and wanted to see what skins came out on an infant. It still fascinates me, but it can frustrate me as well. But I digress.

Now that the novelty has worn off quite a bit, I am letting certain single Sims take their sweet time pairing up with anyone ... if they ever do. They can live in a shack, an apartment, or a mansion because I sometimes mess with the funds. While I don't mind many Sims getting the 20,000 Simoleons, sometimes, I like to change the script a little. The single Sim could be a wealthy celebrity looking for a quiet place to settle or a Sim with almost nothing hoping for a new opportunity.

I don't have many single Sims because I invariably get the urge to pair them off. But I find fighting the urge can be interesting. My Sim could be an exotic femme or homme fatale, a Person with a Past, a (using anime references) Motoko Kusanagi personality or an L (or Light) personality, if I choose. Personalities only with my anime examples, of course ... for instance, I can't make Sims leap between buildings yet (Motoko). Being able to make androids can make things even more interesting. There are some fun things you can do with single Sims.

I have a handful of single sim households: 11 off the top of my head.

Here are some things I do with them when I play them:
1. Have them start a business. Since they have no immediate burden of family they can focus on productivity and badge-building. This can really get a lot of playtime in for a sim, especially if it's a home business. Before Hayley Piper moved in with Simon Stone, she opened a flower boutique and before I knew it her adult life was half over while her fellow sims were still fresh out of college-aged. (I am bad at playing rotations)
2. Throw lots of parties - Lyndsey Piper is the only current sim living in Kashmire Pointe (shopping district) and she lives with her dog but she is fun to play. I have her lovers rotating out almost every night and a party on all her days off. She is a very social, romantic sim but the single life suits her.
3. Put them in apartments and have them visit a lot of community lots. I have a community lot garden that my apartment sims visit when they want som fresh food (they are not allowed to call grocery delivery), they also go out and get drinks with their work buddies, go to the park to play chess, library to read etc since they have limited apartment space and cannot fit all their skill-building items in there. This is also a good way to meet pleasure sims needs. EDIT: Just realized I forgot this is a mod that allows community lot skilling. Vanilla game doesn't do this but here is the mod by Pescado
4. Get them a pet. Pets can bring your sim companionship and joy if they aren't looking to shack up with another sim anytime soon.
5. Focus on hobbies - try to reach the max of their OTH or have them try everything! If you get them high enough they can instruct others and it's kind of nice having a sim in the hood that can spread that kind of enthusasim.


I have a sim named Alberto who has a daily routine of fishing in his back yard, and taking his dog to the dog park where he meets new people every day and plays chess. It's just kind of relaxing and low maintenance to play him. I check his wants, and send him on his way.

I usually stick my single sims in apartments, so they have other sims to interact with on a daily basis. Sometimes they become friends, sometimes lovers, and sometimes enemies. If the sim is Popularity, I leave their front door unlocked and allow neighbors and lot visitors to wander in/out as they please. Despite my liking of apartments, I very rarely use the roommate option. In fact, I think I've only used it once, because I wanted to move in a sim's lover without having to take care of their needs. Mostly, this is because I want to save larger apartments for those families who need the space.

A few times I've put them into their own places, but there usually needs to be a reason for it. Anna Ottomas, for example, tended not to get on well with others. Some of it was her own fault, while some of it was other people doing things that hurt her. After she caught her lover cheating on her with a neighbor and being on the outs with her family, I felt it fit her story for her to basically rage-quit being around other people. She moved to a small, quiet house in Veronaville. I didn't know what to do with her, so on a lark I dumped Sara and Danny Crittur in the household. She actually not only did very well with them, she seemed to be much happier with their company. Eventually, she even made up with her family, mellowing out from her previous grouchy attitude.

I have a bunch of single sims who live on their own, with their parents (who try to pair them off, lol) or in a commune.

They usually have a good job or a nice hobby to make money off (one of my Romance sims is going to make some woohoobots )
Or they date every other single playable and townie. Getting abducted. Adoptions. Lots of whoopsie nooboos. They are treated like everybody else.

Thinking about it and looking at what others are saying, I don't have a lot of single sim households, but I do get a few now and then. Right now Cyd Roseland but he has his dogs, and I plan to pair him with Kristen Loste. I have Olive Specter, now she I plan on keeping by herself, except for the fact she is going to make a servo. Or she might make a zombie servant to help her make money, so actually she might not even stay by herself, whether she does or not she is a vampire and will terrorize the townsfolk. I have Ajay Loner, but I'm going to pair him with Lola Curious eventually...speaking of Lola Curious currently with the other 3 "singles" girls, as I mentioned Kristen is going to get with Cyd I think but Erin I plan on getting with Lazlo Curious but not until after a marriage and divorce with Crystal Vu (sometimes I do plan things ahead) so she might end up on her own for awhile. When Crystal Vu and Lazlo get a divorce Crystal will be on her own, don't know what i'm going to do with her yet. I don't like her for some reason and plan to keep her single after Lazlo divorces her. Chloe Curious will definitely be on her own, but that's the way she likes it. She'll be woohooing whoever she can and having fun and partying. I do plan on some "oopsy" nooboos for her though. She'll stay a single mom but I think she'll be a good and fun single mother just because she's a romance Sim doesn't mean she can't make a great parent! ^_^

So normally I pair Sims up eventually but not always and generally they are treated just like other families. Jobs, hobbies, social life. They always have their place.

I don't often have single sims and they usually live in apartments, either getting friendly with neighbours or getting a room-mate. Usually those room-mates turn into partners, they marry and go off and buy a house. When elders lose a partner I ship them off to the retirement home, unless they're placeholders for the returning heir. I have a few single sims in the bin who I use as placeholders.
I do currently have one single sim who separated from his wife and has his own bachelor pad for parties. I quite enjoy playing him.

I built a small enough house that is actually large enough for a single Sim to start off with and a driveway. That does leave the Sim with around 8k simoleons remaining, which indeed doesn't mean much to put in the house but I like the motivation to earn the money to replace these lackluster furniture and objects with something better.

I've always placed my Sim in a home all by herself; however, over time I will get her to either adopt a few strays, buy a kitten or a puppy over the phone or buy a pet at the pet store. What's happened so far in my new custom neighborhood is she's adopted a large dog and a cat, and I'm thinking of getting one more if I find another beautiful stray that needs a new family. For a few other of my custom Sims, they too are single-living folks with at least one pet.

So that's how I adapt to this isolation of having only one Sim to raise. I just fill up the house with animals instead of people. :D

I'm a bit surprised that some of you find them boring. If anything, with no childcare responsibilities, I find them some of the most fun Sims to play. So I thought I'd have a quick tour round Veronaville and its outlying districts and see what all my single-living Sims were up to at the moment. In theory I play one-day rotations ending at 6 a.m. so they all ought to be in bed and about to get up, but in practice my rotations and play sessions are very loose, and I often save and quit at other times of the day. I was surprised to find that I have no fewer than 8 single-Sim households in the 'hood, out of a total of 30 playable households, a higher proportion than I expected. Obviously I don't find Sims living alone a problem to play. Anyway this is what they were all doing:

Rev. Elspeth Anderson - Veronaville's parish priest
Mon. 10 a.m. At home alone doing household chores. As the Rector St. Simeon's Parish Church in Veronaville, Elspeth has to think about her position, but she maybe forgets that sometimes when she visits the Gaia LGB club in downtown!

Garry McKay - Gloria's boyfriend and a city councillor
Sun. 2:30 p.m. At home in the hot tub with Julian Moltke, Ross Moore and Regan Capp. Kendra McCarthy is also on the lot but only as a walkby. Gloria isn't there just now, but she'll probably arrive by evening and be asked to stay the night.

BJ Shaikh - The Tricou Goth, still a teen
Sun. 7:15 a.m. Having breakfast with his Tricou brothers Ravi Bertino and Weldon Roennigke. Paper boy Surdar Curtin is also on the lot delivering his paper. They had a Tricou reunion dinner there last night, and Ravi and Weldon stayed the night when the others when the others went home.

Joseph Lambert - Another teen, lives in a cottage on the outskirts of downtown Veronaville
Mon. 6 a.m. At home in bed with Ravi Bertino. Ravi does get around!

Bianca Monty - Also lives in downtown Veronaville
Sat. 8:30 a.m. At home alone - just getting up. She's in a torrid lesbian affair with Carla Cameron and they've just got engaged. She's spent a night in Carla's bed, but hasn't had Carla sleeping over in her bed yet.

Florence Delarosa
Thu. 6 a.m. At home in bed alone

Malcolm Landgraab IV
Mon. 3:30 p.m. At home eating lunch meat sandwiches with Gilbert Jacquet, Florence Delarosa and Bianca Monty. All in swimwear. They are his welcoming party

Milburn Pennybags - An Elder, a billionaire and the financial wizard behind Monopolis (not literally a wizard!)
Wed. 6:45 a.m. At home in bed alone. He lives in a §360K mansion with only one bedroom with a single bed in it!

The Bluewater pre-mades aren't fully integrated into the Veronaville way of doing things yet (and maybe never will be!); Florence and Malcolm are still in their first week. And Milburn only moved in to his sumptuous Green House last month. He is in his first Sim week too. I suspect their lives will grow more exciting as they get to know more Veronaville Sims. Anyway I don't find my single Sims boring and I don't think any of them are bored with their lives either. If they are bored, I suggest they take a taxi downtown and sample some of the nightlife there. It can get pretty wild!

Slightly off-topic: I don't know what it says about us Veronavillians, but of all the Sims I mentioned, only the two walkby's, Kendra and Sirdar were fully dressed! Kendra is BJ's girlfriend, so maybe she was on her way there. I don't think they've shared a bed yet, but there's always a first time. And, to be fair to them, Florence and Milburn were probably wearing full length Maxis pyjamas under the bedclothes. Most Veronavillians think that life is much better now that the place is no longer a byword for feuding criminals, but long time downtown resident Mrs. C. is appalled at the way things are going; she thinks that morals were better when the Capps and Montys were killing each other.

For me having babies, toddlers and kids is my favourite part of the game. I am a huge family player.