living dangerously vs. not

This is my Big Theory of Life for this week: when you have love in your life, a stable relationship, the peace of someone waiting at home for you, life becomes much more pragmatic. You focus on doing things correctly, accomplishing your errands, maximizing convenience for yourself, because all that matters at the end of the day is getting back home alive and going to sleep next to your companion. When you don't have that, you can live life a little more dangerously, and even if you don't, you are always aware of the possibility that you could be. The "emotional content" (to use Bruce Lee's phrase) of the things you do is a little more important. Mostly, you interact with other people with a little more eagerness, a desire to impress perhaps, the attempt at least to make every interaction a significant one. Whereas, if you're coupled up, other people are exactly that: other. You still interact with them of course, but your heart does not hang on every word they say. If they piss you off, you can probably get over it. If you piss them off, you might not even notice.
....When I'm by myself, the desire for experience is keener. I want to stay out late, take long winding routes to get places, plan elaborate ways of doing something simple. And lately, I hate sleeping.
....Of course, this theory varies a lot depending on how stable your relationship is, or how boring you personally are. A tumultous romantic relationship causes a lot of non-pragmatic things to happen. A single person does not necessarily take any risks with their daily routine.
...I'm sure these brilliant insights were made possible by the fact that I put my underwear on backwards today.