There is a huge difference between being alone and being lonely. I almost never feel lonely; I like my own company, I love to read, watch movies, fart around on the interwebs, color, etc. Of course I have my Little Bear always with me for company, but truth be told, I really enjoyed those two weeks on Cape Cod with just me, all by myself, and no dogs to tend to. I am a loner.
This is one of my favorite books:
I was 'lonely' in Montana to some degree, because I was so far away from my family and an abundance of like-minded people. I am back in Maine now and although I live in a boarding house with 4 other women, I spend the vast majority of my time in my room alone. It's just how I like things. I was like this as a child, too, although to a somewhat lesser degree. My life experience with people has made me like dogs better and solitude best.
Please don't get me wrong - I like a lot of people and have some faith in humankind, but both of those feelings are easier to sustain at a distance from actual people.
I hated practicing law solo in a home-based office, I do enjoy going to an office and interacting with other people - but at the same time I find those interactions take a lot of energy because I'm introverted by nature, so I am very happy to get home by myself and recharge at the end of the day.
Now you might think I'm totally dysfunctional but I don't agree - singles are very abundant in our culture and I think that's because many people who might have coupled out of societal expectation in the past are choosing to stay solo in a time when that choice is no longer considered to be odd. I love the situation I'm in now, cohabiting with several other people so I'm not totally alone and can have company when I want - and if I'd been able to find reliable housemates in the shitty cowboy town I lived in in Montana, I would have run my home as a boarding home too. Or, I was going to host international students - but that's a much bigger obligation. Anyway I think it's possible to find the connections and support one needs without being paired up romantically; maybe it's easier as a woman alone, but I find that there is no shortage of nice men - cousins, friends, neighbors - willing to help a single gal with the occasional heavy lifting or mechanical chore in return for the good feeling of being a helpy helperton, and perhaps some fresh baked cookies.
Now that I am peri-menopausal and my libido has tanked, I am not so concerned with finding a romantic partner any time soon. It might be nice to find someone to go along with me to movies or dinner or hikes, but those are things I enjoy very much on my own so I don't keep from doing them just because I'm solo. It's always made me sad to think of the single folks who do feel awkward or unhappy about doing things alone and being by themselves - that is a sure indicator of some lack of comfort with one's own company, OR, too great a buy-in to the societal messages that singlehood is weird or wrong.
For what it's worth, I've known many married people in my lifetime who were far lonelier than I have ever felt. The loneliness one can experience in a bad relationship - and there are many, many of those - is far greater than any loneliness one feels when free to do, think, be whatever one wants to be.
For the record I've had some very nice men in my life at times in the past, even lived with few of them, and the relationships were for the most part very good ones. In retrospect I realize that I broke up with them entirely because of my own issues - insecurities and fears that stem from my 'alcoholic family of origin dynamics' and a terrible fear that I would ever find myself in a relationship that in any way resembled my parents' marriage. At the time I'm sure that I found this or that to pin it on and usually it was something about the man that just wasn't right - but I think what was common to each of those relationships was a critical point at which long-term commitment was looming - a ring on the horizon - and I was, quite simply, not up to that challenge at that time with that person.
I occasionally find myself wallowing in sadness over the one true love of my life - who just happens to be the one man who ever broke up with me, which I realize as a wiser adult may be entirely the attraction - and what my life would have held if we'd married, had children, etc. That was 25 years ago and I would quite likely be a grandma now like many of my peers. There are many things, many life experiences that I would have had on that path that I will never have now - but on the path I took there have been many life experiences, many things, many, many people I would never have had the occasion to know if I'd spent the past 25 years in the same small Maine town. I don't think I'd be the person I am today, and I like that person a fair bit. I think I'd have been a good wife and mom, but I'd also likely have had a much narrower perspective on life and that would have been a real loss.
The thing that I think about a lot now is that I have nobody to leave the special things inherited from my grandmothers and mother to, but I also realize that a few generations hence and I would be not even a distant memory to relatives - so I am just grappling sooner with the inherent truth that we all go away, and nothing we did lives on unless we are a person who invents something or leaves a bunch of money in a foundation or writes a profound book or symphony, and those persons are rare. Most of us are just regular Joes who come and go without leaving a mark on this world of any lasting import. But nevertheless our time here is profoundly meaningful, each and every one of us.
But we are all essentially alone, no matter how many people we surround ourselves with. This is a truth that I understand profoundly now, and it helps me to find strength in the times when I do feel loneliness - usually those times are when life's slings & arrows are getting me really down and bearing them alone seems unbearable. But that's also when I reach out to friends and family - my closest friends are more like family to me than my bio family and they are a treasure indeed. Aristotle said that friendship is the one virtue without which man cannot live.
BB, I don't know how far away you live, but if you are ever in need of a helping hand, I'm a very good helpy helperton - and my car runs great now! Don't hesitate to ask for help when you need it, from your friends online or the neighbors around you who are waiting to become friends.
The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, peculiar to myself and to a few other solitary men, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence. ~ Thomas Wolfe
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan
