[acb-hsp] Why I Love Being Alone

[Baracco, Andrew W]

I can identify with the sentiment expressed.  I can handle groups of
people for short periods, but I need to have a place to retreat to.  My
wife is similar.  We do things together, but we need our space.  When
she first moved into my 1 bedroom apartment, we fought often.  Now, we
live in a large town home, and there is plenty of room for each of us to
have our alone time. 

Andy


-----Original Message-----
From: acb-hsp-bounces at acb.org [mailto:acb-hsp-bounces at acb.org] On Behalf
Of peter altschul
Sent: Friday, September 07, 2012 8:41 AM
To: Acbhsp
Subject: [acb-hsp] Why I Love Being Alone

Why I Love Being Alone
  September 3, 2012
  Until I left for college when I was 17, I had this weird tendency to
look out the window of my bedroom at the parking lot of the movie store
across the street from our house, to see if the store was closed yet.
Of course, it closed at the same time every night.  I liked seeing the
lights on, the people walking in from their cars, imagining them walking
around inside, smelling the greasy popcorn popped in a machine in the
store, picking a movie, maybe quickly, maybe after a long debate.  I
loved the idea of people moving around in the world outside, especially
when things inside felt desperate and awful.  As long as there was
movement, I was not alone.
  So far in life, I've had a strange relationship with aloneness.  
Even as a kid, I was more likely to choose being by myself over spending
time with other people.  (The exception was high school, when I
completely believed that not having plans on Friday and/or Saturday made
you an aberration.) Now, in my 30's, aloneness is something I crave like
food.  I need to be alone a lot, in ways that are complicated and
bewildering, I think, to some of the people around me.
  I am good at being alone, it's one of the things I like most about
myself.  I'm proud of it.  Knowing that aloneness is something I'm not
only comfortable with, but crave, has meant that I seem to need less of
it.  As long as I can close a door, or walk away, or sit by myself, I'm
fine.  Being alone makes me feel powerful and peaceful.  It makes me
feel like my brain is a gold mine, and I'm so lucky to have this
imagination.  Being alone has always felt deeply indulgent to me, like a
day off or being able to buy whatever you want.  I can subsume the need,
of course, if I have to, and there's a part of me that thrives on crowds
and bustle and ambient noise.  Too much, though, and I get cranky and
sad and thoroughly unpleasant.
  I am a person who needs a lot of space, not the physical sort, but the
distance from others kind.  I'm pretty sure I can't go on vacation with
someone because I'd be grouchy if I couldn't spend at least 60% of the
time alone, wandering the streets or reading.  
This is something I'm pretty sure (very sure, actually) that a few
people in my life find this disarming-because eventually you're supposed
to stop being by yourself and find someone to be with instead.  You stop
being a solitary creature with your own space and start building a space
with someone else.  And then you add more people to that space.  You
should do this for a lot of reasons, but al...y don't REALLY want to be
alone, right?
  We have bought this, I think, the idea that being alone is something
we should avoid at all costs.  Women who are alone, who live alone after
a certain age, who aren't partnered, are pathetic and deeply suspicious.
Men who are alone are either oversexed, perpetual teenagers, sad,
asexual creatures, or creepy perverts.  Being by yourself is not a
choice anyone in their right mind is supposed to opt for.
  Charles Bukowski wrote, "Loneliness is something I've never been
bothered with because I've always had this terrible itch for solitude."
It's important to know the difference between being alone and being
lonely, and they're often confused.  For me, being alone is something I
choose, loneliness is the result of being alone, or feeling alone when I
haven't chosen it, but they aren't the same, and they don't necessarily
lead to one another.
  It's assumed that if you are alone, you must be lonely, or there must
be something wrong, especially in a culture in which we emphasize the
heterosexual couple as the symbol of the ultimate satisfaction.
Spending time alone is another method of developing a relationship with
myself, of actively engaging with what I want and what the possibilities
could be.  It's a loss, I think, that being alone has become something
else that we police socially, because the result is that we miss out on
an important part of what it means to live in our bodies.
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