I like being left alone.

btw: that's from the French comic Lucky Luke from Morris&Goscinny. Just as popular as Asterix when I was a child but less well known in the US I believe.

The thread in this FPP points out that it depends on if it's voluntary.

An epic meditation on this subject.

As Franklin famously said, "In all things, moderation." It's good to have folks who keep you on an even keel; too often lone kooks spin off without some restoring force to snap them back into reality, getting twisted up in their own faulty logic.

Sting said, "Men go crazy in congregations, but they only get better one by one." I've always thought that that's fairly backwards, for the reasons described above. But there's a certain groupthink (or non-think) that happens in large groups (see: Tea Party). Maybe the line should have been: "They only get better two by two." Small groups, plenty of overlap and redundancy? I've noticed that I get not the same but a similar kind of refresh from hanging out with friends outside my normal circle as I do from alone time.

Eh, it's all academic and a bit silly. In cases like this, I always return to the immortal words of Rush:

You get all squeezed up inside
Like the days were carved in stone
You get all wired up inside
And it's bad to be alone

You can go out, you can take a ride
And when you get out on your own
You get all smoothed out inside
And it's good to be alone

Sometimes it's good to be on your own; others, not so much. Thanks for the article, though. It's good to see people looking into just what we get out of the much maligned alone time. =)

Just How Lonely

;)

Yeah, it definitely depends on the person. My homie, for instance, CANNOT STAND BEING ALONE. At all. For even like 5 minutes. When she had a kid, her first thought was "I'll never be alone again".

Me, on the other hand, hates people. I looooooooooooooove being alone and get quite irritated when my alone time is encroached upon.

It makes visits quite interesting.

“People tend to engage quite automatically with thinking about the minds of other people,” Burum said in an interview. “We’re multitasking when we’re with other people in a way that we’re not when we just have an experience by ourselves.”

It's so nice to see something I've struggled to express described so clearly and explicitly, using SCIENCE. I am either a very sociable intravert or an extravert who likes a regular retreat time, and this is the reason I need that alone time. Not that I don't like people - that I like them so much, am so fascinated by them and the dynamics around them, am in fact so overalert to and oversensitive to those dynamics, that I really really to rest from that every so often - the way the article talks about teenagers needing to find a place free from self-consciousness and "the gaze of others."

Time alone is also just so rejuvenating, because it's the only kind of time in which I can deeply indulge my creativity or current obsession. I can't really take other people with me in my puttering monologue about art making, writing, or researching some esoteric topic. Time alone is not really time spent 'alone' for me, it's time spent with ideas, which I really relish and get a lot out of. When people are around, I feel obliged to give them attention and respond to them, which makes it hard (and impolite) to stay in idea-land.

Is it worth trotting out the old Caring For Your Introvert thing again?

I like having time by myself. Being lonely, tho', sucks.

Obscure Reference: I read that thread last night. It's horrific what we do to each other.

I don't think I have the capacity for loneliness. I cannot remember a time when I did not crave solitude. Well, I need a cat around. But people? Nah.

But deprived of books and/or cats?

Insane within the week.

There was a comic book that came out a couple of years ago, hmm, lemme see if it's online... nope. But here's a representative panel. A guy and his wife wake up and discover that they are seemingly the sole survivors of a nuclear holocaust. After a few moments of freaking out, it dawns on them that they are probably the only people left alive on the planet. And both of them are like FUCK YEAH, FINALLY. I can relate to that.

According to that illustration, jerking off is what we do best alone.

I have the Typical introvert reaction, which is I really like being social but it's very draining and I need twice the time spent being social to recharge.

I keep thinking I'd be best in a kind of monastery set up, communal living with lots of alone time. You get your uninterrupted silent bits and your big group ceremonies and eating and stuff.

But this could be more of my " God, John why is your brain from the 14th century these days?" thing.

And yeah Miko, I think there is something to the idea that some introverts are just really really sentivite and aware of the details in social interaction and it's just exhausting to engage in them, despite enjoying it.

I have literally zero alone time in my life. The closest I get to being alone is being around other people but not talking to them on my daily four hour round trip commute. And I love it. Being alone holds absolutely no interest for me.

I don't think you have to be physically alone to have 'alone time', though. I used to love my commute when I caught the train (1 hour each way), because it gave me time that was mine alone and nobody could take it away. Even though there were always lots of people around, I simply never interacted with them so they were, effectively, not there.

Now that I drive the same commute (having a work-provided car is both a blessing and a curse, for sure), I actually do have 'alone time', but it makes me miserable rather than happy, because I can't choose what to do with the time - I have to pay attention to driving or I'll die. If it wasn't for the not inconsiderable amount of money using the car saves me, I'd gladly hand the keys back and return to my crowded but solitary train trip.

My SO doesn't really understand this aspect of me - she needs to be with people all the time and hates to be alone. This produces some conflict between us because, as a full-time mother, she is alone quite a bit during the day, while I'm forced to interact with people all day at work. When I get home, she is often desperate to talk and I want to just sit quietly for a while. Driving to/from work has made this worse, because I can't decompress while driving the way I could on the train.

I work alone all day and still demand alone time for an hour or so in the evening. I like people, and like being around people fine, but the older I get, the more I seem to want to be in my own head.

The thing I (still) miss most after entering into parenthood and coupled life is the absence of alone time. I have no need to be around other people most of the time, but to be unable to NOT be around them is draining in ways it is difficult to express. I would be a happy hermit, so long as I had a little hamlet within a day's walk I could visit once or twice a month.

And yeah Miko, I think there is something to the idea that some introverts are just really really sentivite and aware of the details in social interaction and it's just exhausting to engage in them, despite enjoying it.

This is me. My family is having it's biannual family reunion this year. And as much as I love to socialize with most of them, I need to disappear every now and then to recharge. This is going to be especially difficult this year because it's going to be at Bro#1's house and it's usually at Mum's. At Mum's, I get the master bedroom to share with the mister and she moves into the guest bedroom so I have a built in safe-haven. That's not feasible this year; Mum and I are staying in a motel near Bro's (the mister is going to be fishing with his brothers). I'm really dreading the logistics of finding some space now and then. Going for a walk doesn't help, I need a quiet room to decompress.

Blergh. Enough rambling.