I discarded my friends.
The waiter brings a big cake with thirty-five candles onto the table. A single person is sitting there, and he’s singing “happy birthday” to himself in his heart. He is the happiest person in the world.
Loneliness. That’s the first thought that comes into your mind when you read that story. And why is that?
It’s because humans are social creatures.
And in the modern world of social media and constant stimulus being alone became hard. As an introvert that finds joy in spending time on his own, I was shocked to learn it’s a thing. From my comfortable point of view, I didn’t even see that as a possibility for others.
People don’t know how to be alone.
There is an author I came across that talks about it. Her name is Francesca Specter and she calls it Alonement. I haven’t read her book but I’ll link her website down below.
Francesca talks about how we need to purposefully set ourselves alone time. And I believe that being with ourselves is the road to gaining insights into our hearts and mind. It is in solitude that we find out about our souls.
But I have a different problem. And your reaction will be the same as mine when I heard people find it hard to be alone.
It’s hard for me to be with people.
It’s most certainly because I was alone most of my life, in the confinements of my mind. Even when I was with people my mind drifted to places interesting to me. Imagination was always my best friend.
But being surrounded by people was always nice because I never felt alone.
We were a group of five people, each one was added with every passing year, and we continued meeting after we graduated. As we went to college and got married we grew more distant but we kept seeing each other. And I questioned why.
Looking back, we always had trivial interests, be it school, studies, or mundane life. They always talked about soccer which I never cared for. And I’d always tell stories from my life and add humor to them. The irony was that I didn’t fit in with the people I surrounded myself with to escape school’s hell.
But things changed.
I got married. Sure, my wife didn't like them and felt awkward with them, but it didn’t really affect my relationship with them. It was already crooked before she came.
Because I didn’t need to put a patch on my loneliness.
And that was the sad truth. I would only meet with them out of boredom or loneliness. But once I met my wife, I wasn’t lonely anymore, even before we got married.
This is what you need to ask yourself.
Discard what society dictates about friends and social norms. Are you meeting your friends because you are lonely or because you have common interests?
I know that the answer isn’t black and white but it’s worth asking.
I felt bad for not meeting up with my friends because it felt like I had to. We had memories together. Surely I cannot throw all of this out of the window. But I could.
Applying cold-hearted logic I realized that we had nothing in common and that our encounters were no longer interesting to me. To top it all off, I barely knew anything about their life and they didn’t seem that interested in mine.
It’s been over a year and I don’t regret it.
I still have friends. Very few. But I am happy with them.
I find joy in the comfort of my wife. And my alone time is full of creative things I need three lifetimes to accomplish. I have traded my social ties for self-fulfillment and rest.
It’s fun to go alone on an evening dinner with myself, followed by a session of street photography. It’s incredibly relaxing to be writing this on an alone evening at home while my wife is out.
And this is the biggest take from this story.
Be true to yourselves.
Your take on social life will be different than mine, but if you’ve never tried to be alone with yourself, give it a try. Go out alone to a restaurant and invite a big cake for yourself on your birthday.
You might enjoy it.
If you’ve enjoyed reading give it a clap or follow me (no stalkers please :P). I write about the human mind and its story in today’s reality.
You can find out more about Francesca’s work here.
