Alone, Not Lonely

Many people have this great fear of being alone.  They think that if they are alone, they are lonely.  They think that others will look at them, judge them, and make fun of them, and one day they will die lonely and miserable.  They don’t understand that being alone and being lonely are completely different things. 

This week’s “How I Met Your Mother” episode was on this topic.  If you know the show Ted, the main character has this daydream about his 4 best friends who are married to each other (so he is kind of the 5^th wheel).  He is sitting in the bar alone staring at a beer and a ticket to a show.  At the end he talks about how lonely and alone he is.  I have watched the whole show and I know that he is not lonely or alone.  He has great friends who he is with every day, but he is just depressed because he has not found a wife yet.  And that is societies definition of alone.  I say fuck that.  Just because he doesn’t have a wife or a girlfriend does not mean he is alone.  In fact, its an opportunity to embrace being by yourself, which many people do not take advantage of.

I love to do things alone or on my own, as I like to put it.  I went to college alone, I went abroad to Barcelona alone, and I went to Israel alone.  You know what I learned? I learned how to figure things out for myself and solve my own problems, I learned who I really am, and I learned that it is extremely important to do things on your own.  I could have done all of these things with my best friends but I chose not to and I couldn’t be happier with the way things turned out.

I am extremely good at doing things and figuring things out on my own.  When I go to visit a friend and I don’t know anything about the place, I usually don’t learn as much as I do when I don’t visit someone.  When I visit friends they show me around and take me places but if I am not the one figuring it out, then I won’t be able to do the same thing next time.  However, if I am the one doing the research and figuring out how to get places and finding the restaurants I learn so much more and if I want to go back to that place I can easily retrace my steps and figure out what to do.  I also like to be in control of directions and schedules.  When I travel with people I usually take the lead on directions and people have told me that they feel safe when I am directing them because they trust me. 

When I am by myself, I am not really by myself, but I am with the coolest person I know.  One thing I lacked when I was younger was a lot of self-confidence.  But as I have grown up I have become much more independent and confident in my decisions and myself.  I am the most interesting person I know.  I listen to the music I want, travel where I want, eat what I want, and do whatever I want, whenever I want.  I also really enjoy meeting new people on my own.  Not because I can make up some bullshit story and be someone I am not because I can.  I like meeting new people on my own because I do in fact think other people are interesting, but I can tell people really like me for me, and not for the people I am with.  They find my life interesting and think I am mature and I think I do a great job of changing peoples perspectives of Americans.

I try to encourage people to do things on their own.  To embrace their freedom and enjoy it while it lasts.  Before we know it, that time we had to ourselves will soon be going to our pets, our kids, our jobs, and our wives/husbands.  Everyone should be able to go to a bar or travel without anyone else and meet some cool people.  That is actually where I might have met some of the coolest people I have ever met…some of whom I don’t even know their names.  But they have been very interesting to talk to, and inspiring, and after we finished talking we said bye, and that was it.