Loneliness

Recently, a college friend watched Me, You & Everyone We Know with my recommendation, & she loved it. It discussed a topic that she has been dealing with recently: loneliness.

Robby and I discussed this last night. How bad can loneliness get? He was never lonely much; he has always been extremely sociable & surrounds himself by people constantly. He said that he used to pull out a list of friends' phone numbers & call them one by one. I have been lonelier in my life longer than Robby has. I was very productive when I was single & alone. Sure, I spent hours in cafes sewing, drawing, and reading, but I went through my biggest changes when I was single. I wrote in a diary, letters, poetry...I was immensely creative when I was alone. But, Robby countered, you didn't have anyone to share your ideas with. True.

I think back to reading What Was She Thinking? by Zoe Heller (it was made into a fantastic film called Notes on a Scandal). The narrator, a 60-some-year-old acrid spinster teacher, talks about loneliness in one chapter. She asserts that married people will never know the feeling of being lonely & single for decades. Their experience of loneliness was a 6 months they were single between boyfriends. But she knows loneliness very well, coming home to an empty flat, brushing up against a stranger & feeling a tinge in the groin...What is it like to be lonely & single for your entire life?

Then Robby & I began talking about the loneliness one feels when one is in a large group. Is it better to be lonely alone or lonely in a large group, say, at a big party? I would prefer being lonely alone. I don't like being around people when there is nothing to say, and I am especially awkward when everyone looks like they are having fun, and I am not. I enjoy being productive when I am alone, but I don't like coming home to a silent apartment with no one to talk to or have dinner. Being married is wonderful. We don't feel the need to chat all the time, and we can spend the entire day at home working without talking to each other. That's okay with us. No need to feel self-conscious, no need to impress. We like each other at our sloppiest, & that's the best thing about marriage so far.