Some thoughts I have been considering about the state of being lonely:

 “Loneliness is the human condition. Cultivate it. The way it tunnels into you allows your soul room to grow. Never expect to outgrow loneliness. Never hope to find people who will understand you, someone to fill that space. An intelligent, sensitive person is the exception, the very great exception. If you expect to find people who will understand you, you will grow murderous with disappointment. The best you’ll ever do is to understand yourself, know what it is that you want and not let the cattle stand in your way.”

– Janet Fitch

“Deep in my heart I know I am a loner. I have tried to blend in with the world and be sociable, but the more people I meet the more disappointed I am. So I’ve learned to enjoy myself.”

– Steven Aitchison

“Perhaps only people who are capable of real togetherness have that look of being alone in the universe. The others have a certain stickiness, they stick to the mass.”

– D.H. Lawrence

“Remember: the time you feel lonely is the time you most need to be by yourself. Life’s cruelest irony.”

– Douglas Coupland

“We must become so alone, so utterly alone, that we withdraw into our innermost self. It is a way of bitter suffering. But then our solitude is overcome, we are no longer alone, for we find that our innermost self is the spirit, that it is God, the indivisible. And suddenly we find ourselves in the midst of the world, yet undisturbed by its multiplicity, for our innermost soul we know ourselves to be one with all being.”

– Herman Hesse

“She had become accustomed to being lonely. She was used to walking alone and to being considered ‘different.’ She did not suffer too much.”

– Betty Smith

I think I agree with all of these, and I think on some level I have always felt like I might be alone in this world. There are a few people throughout my life that I have felt like I truly connected with, but it’s not something that comes around often for me, and I want to learn to be okay with that. Right now, I can recognize that I’m a good person, but I feel like I missed the class on human interaction. I know all the things you’re supposed to do, but those things don’t come naturally to me, and I’m sure that puts a lot of people off. I get anxious. I feel pressure. I want to be myself, but I’m afraid I won’t be accepted. Add romance into that mix, and it probably deepens that feeling threefold.

Ultimately, I think it’s most important to be yourself. That part, I am at peace with. I would rather be myself than try to conform to what society or other people think I should be. I want to be real, even if that means not feeling the same closeness I observe in others. And maybe it’s just a matter of perception. Maybe nearly everyone is feeling this state I’m in at some point or another, and we’re all just moving along in this world hoping we’ll be accepted for our true selves. Maybe some people are just better at hiding it.

I’m not even sure why I’m afraid to be alone. Maybe I’m afraid I’ll become some bitter, old woman in the future.

Sometimes I miss my old self, back when the fear of living my life alone did not concern me. Maybe it’s partly that I’ve spent so many years in relationships that it feels strange to come back to myself again, like I don’t fully know what it is to be alone anymore. From what I remember, I enjoyed it. What better company than the person with who you share the most in common?