Lone vs. Lonely

The other day I was talking to a friend about relationships and the like, and part of the conversation was about being single versus being in a relationship. The follow-on question was “But aren’t you lonely?”

For me, I’m actually quite happy being single, and getting on with things. I know some people need to be with someone, and some are even shit-scared of being on their own – I currently work with a couple of people like that, in utterly crap relationships but won’t split up because it’s still ‘better than being single’, which drives me berserk – but I’m simply not one of them.

Sometimes I feel I’m actually better at being single than I am at being in a relationship. In general I’m too independent for my own good, but sometimes in relationships I’m also too easy-going, happier to go with doing what the other person wants than necessarily what I want to do. The stupid thing is that I know I’m doing it, and sometimes it annoys me that I’m not doing my own stuff – but it annoys me even more that I’m getting annoyed about it. Which isn’t particularly sane, smart or healthy.

I also know people who don’t like going out and doing things on their own, primarily because of how they think other people will perceive them. As regular readers (what few there are) of D4D™ know, I don’t give much of a stuff about what other people think of me. I’m absolutely happy to go off to the cinema on my own, to go out to places, even to take a holiday on my own. (Although I’m spectacularly bad at holidays anyway, and really should change that aspect of myself more than most others!)  Probably the only thing I’m less good about when single is going out for meals, or drinking. Even those aren’t truly about other people’s perceptions of me, but more that if I go out for food, I like that to be a shared experience, a meal enjoyed rather than for fuel.  And drinking on my own is just a slope I don’t want to get onto.

All told, I’m content being single and living my own life.  A lot of it is solo, but I never really feel lonely. I know I have good friends across the country, and that – for me – is what matters. I don’t need (or want) to be in their pockets/lives all the time, and I find that makes the times when we are together all the more valuable.  Additionally, I have a wide range of contacts and friends through Facebook and Twitter, and I tend to stay in contact through those mediums (media?) on a regular basis anyway. I perceive those conversations and contacts as being the same as (or at least similar to) a phone conversation, an email, or even a face-to-face chat, so a lot of the time I don’t even feel like I am alone. (And in truth I’m not alone, because of those friends and conversations. We’re just not physically close, but in every other aspect of friendship and contact, we are)

As per the title, I feel/find that I’m more Lone than Lonely, and that’s fine with me.