Am I a hermit? Um. Not sure. Do I like spending time by myself? Yes, I do. Does this become increasingly important to my psychological well-being as I get older? Yes, it does.
When I lived in London, I’d been there about a year (that time, I’ve lived in London 3 times so far), and was working for a large corporate. I walked into the office one Monday morning, and one of the blokes I was working with asked me a bizarre question (I thought).
He said, “What happened?”. I said, (confused), “Um, nothing, um, I dunno, what do you mean?”. He said, “Where have you been?”
Which, far from elucidating his original question, just flummoxed me more. I said, “Um, I don’t know what you mean, where have I been? Why do you want to know where I’ve been?”.
I looked confused. I’m a pretty transparent person, fairly easy to read, when I’m confused, I look confused. So he finally realised that I really didn’t have the foggiest what he was on about, and he said, “You’re an hour late!”.
I said, “Don’t be silly, it’s nine o’clock”. He laughed, “No it isn’t, it’s ten o’clock… the clocks changed on Saturday night, didn’t you know?”. I was totally gob-smacked for a second, and then I replied, “Well no, patently I didn’t”. Getting a bit snarky now. He laughed again in utter amazement and enquired, “Did you not have any contact with other human beings yesterday?”.
I retorted, “Well, no actually, I didn’t, I didn’t go out”. I neglected to add that I hadn’t ‘been out’ all weekend… from Friday evening till Monday morning, I had not left the house. So he laughed, and I laughed, and he realised that I wasn’t trying it on (why would I bother for just an extra hour of freedom).
This situation was a one off. Not knowing that the clocks were changing never happened again. But the fact that I had spent all weekend with NO CONTACT with other people at all struck me and I needed to ponder it. Was I a loser? Was I friendless? Well, no, I wasn’t. But I chose to stay in that weekend. Totally. And have done the same on many occasions since.
For some, this would sound like it’s a problem though, an issue, not normal.
I’ve never really had any hang ups about being “not normal”. And I find solitude comforting. Not all of the time, but certainly a proportion of the time, I like being alone.
I don’t do bored. I am never bored. Only boring people get bored. I love to sit and read by myself, or cook, or listen to music, or watch a DVD, or watch TV, or go for a walk with ma doggie… (yes, I realise there may be some danger of meeting other people when out walking, but I’m prepared to take that risk.)
I’m perpetually astonished by people who seem to spend no time at all alone, and find alone-ness and loneliness to be the same thing. They most certainly are not.
Next week my lovelies, coffee two ways.
rooshkie x
http://www.dreamstime.com – thank you for image of hermit crab !!
rooshkie 