Why You Should Get More Comfortable with Being Alone
We need to know ourselves to improve our relationships with other people.
Last week I overheard a conversation whilst I was trying to write in a coffee shop. The girl was talking loudly on the phone, trying to convince a friend to come into college the next day because another friend of their's would be alone 'all day' if she didn't.
By this point, I had stopped what I was doing and began to ravenously eavesdrop on the conversation, making notes of sentences spoken in a draft folder. You never know when snippets like that may come in handy. It turns out they already have.
As the girl was talking to her friend, I began to hear loud, clunky coughs coming down her phone. The friend then said, 'come on, don't you already feel better? I'm sure your lateral flow test would be negative by now' and reiterated their other friend would be alone if she stayed off another day.
Despite her friend having Covid, the girl still wanted her to come in to prevent their other friend from being alone. It all seemed bizarre — albeit very teenagery — as I was gently sipping on my dirty chai, wittering away notes from their conversation into a draft folder.
However, this exchange reminded me of the lengths some people will go to be with other people and avoid solitude. Unlike myself, who tries to prevent company at all costs, this girl was actively trying to prevent a friend from being by herself and presenting it as more important than spreading Covid around the college.
Morals and Covid aside, it got me thinking how solitude is still stigmatised in broader society. Introversion is still poorly misunderstood, as Susan Cain brilliantly explains in her book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. We still live in a world where craving alone time to recuperate from this busy, loud world is considered unusual. It's acceptable to be part of a large crowd, and less so than spending time with another person. You're considered abnormal if you have just a handful of close friends rather than a large group in your twenties.
Single women of all ages especially are stigmatised for being partnerless or actively choosing to be alone. Being quiet and reserved still breeds the assumption that a person is boring and thoughtless. This becomes especially striking when now more than ever, we are constantly bombarded with noise from other people. It all lives in our back pockets twenty-four hours of the day. Wherever we look, we are reminded of our loneliness through other peoples' highlight reels and encouraged to feel guilty for sometimes preferring it.
That conversation I overheard may have annoyed me more than it should have, but it got me thinking about loneliness and how important it is to be comfortable with ourselves.
It makes you appreciate your worth
Being by yourself makes you more aware of your qualities as a person. By spending more time in solitude, rather than getting lost in a big group of people, you become more self-aware. For one, you begin to notice what you enjoy, as there's no one else to compromise for. There's a misconception that alone time is selfish or that it should only be appreciated when you're taking a 'mental health' day. Still, in reality, it's as important as anything else.
If we don't know ourselves or aren't in tune with what we like doing or value, we can't reiterate that to other people. Not knowing our individual worth can make it challenging to maintain friendships and a plethora of relationships, romantic or otherwise.
Contrary to popular belief, this doesn't mean we need to dump our partners or shut ourselves off from the world for months to get to know ourselves. That would be extreme. Instead, solitude can be implemented into every day and situation if you let it. It can be expressed in minor instances, like taking yourself out for coffee or choosing to spend a night in doing exactly as you please.
In these times you carve out for yourself, you'll start to notice all the things that make you happy and will likely reflect on those that don't. Through being alone, we become more self-aware and appreciate our worth. This makes it easier to maintain relationships and accept ourselves. It allows us to grow.
You never know what's around the corner
Life is full of mystery and surprise. That's part of the joy of being human, right? Sure, it's anxiety-inducing at the best of times, not knowing what's going to happen, but if we did, life would be pretty boring as each day would be scheduled before us, and each life event would pass us by in steady stages rather than joyful surprises.
If we rely on the company of others solely to feel joy, happiness and comfort, we're more likely not to cope when we don't have it. So my point is, if we rely on others in our lives to be our only sources of happiness, when they're taken away, it will be hard, almost impossible, to function again.
In life, we never know who will leave us or what will happen. Of course, this means spending valuable time with our loved ones, but not depending on this to make our lives worthwhile. Death is inevitable, and it will come to us all, which is why we have to be comfortable with being alone. It's a privilege to have friends we can rely on and partners to lean on, but we also need to realise something else.
We, ourselves, are our only guaranteed company, source of comfort and happiness.
Friendships evaporate and can sour over time. Messages can remain unread in our busy lives. We can have disagreements, fights and lose touch with people who were closest to us. Relationships, regardless of how stable they may seem on the outside, can also break down. But who is the one person we can't escape and are stuck with forever? Ourselves.
In essence, we have to like and be comfortable with ourselves, as we are the only person we can depend on with certainty to be there throughout our entire lives.
You will appreciate the time you do have with others
Being alone and enjoying it doesn't mean you hate people. Being an introvert who prefers their own company doesn't mean you never want to see or spend time with another person by choice. Solitude isn't as binary as that, as it can be incorporated in moments and days throughout our lives and can coexist with socialising and spending time with others.
The more time you spend alone, the more you realise who you miss and want to spend time with. When you choose to see others, you'll begin to appreciate every moment you spend with them. When we fill our calendars with plans, dinners and events, it can get overbearing, even for the most extroverted. But scheduling in enough alone time will soon make you realise the joy that can come with spending time with others.
Rather than wishing the time would go quicker when we have a week ahead of us full of social events, we begin to see each moment with others as valuable and essential. We make the most of our time when we know what it's like to be alone.
Even if you're like me and are perfectly happy with your own company and, heck, even enjoy it, spending too long without seeing others can get you down. Humans are sociable creatures, after all. Creating a delicate balance between alone time and seeing others gives you an ideal equilibrium. Neither should be done in excess to live a comfortable life.
It allows you to rest and recharge
“Spend your free time the way you like, not the way you think you’re supposed to.” — Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking
For introverts, time alone is essential. We need solitude to feel recharged and to be able to fully function in a demanding world. The world is designed to be overbearing. Socialising is promoted because it's good for the economy. Birthdays are blown out of proportion because capitalism wins. Social media plays a huge role in this too. It always feels like everyone around us (and strangers) are out doing things constantly with loads of people. But they're not. We only think they are because it's all we see. We rarely see alone time portrayed on social media.
Julia, who runs the Instagram account, thegermanintrovert and posts videos on TikTok, is the exception. I'm linking you to her accounts not because you should be spending more time on social media but because she is one of the only people who speaks up for the importance of being alone and documents it on social media. Consuming her content made me realise that solitude and liking my own company was just as important as spending time with others.
Being alone may not be 'as' fun to watch, but it's important. It allows your mind to rest, and you become more in tune with your feelings and thoughts. Not only does it enable you to get to know yourself more, but it can make you feel rested too. And boy, do we need more of this right now. Just because the world is not yet comfortable with solitude, it doesn't mean it's weird or selfish to spend time with yourself or cancel plans to do so.
Time spent with yourself can even increase long term concentration and productivity, as outlined in this article in Psychology Today. We need ourselves to be comfortable around others and to function in this fast-paced world. The more we understand us, the more we can make the most out of the time we spend with others and the relationships we form.
How to be alone more
Creating and implementing a habit isn't done in a matter of days. It's done gradually over time. You don't have to go cold turkey and never see anyone else again, but implement small changes into your life. Now that you can see why spending time alone is essential and should be a priority, you need to slot it into your life.
The easiest way to spend more time with yourself is to take moments out of your day to be in your own company if you don't already. Whether that's taking yourself out for a coffee, having a meal out by yourself whilst reading a book, or even taking yourself to the cinema (something I did this week to see the new James Bond film, I would recommend.) When in these situations, take some time to acknowledge your thoughts and let them pass you by. Allow your mind to wander. After all, you won't be having many conversations out loud.
You can even have a night in all to yourself and shut your door, so nobody else comes in, or even wake up that bit earlier in the morning to have half an hour to yourself. There's always a way to fit more time in for yourself, but you can't add in more hours to the day. It's about making it a priority and sticking to it.
Despite being in a world designed to profit from excessive socialising, it's more than okay to enjoy spending time with ourselves. However, we need to spend time with ourselves to know ourselves honestly and what we like from other people.
Solitude may seem alienating, but its benefits can bring us closer to other people and strengthen relationships in the long term. After all, if we don't know and appreciate ourselves, nobody else can.
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