Mean Reds…
The thing is, I am lonely. I was going to blame it on being in a new place and having some good friends but not the type you have history with – but, in reality, I have always been lonely. I was lonely in Rockford. I was lonely in Milwaukee, I was lonely in Pittsburgh and now I am lonely in Philadelphia. I might be a “loner”. Remember in school when that was a dirty word? A loner was someone who didn’t make friends and preferred to read quietly and didn’t go to parties and we were all supposed to try and not be that person. A loner was different and dangerous and strange. Are they still?
When I fantasize about free time and what I would do with it, most often I am alone. I knit and read and write. When I get really crazy in those fantasies I take dance classes and pilates and am in classrooms learning new things. Only once in a very great while to I daydream about being with people. I have this perfect image in my head of what it must be like to have those relationships. Standing breakfast dates and stitch ‘n’ bitches and cocktail hours….. But at 28 wouldn’t I have created that by now? Am I just a loner? It is not my natural instinct to call a friend when I am blue or frustrated with something; I do not naturally reach out. But if I am just built to be solitary then why this lifelong feeling of loneliness?
Sometimes I imagine that it can all be blamed on distance and that if I could magically place about six of my friends (some of whom have never met each other) into the same city we would bond and spend time together and it would be just like I picture. Unfortunately I suspect that that wouldn’t work. I think I would distance myself and be the same lonely I have always been.
So then is it time to change the behavior or the way I think about loneliness?
