Before I left my long term SO a few years ago I had a real yearning to just live on my own, meditate, find some peace and learn to be a truly independent person. In the last four years since leaving her I've had various living arrangements and the better part of two years of living alone and almost a straight year of it up and till now.
My goal is to learn to be happy while being alone as possible without going to live in a cave in the wilderness.
It's been freaking difficult and lonely at times. I really have felt like I'm going nuts sometimes to the point where I would go out drinking or accept any social invite just as a knee jerk reaction. I wouldn't particularly want to do something or spend time with particular people, but I would because the prospect of being alone sucked. Or I would get drunk at home to drown out the feeling of loneliness.
But it's gotten easier now to the point that I'd rather be alone than go out. So far this year I think I've been drunk twice and been to one braai and the truth is, at this point, I'm fairly happy and feeling happier.
I've come to the conclusion that I'm an introvert. I like people but I don't like the vast majority of them enough to want to spend very much time with them. It's not misanthropy. It's just that I don't feel that very many people are capable of adding anything of worth to my life that requires spending prolong amounts of time with them.
I think the problem that most people have with being alone is 1.) We feel like there is something lacking in ourselves that we need other people to provide - there's not. Part of my realisation that I actually like being on my own is that whatever I may or may not be lacking, the vast majority of people are incapable of providing anyway (if at all). And 2.) There is a lot of social pressure to be sociable - people assume that if you spend a lot of time alone you must be depressed and lonely. A lot of that pressure is self-imposed. We worry about what people will think if we don't have a g/f or b/f or go out very much etc. I've had the realisation that it's crazy to worry about the thoughts of people who contribute very little to my happiness anyway.
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