Alone and Lonely

Alone and Lonely. I’ve always been fascinated with these words. Used to think a lot about them in my late teens after reading a poem with a similar theme and honestly I still do think about them now too. See I used to think of them as synonyms when I was younger because they had to be right, you are left by yourself in both the cases. But as I grew older I came to the realization that, no, these two words are not actually synonymous to each other, not at all if you think really deeply about it. Because you see, Lonely is when you are alone in spite of actually wanting to be with someone, anyone really in some cases, a loved one, a companion, family and so on but unfortunately you are just unable to for whatever reason. But being Alone, now that in most cases can be a choice. It is having the option to be around people, the whole world even and those wanting to be with you but you still choose to be by yourself, Alone and being comfortable with that. And I, for most of my adult life, have been happy to be Alone.

Now I didn’t think it was anyone’s business that I liked being alone or that it would bother anyone because why should it, it wasn’t hurting anyone (or so I thought) so how could wanting to be alone possibly go against me. As an introvert it was the most comfortable I have ever been and I loved being left to my own thoughts with a good book, it was always a preference. I kept hearing people say I should not get too comfortable being alone because that would just end with me being lonely. But how though, because at this point in my life I was able to tell the difference between the two and I thought to myself when anyone said this “I was definitely not going to be lonely” and that’s how I spent my late teens and very early 20’s. Just reading all the books I could hope for and watching all the shows I could binge. In retrospect though, I can now see what the people in my life meant when they said I need to be careful not to get too comfortable alone, because now that I look back at those years all I can remember is being by myself and getting internally super annoyed with anyone who tried to disturb “My alone time” as I thought. It irritated me when people tried to start conversations with me or try to engage me in any sort of group activity. In fact I started isolating myself from my own loved ones and only realizing it when it was pointed out. How I was always with a book or reading on my phone even when someone directly spoke to me, like I was obsessed with it. But all I could think at the time was why couldn’t everyone just leave me be by myself.

My actions too came off unknowingly as offensive and rude to the other person in all the above situations and I didn’t even realize that at the time. But boy was I going to be getting a reality check soon, because you see my family had obviously been noticing my behavior and while some chose not to comment about it and let me figure this out on my own, one member was not willing to wait for me to take my own sweet time with correcting myself.

It was my eldest sister (I have 2 older sisters) who came to me with the “we need to talk” face which I had dreaded my entire life but never more than in that moment. I knew it would be the most awkward conversation ever but it actually turned out to be the most eye-opening one. And I think the most helpful thing about the entire conversation was that there was no sugar coating, just a clear “Sariya, you’re not a kid anymore whose mistakes can be easily forgiven for being childish, you’re an adult and as an adult you don’t get to be selfish and just think about yourself anymore. You don’t get to hurt people and get away with it”. Now two things about this struck me immediately and one more than the other I think. The first was an immediate and defensive reaction to being told I can’t just do what I wanted to, because then what was the point of being an adult if not getting to decide how and what I wanted to do with my life or with whom (or without whom in my case) I wanted to do it with. But the second and I think the most important thing to take away for me was that I was hurting people and even though it was unintentional I just wanted that to stop. I also think about the one point said by my sister and how I’ll carry it for the rest of my life as something to remember. She pointed out that, Maybe I want to be alone now but I won’t always because humans are just meant to be social creatures and when I finally decide that I’m ready to be with someone just to talk or anything really, there might not be anyone there, thinking I want to be alone. And that, let me tell you, was the scariest thought.

That fear I think more than anything else made me realize how wrong I was about my stubbornness in wanting to be alone, because no matter how much comfort I get from being alone, the only reason it was present in the first place was knowing that I can stop being alone anytime I want, that the choice was in my hands. That’s why I think it never bothered me in the first place. I was usually crowded with people and being alone meant some quiet and then going right back among everyone when I was done wanting that quiet. But if there was one thing I learned from my talk with my sister was that being alone might be a solace but if you’re not careful with how you do it, being alone might just lead to being lonely and I can happily say that I’ve never felt Lonely.