The no will feel like the world is going to end when you are. The no will feel like a light sting if you have your life together. Spending time outside of yourself and away from social isolation helps you grow as a person, learn more about yourself and others, expand your perspectives, and pursue interests with others who share your hobbies. Depressed and looking for someone to fill the void. There is also the emotional benefit of friendships. One study from 2010 found that people who do not have friends or family members, or even connections with their neighbors, increased their chance of an early death by 50 percent. Refraining from social interaction altogether is unhealthy, both mentally and physically. Solitude and being alone give introverts the balance in life they desire, while loners may avoid others for personal reasons, mental health, or a lack of need for acceptance. You’re destined to be forever alone.Whereas a loner avoids social interaction for a long period of time, an introvert finds it emotionally draining. (If you threw up in your mouth a little bit, congratulations. We do it in fiction and poetry, in films and theory. I’m going to say two words, and I want you to gauge your reaction accordingly: Gay people have a rich tradition of telling stories about our lives, our loneliness, our sex, our cultures. Your ability to dissuade the delivery guy into thinking that the sushi meal for 4 will actually serve four people is so on point, that you’d hate to let that skill go to waste.ġ6. (And you use their handle when you refer to them in real life.)ġ5. You refer to people whom you only know by their Twitter handle as personal friends. You never want any person you’re dating to see your grubbiest sweats (you know the ones) but you also don’t want to throw those bad boys out, so it’s the former that has to go.ġ4. It’s not that you don’t believe in “The One,” but you’re more inclined to believe that your personal “One” is a homemade mac-‘n-cheese recipe.ġ3. You actually don’t mind seeing them every morning.ġ2. At this point, you feel like the most intimate relationship you have is with your barista. You’re growing more and more comfortable with the idea of making an “Okay, but if we’re 45 and neither of us has found anyone…” pact with your best friend (partially because you know they’ll actually find someone and you’ll be off the hook).ġ1. Crucial to understanding the A-gays is seeing their cultural and economic complicity in the systems that both benefit them and, ironically, make them feel miserable. You’ve begun to consider your cat’s reaction to a prospective suitor as the make-or-break deal in dating.ġ0. You’ve become so good at creating single-serving meals (or your secret eating habits are so abysmally weird) that cooking for another person is your personal Everest.Ĩ. You have recently thought that Netflix knows you better than anyone else - and sharing your account with anyone else would seriously mess up your algorithm.ħ. The thought of splitting meals, dessert, or a wine bottle with anyone at all - even your best friend - is enough to make you want to use your fork as a weapon.ĥ. You think to yourself, “But, God, I don’t even like spending that much time with myself.”Ĥ. The last time somebody hit on you, you secretly wondered if someone had put them up to a bet.ģ. Even if you sleep in a king-sized bed, where is anyone else supposed to fit?Ģ. Your favorite sleeping position is sprawled out, in the center of the bed, legs and arms in every possible different direction, with multiple pillows supporting key points of your body. You are just forever and ever and ever alone.ġ. Because you, my friend, my curmudgeonly grumpy sourpuss of a friend.
Coworkers constantly nominate you for extra projects because they know you have no one to go home to. This actually helps you start to separate and see the voice as an enemy and not the real you. Then next to these voices, write down the thoughts as you statements. Friends try to set you up with any number of dates. As an exercise, write down your critical inner voices as I statements, i.e.
For every person who is comfortable being single, there is someone else who has gone straight past ‘comfortable’ and is now veering into a deeply bleak territory.