Struggling with the Fundamentals of Humanity

Friendship and love are really disappointing fundamentals of humanity. They don't set out to be, but they always end up so.

As people age their numbers of close friends tend to decrease. When you are a person who has difficulty making friends, then the number of close friends decreases immensely with age. And the few friends one does end up finding along the way rarely have time for you or you time for them. According to Anneli Rufus, the author of Party of One: The Loner's Manifesto, loners are quite happy being alone and do not find separation from loved ones to be lonely.

After reading that book, I have decided that I may have "loner qualities", as she likes to call it, but I am really an outcast nonloner. This is not to say that I have ever been purposely shunned from the nonloner mob. Rather, an outcast is someone who wants to be part of the nonloner mob but isn't due to personal inability to fit in or is being kept out on part of the mob. I know that I am a nonloner because I like the self-affirmation I feel in communities and sharing the mundane details of my life with friends, which Anneli Rufus identifies as nonloner characteristics. Before reading this book I thought that I might be a loner because I enjoy working alone, don't mind completing any assortment of tasks alone, and often enjoy entertainment and activities alone. But, there are explanations for why this list of seemingly "loner" qualities fails.

"I enjoy working alone." Just like many other people, I concentrate best when alone and feel confident to do go about my work however I please because no one is observing me. But, when there are people I really like present in places such as the lab, I love to have their company. When my college roommate Kathy was actually home once or twice a week and did her work in our bedroom next to me, I loved it! Being in the presence of others does not mean that words or glances need to be exchanged. I just like knowing someone is there with whom I could share a thought or experience if I so have the urge.

"Don't mind completing any assortment of tasks alone." Anneli Rufus mentions at one point in the book that nonloners like having company to do simple tasks like grocery shopping. I don't mind going about my daily errands alone because then I can take as long as I want in each place looking for exactly what I want and dreaming up ways to use products. But, I think that it can be nice to have someone else along so that the pros and cons of certain products can be discussed and new ideas for product applications can be brainstormed together.

"Often enjoy entertainment and activities alone." This is a tricky one to explain. When I was young and my brother Paul still lived at home, he and I would watch cartoons together after school. That was lots of fun. I even watched movies with him which I didn't necessarily like because I enjoyed sharing the experience with him. One must be wary though of sharing experiences with certain people who can mar the whole thing with disagreeable criticisms and negativity. When these people are the only option around, then it is better to be alone. When I participate in activities, I tend to not go for team sports, but I do enjoy the camaraderie involved activities like dancing and bowling. I find bicycling and swimming alone to be very lonely. When I am alone with no particular task to concentrate on, my head fills with thoughts of things I want and need to get done, I replay conversations I've had or overheard, I replay scenes and stories from tv, movies, and books, or I dream up my own fictional stories. All of this thinking gets just as or more exhausting than actually conversing with real people. With real people I can be entertained for a while with their thoughts and stories. I like that.

Now, what do I have against friendship and love if I am a nonloner who wants the companionship of people? Well, as previously mentioned, the availability of both members of the companionship team is often in question due to work, physical distance, or other commitments. Another problem is that even friends and loved ones do not always behave how you would desire them to. In a conversation with myself, a story I create, or a replay of another form of entertainment, the characters always give the proper responses and reactions. Not so with real people. Some people might call this one of the greatest delights of interpersonal relationships, but I call it disappointing. I wonder how an argumentative person feels about this aspect of human interaction because it seems to me that argumentative people plow their ways through this "problem" by arguing things out until the topic of the response or reaction has been exhausted. I still wonder if at the end of all the arguing the issue feels settled and at rest in the arguer. I suppose it depends on the person and the topic.

I tend to keep quiet about anything that is special and important to me because I don't want to risk not getting a desired reaction from my audience. A lot of artists do this. They keep their paintings, stories, and books all to themselves until someone finally persuades them to share, or they die, and all their works become super-duper famous.

Most personalities cannot be placed in any specific category because people are just too complex for such constraints. And any particular traits that can be labeled in a positive light according to one person may be labeled in a negative light by another. This is definitely the case when it comes to varying cultures and individual histories. I feel like I am constantly redefining myself according to the labeling rules of each new person I meet. Sometimes I don't like the way certain people label me and this can make me very sour towards them. I can also become sour towards people if they present themselves to me in ways that cause me to make labels for them which aren't very appealing. What can be really difficult though is when I love someone simply for who they are without any labels and someone else comes along and starts labeling my loved one with negative words. The new, negative labels may be stated with no ill intent, but the fact still remains that my emotional feeling of love has now been spliced with narrowly defined words.

Friendship and love are such bittersweet fundamentals of humanity. Bittersweet: pleasant but marked by elements of suffering. What a perfect word to describe so much of earthly existence.