Table For One, Please

When was the last time you had your alone time? Is your schedule filled with obligations and forced social interactions? Before you plan your week, take a step back and think, is this really what I want to spend my time doing, or am I doing this out of obligation?

You are standing in a line; you don’t know where to look or what to do. You feel uneasy. You look around, anxiously. You take out your phone and text someone, anyone, as long as you don’t feel alone.

It is no secret that humans are social beings. What put homo sapiens ahead as a species was not just higher mental ability. It was the ability to communicate with the group, the ability to form societies, that made us stand out as a species. This social system is strongly intertwined into our daily lives, rendering it practically impossible to live without. Ever since we started middle school, we were constantly put under pressure to make friends, to belong, to be around people all the time. With time, the need to be around other beings has infiltrated our lives to the point that having alone time is practically impossible. We are either physically with our friends and family, or in our digital era, we are with them virtually. Keeping social media addiction and Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) aside, we are so dependent on communication that we cannot imagine being without it. While some feel guilty for being alone, others think being alone means they are lonely, and many more think they would be judged if they were alone. Most importantly, we tend to think higher of ourselves when we are around people.

Being alone and being lonely are two separate concepts. Being alone stems from being comfortable at isolating ourselves from people, limiting our social interactions, narrowing our circles. Being lonely is having no one to talk to, being unable to make new connections, or getting anxious at the thought of being around people. While loneliness can be psychologically damaging, being alone fosters growth, enhances self-awareness and builds our personality.

When we are alone, we set the voices around us and the opinions on mute, leaving our inner thoughts and voices to take over, thus, connecting us with our true selves and expressing rather repressed parts of our thoughts. It brings novel ideas to life and fosters creativity. Why do most of our great ideas come when we shower? When we are about to sleep? Or on long drives back from work? Having alone time really helps us establish what is important for us, allows us to prioritize our life, improves productivity and most importantly reduces stress!

We are constantly stressed and overwhelmed due to the expectations of the people around us. We are expected to be positive all the time, to laugh even when we don’t feel like it, or to agree when we don’t really agree. The most important component of our growth is to be able to discern between what we have to do and what we want to do. Obligations, work, and errands all fall under what we have to do. Social interaction and being around people aren’t. Often times we feel like we have to go to that birthday or join that outing. Reality is, these are things you should WANT to do. This is the most important component of our personal growth that we need to establish.

There are many ways you can spend some time alone. Go to the movies alone and watch the movie you want to watch. Get your favorite meal, have your favorite dessert. Order in your favorite pizza – not if it has pineapples, though – and watch your childhood movies, your favorite romcom or just cat videos.

The notion that being alone is almost taboo is a universal finding, not related to gender, ethnicity or age. There is this fear of being judged that forces us to be around people all the time. However, it is proven that people pay much less attention to us than we think. Interestingly, studies have shown that we only tend to feel this way when doing things that are leisure related. We don’t have a problem doing our laundry alone or going to the supermarket alone but being alone in the movie is suddenly weird.

We are so obsessed with scheduling our time and making appointments and meetings but tend to forget the single most important person in our life: ourselves. Don’t be afraid of spending time alone, reflect on your decisions, do what you want to do, when you want to do it. Walk along your favorite route, stop when you feel like it, go into your favorite café and boldly say “Table for one, please.”