Lonewolf

Several hours ago, my friend sent me a surprising message. She asked:

“How can you stand being alone?”

She followed it up with a complaint that no one would go out with her to eat and that it was depressing. So I told her that I was just used to it.

The question didn’t bother me at that time, but obviously it has taken its time fermenting and now I can’t get it out of my head.

It kind of makes me wonder why she phrased it like that. If it was just about being alone during meals, she wouldn’t have asked that. She knew I’m caring for my mother so I’m hardly ever alone. 

She’s the one who had this deadline of settling down at 32 and having a child at 33 and being depressed, I guess she was just being random or whatever. I mean, when I’m emotional I sometimes say things that I don’t exactly 100% mean because I can’t express myself as clearly as I prefer. So I guess that’s it, right?

It’s still niggling at me, that question. Is something wrong with me? Am I so deep into my introversion that I’m actually not as normal as I think I am? 

I’ve always kept to myself. My sisters always reprimanded me to smile more, and I always replied, “What for?” Kids in school found me aloof. I guess I was the emo kid when the term hadn’t even been invented yet. Hell, now I wonder how I even managed to have really good friends. Maybe I was a bit more open then. The past several years have been a series of me trusting people and those people screwing me over. I have been living like some sort of a hermit for a while now – I don’t even interact very well. Not that I was stellar at it before, but now I miss some social cues and only realize once I’m home.

Maybe I should make one friend this year. Doesn’t sound too hard, right? I have around three months to do that. It’s kind of daunting for a hermit but I am willing to go out of my shell for a bit.