Being with people makes me lonely

It is with great regret that I’ve come to the realization that being with most people makes me lonely. Loneliness, as I see it, involves the lack of feeling of belonging and understanding. The vast majority of people I encounter, save for a few friends and my wife, leave me feeling a void of understanding and connectedness. I do not understand them. They do not understand me. The act of being in their presence makes me feel more lonely than simply being alone.

It seems I am not alone (pun intended) in this feeling:

My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced freedom from the need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. I gang my own gait and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties I have never lost an obstinate sense of detachment, of the need for solitude—a feeling which increases with the years. One is sharply conscious, yet without regret, of the limits to the possibility of mutual understanding and sympathy with one’s fellow-creatures.

–Albert Einstein, “The World As I See It”

Our friend Thoreau also mentions this loneliness in “Walden”:

I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will. Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows.

–Henry David Thoreau, “Walden”

May you never be alone among friends.

RSTLN E – The Every Woman Profile

Remember the end of Wheel of Fortune? Choose 5 consonants and a vowel? For years everyone would choose the most common letters as their selection (RSTLN E). If you chose something different you were really rogue. Several years ago the producers finally decided to just give the contestants those letters and let them pick 6 more.

I have been single now for several months after 17 years of marriage. During that time I have reacquainted myself with online dating. After the first couple of weeks of checking out profiles some startling patterns started emerging. A month in I discovered I could write almost every woman’s profile in a couple of paragraphs. It occurred to me that these things are the RSTLN E of online dating. Ladies, this is my public service announcement that you should spend your valuable profile space on things that make you unique, not things that are common to almost everyone. If the following profile sounds like you then, well, make some changes. You’re not differentiating yourself.

EveryWoman2017

Me:

I love to travel, especially to the beach or to different locations in Europe. I love getting dolled up for a night on the town or being casual with jeans and flips flops and grilling out at home. I love all types of music and enjoy attending music festivals. I like to try hole in the wall places and new restaurants. I love anything outdoors and enjoy hiking. I love a good glass of wine. I have a rewarding career and love what I do. I am financially independent. I have (?) kids and they are my first loves. I have great friends and love spending time with my family. My friends would say I’m funny (witty and sarcastic), loyal, and giving. I’m very happy and I am at a wonderful point in my life. I am just looking for a wonderful man to share it with.

You:

I am looking for a partner in crime. He should be confident but not arrogant, loyal, honest, and thoughtful. He must be sincere and genuine and be a family man. You must not take yourself too seriously and be able to make me laugh. You also have to be passionate and intelligent. Chemistry is very important to me. Anything can be fun with the right person! Bonus points if you’re sensitive and manly and chivalrous.

I love to Travel or do I?

I think everyone on the planet says they love to travel. I suppose going places and seeing new things is exciting but “I love to travel” seems like an unnecessarily vague descriptor so I will  be more precise with my feelings about travel.

I like to travel and I hate to travel. I like to travel when someone else is doing the organizing, arranging, and executing and we are going to some distant place full of natural beauty, far off the beaten path, with very few other people. I take my “duties” seriously and when I am in charge of planning that creates lots of anxiety for me to get it right, so that whomever I am with will enjoy themselves to the fullest. Removing that burden makes it easier for me to relax and enjoy myself.

If we go somewhere extremely crowded, or we go to something man-made (enter large city here) then I will most likely not be relaxing and enjoying myself for long. I hate traffic and lines and feeling like a tourist. Any traveling that allows me to avoid those situations is great with me. Throw me in the middle of that and well, ugh.

My time is all that I have

I am extremely efficient and organized. I am very “productive”. What is the value of those things? It is to provide me with more time.

Time is the most finite resource we have. It’s more finite than money (hell we can print more of that if we need to), love, and anything else you can imagine. What’s more, you never know how much of it you actually have.

I am not productive because I want to accomplish more. I am productive because I want more time. I want more time because it is infinitely valuable. I don’t want my days to be filled with commitments and activities that don’t have meaning for me. Nothing makes me angrier than someone else’s lack of consideration for my time.

You cannot put time in your hand and feel it. It’s abstract and therefore very easy to “spend” without realizing it. When you’re on your death bed you will not look back and wish you had more money. You will simply wish you had more time. Spend today valuing it appropriately.