#solitude

#solitude

Fear of loneliness - which goes by a surprising number of names: autophobia, isolophobia, eremophobia, monophobia - is distinct from loneliness itself. It's the sense that no matter where you are (out in public, or within the comfort of your own home), you should take pains to make sure you don't end up alone. After all, that's when the dread begins to pump in: the anxiety, the feelings of inadequacy, the scrutinizing.

Picture this: last weekend, while everyone was posting Instagram stories from crowded bars and house parties, I was curled up with a book about behavioral economics, completely absorbed. A friend texted asking if I was coming out, and when I said I was staying in to read, she replied with "You're such a nerd!" followed by a laughing emoji. But here's the thing-according to psychology research, my preference for books over parties might actually come with some serious intellectual perks.

Most people recognize this feeling, even if they don't quite know what to call it. You cancel plans because being around others sounds exhausting. The quiet feels like relief. Then, a day later, you feel flat, lonely, or strangely restless. When you do see people again, you enjoy parts of it, but notice how quickly your energy runs out. For many people, this rhythm feels sharper and harder to interpret than it once did.

I wouldn't have to answer to anyone or for anything. Not requests for snacks or one more backrub. I wouldn't have to sit rigid, wondering if one of my three kids was creeping out of a bed that wasn't theirs. Or defend my parenting style while my oldest yelled about how life wasn't fair and we must all really hate him,

Reddit users angry about their overstuffed, overloud theatrical experiences swap stories of other guests illegally filming the screen for the 'gram, propping up laptops and participating in Zooms, bringing toddlers into R-rated movies and letting them watch their iPads without headphones, and yelling and screaming and throwing things. People are disgusting! Wouldn't it be better, one person wrote, to be at home, where you can pause Killers of the Flower Moon to pee and get dinner, rather than in a theater, "sitting in a chair some idiot was farting in for three hours"?

There is just a beautiful layer of snow on the ground deep in the woods. And it is still and cold. I'm starting early, climbing a mountain called Wright Peak. That means moving through near darkness in the hour before sunrise. There's just enough light in the woods. I can see, but there's no color. It's just like I'm walking through this black and white world of snow and charcoal lines of the hemlock trees, the boughs already really heavy with snow.

Under skies heavy with storm-gray clouds, the architectural ruins in Lee Madgwick's paintings seem to exist somewhere between reality and imagination. His works are not just landscapes but psychological portraits-of solitude, fragility, and the strange poetry found in decay. With a style that merges surrealism and realism in equal measure, Madgwick transforms the familiar English countryside into a dreamlike world that's quietly charged with tension.

As a lifelong proponent of close friends and tight circles, I saw this as my opportunity to step outside my comfort zone and meet new people, whether that was in my Shakespeare class or at random cafés around the city. I'd lived in the Midwestern suburbs my whole life before moving to Syracuse (a place that didn't feel much different) for school. So, in London, I was looking forward to making friends in a new kind of cityscape.

I've also been reading more. Actual books, that is. And buying way too many. But there is something to looking at those piles stacked around the rooms of my house. All that knowledge and history and art right there at my fingertips. And recently I picked up a magazine, a physical, paper magazine, and have occasionally again started sitting with a newspaper in the mornings. There's something about spreading it out on a table with a nice cup of coffee. Oh, the solitude...

She set a match to the candle wick. It casts a circular glow in the room. The glasses sparkle, the silver cutlery glimmers. Everything is in its place, but she can't help straightening a fork, adjusting a champagne flute. Her stomach flutters with a year's-worth of expectation. she glance in the mirror, its tarnish softened by the light, How many years? She can't believe 100. She takes her seat at the head of the table. "Is everybody here?" "Then let's begin." She says. She raises her champagne glass to the empty room.

The sea brought small treasures back to the shore that The Girl scours every day. She finds little things buried in the wet sand, she fills her pockets with them and walks back home. She lays the little treasures around the house. She wanders around, from one room to the other ; one is dark and cold. The AC works but the light doesn't when she flicks the switch.

"The summer rain in Mexico City has been driving Meme del Real crazy. "This season of permanent torrential downpour gets to a point where you're like, ' Enough,' he says with a sigh. "There's people who really enjoy it, but I'm done. It's too much introspection to be in here all day, to not be able to go outside. It forces you to try other things, to find a conversation within that rather than a resistance."

The smell of the Paris Metro is a blend of sweet, rubbery, and industrial, evoking memories of solitude and independence experienced during a summer in the city.

‘Living alone can be great, especially if the only alternative is to play the weaker sex to someone who needs to feel superior.’

New research complicates our understanding of being 'friendless', revealing that some people find fulfillment in solitude, challenging the notion that it always equates to loneliness.