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If You Learn to Live Alone, You’ll Never Feel Lonely

If you get the chance, go for it

By GB RogutPublished 3 years ago 5 min read
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It doesn’t matter if you are young, fresh out of your parents’ house or if you suddenly face the end of a relationship. If you can, you should devote some time to living alone.

Ideally, you should do it before you commit to any long-term relationship but, if you are like me and rushed to be with someone before you understood yourself and then witnessed how it all imploded, then take some time out before getting involved with someone new.

Get a crappy studio apartment, you know, a single room, the kitchen next to the living room — which is your private joke because the living room doubles as the bedroom. Get a second-hand couch too, bonus points if it is a sleeper sofa. Make sure you have mismatched chairs and odd plates and mugs. Have people over, from time to time. They’ll compliment you on your clever use of space and how you seem to manage well.

Of course, if you can get a nice place with pretty things and a nice garden, by all means, do it!

Move the furniture around and paint the walls in crazy colors. Chat with the neighbors and learn the names of all of their cats and kids. If you must, get a pet yourself, or a pretty plant.

I don’t think the place matters that much. The most important thing, my dear, is for you to be alone.

Discover who you are

It doesn’t matter if you work at home or if you have to get a 9 to 5. The point is, when you get back home, there’s nothing but silence to welcome you. Every day, when you open the door, you are to harvest it, collect it in your chest, and let it change you.

Discover the hobbies you truly like. Find the books that enlighten you. Identify, once and for all, your favorite movie genre. Learn to cook, even if you never get to be that good. Look at the people around you. Who are your friends, for real?

About all, find out who the person in the mirror truly is. Here’s the thing: no matter how many lovers, friends, or relatives you have, if you cannot trust/love/rely on the human being that stares back at you every day, you’ll never get much peace.

Become a grown-up, a fun one, if you can. Or at least not a boringly severe one. Also, don’t be a jerk. Being honest doesn’t mean you have to be an asshole.

Pro-tip #1: Be serious, but do not take yourself too seriously

Learn to be alone

You will learn you can have fun with yourself if you pay attention to what is going on in your head. If you have unresolved issues, please, get help. No matter what you have heard, you don’t have to suffer in silence to prove you are strong.

No one deserves to be a prisoner of their own mind.

I once knew someone who could never be alone. The mere thought of being in an empty house frightened him. He ended up going to extreme measures to ensure there would always be someone in the house with him. One of those was getting in a relationship with me even when he didn’t really want it. And me, because I thought I wasn’t supposed to be alone, allowed lots of hurtful things to happen.

That didn’t end well.

You see, when we feel lonely, we make stupid choices. We sacrifice peace, joy, and even love just so we can say, “well, at least I’m not alone.” However, the joke is on us because we have effectively isolated ourselves from our hearts’ true desires. We have silenced our voices and our souls, all to feel someone next to us.

Pro-tip #2: You can have a warm body next to you and still feel cold inside.

And all of this could have been prevented if only we took the time to learn to be alone. To find out who we really are, without masks. To shatter the walls we built and see what’s really inside.

It’s terrifying, I know. But it’s even scarier to spend the rest of your life never letting your soul learn and grow.

Restore points

The main benefit of learning to be alone is that you’ll get to see yourself without filters. There’s no one to lie to, so maybe you’ll stop doing it.

You will see that most of the stuff you say to yourself is nothing but recycled crap. You are just repeating what you heard here and there but, do you really believe it?

Do you really want it?

This time alone will become your restore point. Meaning, when shit hits the fan, when you start to lie to yourself again — and, therefore, to other people too — you will be able to remember who you are and act accordingly.

Pro-tip #3: No one deserves your lies, not even you.

Remember that when you find yourself engaging in relationships you don’t really want just so that you won’t be alone. As you have already proved, you can do it!

Only the Lonely

There goes your heart…it’s on its way to learning the truth about itself. You have to let it.

After everything is said and done, you might even find out you don’t really need to be in a relationship to be whole. Or maybe you want to break with societal paradigms since you have discovered traditional relationships do not fulfill you and will wait until you find kindred souls. It could also be that “marriage and a kid” truly is the thing for you.

Who knows? Well, you should.

But until you take the time to really listen to your inner voice, you’ll live forever in doubt.

Pro-tip #4: You cannot listen if you are surrounded by noise.

It doesn’t matter how old you are now, how many times you have gotten your heart broken, or how many times you have been the one to do the damage. Stop looking for yourself in other people. Your partners cannot do the soul searching for you.

As long as we keep running away from loneliness, we will never master it, and fear will keep making the choices for us.

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About the Creator

GB Rogut

Jack of all trades, mistress of poetry. Mexicana. Bi. Autistic. She/Her. You can support me on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/musingabout or visit my tree https://linktr.ee/GbRogut

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