Thursday, February 07, 2008

Alone

Let me just state it for the record: I hate being alone.

I get to work from home occasionally, which I realize, sounds awesome. People who don't have this option probably think it sounds like a pretty cushy luxury. I did too and I especially hated when I "wasn't allowed" to work from home when I first started this job. Being given the freedom to stay home on days where the weather is bad or I have an appointment downtown is great, don't get me wrong. But what isn't great, is being completley and utterly alone all day. Just me and my computer. Not one human interaction all day. It's lonely and the day drags forever. I literally cannot work from home more than two days in a row or I go nuts. I have a typical case of cabin fever or something.

It's funny actually, you'd think I'd be better at being alone. I'm an only child and spent countless hours alone growing up. I lived alone for over a year as I was finishing my degree and that never seemed terribly depressing. But now it seems, more than 24 hours of nothing but my own self and my own thoughts is enough to turn me into a lunatic.

I saw this ad in a magazine about elder abuse. It showed this sad looking elderly woman sitting alone at her kitchen table drinking tea and looking thoughtfully off into the distance. The caption read something like, "She can't remember the last time she had company." How sad. I don't know why I brought that up actually. It's not like I, in any way, bear any similarities to a poor, lonely elderly woman. I guess lonliness is just really sad to me.... or something.

Bottom line: I like people.

4 comments:

April said...

I've been alone in a computer lab at school for the past two hours. It sucks!

Anonymous said...

I love being alone and actually NEED to be alone quite frequently in order to not lose my mind... (probably because all day long at work I am constantly receiving 2500emails, IMs, and phone calls, and not to mention people stopping by my desk to ask me questions)

But even when I am "alone" what I am really doing a lot of the time is reading blogs, writing emails, checking Facebook, etc - so although physically I am by myself, mentally and emotionally I am still connecting with a whole range of people. Maybe we have invented these technologies over the years just so that we never have to be truly alone.

From an evolutionary perspective it is not wise to be alone - maybe our brains are even hard wired to hate loneliness.

Okay, end of random thoughts.

MM said...

Tina, how are we even friends? haha kidding, kidding.

I could quite happily always be surrounded by people and never be annoyed. :) I knew you would have this comment when I wrote this post though. I distinctly remember you saying something about needing to be alone and although I try to relate, I think I'm the total opposite.

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