Your views on... Solitude

[JaiDee]

It's still hard for me to say NO to people ....I wish I had your courage sometimes, man.

Catholic guilt and all that....... grrrr

[guydesavoy]

After spending 5 years In Japan, I learnt the art of saying 'No' without ever having to pronounce the word.

Or I just make excuses....  I guess what I meant was sticking to my agenda and not feeling like I had to follow someone else's if I didn't want to  

[TTChang]

(JaiDee @ Mar. 14 2010,19:27) ....  try telling everyone you have moved to Sri Lanka or some shit.  

I thought he had!

It's not easy being friends with me... just ask them!  

No comment ..... but I think KL might!  

[kahuna]

I've been a very happy single man and all alone for 21 years now...

Before that I was married for 23 years...I was all alone then too...I just didn't realize it...

[pacman]

I enjoy my own company. I can't imagine being married to a demanding shrew who wanted me to account for my time.

I also know how empty my life would be without friends. I know I frustrate some of them with my unwillingness to conform. They stopped arranging blind dates long ago.

But they are always there if I need them & I would put their interests before mine if they asked me to. It's the quid pro quo of life in my opinion.

What truly distresses me is the casual definition of friendship given by Generation X & Y. Ask them & they will tell you they have lots of friends. But over the past 10 years or so I have seen how fickle these friendships are.

I won't write out these kids experience in excruciating detail but it is a sad fact of their young lives that most of them found when they needed help, there was none to be had.

I know these kids & I saw how shattering it was for them to find themselves abandoned. One of them, a 14 yo girl had it coming to her because she ran with the meanest gang of girls at her school. One day they turned on her. She has completely lost her self confidence & I wonder if she will ever recover.

The point of all this is I question this notion of how much better off we are alone. Alone as in isolated. I think there is a subtext of self-justification going on when someone places their self interest above anything else.

And I am not referring to anyone specifically. I walk both sides of the fence here. I am just speculating on what a sad world we find ourselves in when we become so dead to those around us that we only see them as a pest & not as a fellow traveller.

Here endeth the lesson.

[JaiDee]

(pacman @ Mar. 15 2010,11:45) But over the past 10 years or so I have seen how fickle these friendships are.

I won't write out these kids experience in excruciating detail but it is a sad fact of their young lives that most of them found when they needed help, there was none to be had.

I am just speculating on what a sad world we find ourselves in when we become so dead to those around us that we only see them as a pest & not as a fellow traveller.

I have tried to relate this info to my teens and so far they have been receptive to it, because even at age 19 my son can see how  his friends from high school have already abandoned him!  Whereas I used to always say "your friends you have now will never be there later for you'' and he would disagree [typical teen] he has now seen it with his own eyes. Friends won't stand by you; only family does that, and even though mine sometimes drives me nuts I stay in touch because I know some day I will need them, and they may need me;  and truth be told we are a very tight family.

     Friends?  I have made hundreds over the years..... but the people I have left who I truly count as "friends" and can trust and hang with and be entertained with, etc....?  Only ONE in the USA, and maybe 5 or 6 falangs in Asia whose company I enjoy.  Also one very special Khmer man who is like a brother to me now after 10 years of friendship; that's it.

 Last part....I enjoy meeting fellow travellers, I really do.....and I am not just talking people from this board, but people I met in Peru or southern Thailand or Bali who were very special people to me at the time.....but we tend to go our own ways and while we may Facebook or write each other on occassion, they don't remain as ''friends'' unless we settle in the same spot; which is rare.

  I am not a total hermit, I do like to mix on occassion;  I just like to follow MY own rules while doing that.

[guydesavoy]

(pacman @ Mar. 15 2010,11:45) The point of all this is I question this notion of how much better off we are alone. Alone as in isolated. I think there is a subtext of self-justification going on when someone places their self interest above anything else.

And I am not referring to anyone specifically. I walk both sides of the fence here. I am just speculating on what a sad world we find ourselves in when we become so dead to those around us that we only see them as a pest & not as a fellow traveller.

I guess there are different degrees and levels of 'aloneness' and people get there for many different reasons.

There is indeed a real risk of this alone state turning to isolation. However, many (if not most) of the true humanitarians throughout history and up to modern times, are in essence, loners. Only most people never see that. The trick is to appear to be 'all things to all men'

From the alone to alone...

[benjy]

much of what you guys have expressed,pertains to how I feel. slowly,my friends have accepted my unwillingness to conform to their wants.they are learning the meaning of NO.
I try not to hassle or burden people,+resent it when they don't try.I have a handful of friends.
I am fortunate for that

[anthony70]

"what.? you are going to thailand on your own.?"
"yes, and when i get there, i will be among 1000,s of other blokes who had the bollox to book a flight on their own, and choose a diferent path in life."

i find myself surounded by people i never want to end up like.
i called round two of my friends houses on saturday.
one was washing the car, moaning about the pressure he is under to buy the ring.
the other was sitting on the sofa with his larger wife, shouting at the dogs that she wanted.
maybe i am missing something, but i really dont see the point.
maybe people are wired diferently to me, and they cannot be alone, but i am at the stage where i find couple,s rather pathetic.
you see them driving to asda, wife in the passenger seat, going to the doctors together................its fuckin embarassing.

i like to find myself a nice quiet spot on dongtan beach, and stick on my ipod.
but this last year, within half an hour, i would daily be disturbed by a fat couple, who, despite the beach being virtually empty, had to lie 2 metres from me.
i would get up and move, they would wonder why.
fuckin couples, i shit em.!

[JaiDee]

(anthony70 @ Mar. 15 2010,21:20) i find myself surounded by people i never want to end up like.

Great line!!

I can soooooo relate to that, and to your whole post Anthony, most people in the west are absolutely miserable and now that I am home for a while I can really see that all the more; and I never want to be like them.

I could go on and on but you said it all very well, cheers