How to Be Alone: If You Want To, and Even If You Don't

by Lane Moore

Let me tell you this: If you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it’s not because they enjoy solitude. It’s because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them. —JODI PICOULT, MY SISTER’S KEEPER

On some level I walk through the world like an adult human version of the baby bird in Are You My Mother? subconsciously waiting for someone to see that I’m very take-care-of-able, can I live with you now? I know you’re my age, but have you ever thought of adopting an adult? It’s cool and fun! And I know that sounds stupidly heartbreaking, and I’m not pretending it’s adorable and cool, but I know it’s there, below the surface.

I sometimes wonder if my imagination is so intense because I spent so much of my life imagining this was not my reality.

But I wanted what they had in the movies. I wanted friendships that meant something, connections that went beyond making pizza bagels and listening to PJ Harvey.

We went from spending every waking moment missing each other, every evening on the phone, and every weekend at each other’s houses, to Sam’s completely ending all contact with me; a type of heartbreak from which I don’t know if you ever really recover.

I don’t know what it is about Saturday night that makes me want to leap off tall buildings in a single bound. I think it’s probably because Saturday nights are like weekly New Year’s Eves. You’re supposed to not be alone, you’re supposed to do something So Fun!!! You’re supposed to have friends and it’s supposed to be the Best, and when it’s anything less, you just feel like you’re six thousand miles away from your best life, and fun, and normalcy.

With Sam, she proved my worst fears to be true: that I was too much and needed too much. I’ve spent so many of my relationships being terrified the person I love will hurt me, and always questioning whether or not the other person really means what they say, and worrying if I love more, or feel more, and what that means if it’s true.

When you don’t have a baseline of love and security and home, and you finally get someone who can seemingly love you and you feel accepted and special and you feel like “Aw, is this home? Finally! I can’t wait! This is so great!” and then they kick you out, you feel like you’ve lost everything. You don’t have a foundation, so you look everywhere for one, which means the weight of any one connection is so heavy, so important, so delicate.

I’d made my “friends” my family, and you fight for your family, and you don’t leave them ever. But they’re not your family. And they know that. And you don’t.

I want to tell each other things we can’t talk about online, or we can’t tell our coworkers, and to cry and still be lovable, even if we’re in pain sometimes. To break in front of each other, and pick up the pieces together, before making some dumb joke and telling each other we love each other and knowing we’re safe to be all of it.

I can honestly say I have spent my entire life searching for romantic love in a way that I thought for a very long time was adorable and that I now see as heartbreakingly sad.

My Barbie came with too much empathy, a heart as big as every ocean, and a mission to figure out how people find love and why, and how I could one day find it too.

Boys at school weren’t really an option, as I’d been made to feel that I was so ugly you wouldn’t even want to look at me, and I definitely remember spending most of my childhood praying no one would, so I wouldn’t get hurt.

I saw my soul mate as someone who wanted the best for me, someone who wanted me as safe and happy as possible until they could come and make me as much of each as possible themselves.

Sexual assault is not your “my first time” story if you don’t want it to be.

Basically, there are three primary attachment styles: secure, avoidant, and anxious, and occasional combinations of avoidant and anxious.

Avoidant people want that closeness but are scared of it, so they tend to be less expressive with their feelings, view themselves as unworthy of a reliable, responsive partner, and often would rather be alone than deal with potential rejection or pain.

These are people who want to be close with people, but feel like other people don’t want to be as close as they do (too many feelings). They don’t want to be alone, but they also feel like other people don’t value them as much as they value people (too many feelingggs). They need high levels of intimacy, approval, and responsiveness, and often become dependent on the person they’re attached to, to the point where they can feel safe only when they’re in constant contact with the person they’re attached to, and if they don’t have that, they will blame themselves (toooo manyyy feelingggs). Fun, right?

The most tender place in my heart is for strangers. I know it’s unkind but my own blood is much too dangerous. —NEKO CASE, “HOLD ON, HOLD ON”

I was currently a free agent living in my car and living the dream. You know, if the dream is something that started off seeming fun and then immediately became depressing, leading you to a suicide attempt in an airport parking lot. Dreams are different for us all.

I have a trigger-happy “erase all evidence of happiness now that you’ve caused me pain, real or imagined” finger, and I often wish I didn’t.

Then we went to get a drink and I probably got some whiskey nonsense that I ordered to sound cool because I was still pulling that shit back then.

When I was a kid, my mom described her relationship with my dad as “He was so sweet at first. Always so sweet at first. But then . . .” I have spent my entire life terrified of the “but then.”

At times I’ve struggled to feel seen, to have my history feel seen, to have where I come from feel seen because I “turned out great.” But that doesn’t mean that I Am Fine. I am working every day, tirelessly, like you wouldn’t believe, on being fine, fucking finally, can we get this over with, I’m so tired and I just want to travel and eat and smile and move through the world with a semblance of peace.

Telling people who actively want to find love that they should stop wanting to find love so they can find love is like telling a depressed person they can be happy only once they don’t want to be happy. What the shit is that? It makes zero sense.

see happy couples on the subway now and think warmly, “I’ve had that,” like I’m ninety years old and that was eighty years ago.

I thought about inviting him up and then remembered I’m me and not a TV character and told him to have a good night.

A lot of people enjoy being dead. But they are not dead, really. They’re just backing away from life. Reach out. Take a chance. Get hurt even. But play as well as you can. Go, team, go! Give me an L. Give me an I. Give me a V. Give me an E. L-I-V-E. Live! Otherwise, you got nothing to talk about in the locker room. —MAUDE, HAROLD AND MAUDE

It’s insane the kinds of rewrites you have to do when you find out who someone really is. You have to rewire and reroute your entire brain.

I never even thought about it. That was what other people with families and normal lives did and I just figured there were no exceptions.

Being alone is not a life sentence. I know it feels like it at the time, but I promise you, you will not be alone for the rest of your life. And if you are—which I am not going to say that’ll never happen because I’m starting to see that maybe, in my own way, I will always be kind of alone—okay, let’s see what happiness can be found there.

I’ve realized that sometimes being alone actually truly is better than being around people, especially if they’re the wrong people.

It’s absolutely better to be by yourself than with someone you don’t even like, or whom you do like but they don’t make you feel super great. Man, the number of times I went to parties I fucking hated with people who were jerks, even though I knew I’d have more fun by myself, even if that fun just meant sitting in a room alone silently is . . . too many times.

Also, don’t be too worried if you want to be alone a lot lately. Bamboo grows underground for three years before it sprouts up to thirty feet tall. Nothing blooms year-round, so if you need to be alone right now, that’s what you need.

Be the person you’ve been waiting for. I know it sucks, but what’s the alternative? Complaining about it? As much as I validate that life choice and find myself there often, it’s exactly like falling down in the street and crying for someone to pick you up because you’re in pain. It’d be great if they would. But they’re your legs and you have to pick yourself up, or you’ll just stay there forever.

“Are you thinking about keeping her?” and I said, “I think, maybe,” and she said, “Well, dogs are a big commitment. How would you feel about having her for the next ten years?” and I said without thinking, “That’s not enough time.” I loved her already and it scared the shit out of me.

I took a leap of faith that maybe this unconditional love was as real as it seemed. And I adopted her. And I held her close and told her, “I am your family now and I will always be here, always, always. You have been through so much and you deserve the whole world. And I want to be the one to give it to you.” Words I hope I one day hear from someone as well.

I thought having a dog would be another example of my taking care of everyone but myself, but I quickly realized it was the opposite. All the things I give to this dog—the twelve thousand times a day I tell her I love her and she’s beautiful and special and perfect, all the belly rubs and dog massages I give her—are greatly appreciated, and that love is returned.

Every now and then, when my anxiety takes me down the road of what would happen if I somehow lost everything, I remember that I am alive and I am free, even if my mind often makes me feel like I’m not. I get to eat really lovely food if I let myself. I can travel if I want to, even if it’s two blocks away. I could go to the botanical gardens nearby and it’s so peaceful and so pretty. I could dress up in some wigs and costumes if I wanted. I could sing at the top of my lungs or play one of my instruments. I’m alone, perhaps, sure, yes, but I’m here. I’m still fucking here.

But my point is, I think that’s what you do. You book that trip for yourself, you take yourself to dinner and enjoy it the same as if someone else took you out. You take all that love you keep giving to selfish idiots and try to throw some of it in the general direction of your own heart and you pray even a little bit of it sticks there.

So be the idiot who cares too much, be the weirdo who makes a difference, be the person who, even if you never know it, kept someone from wanting to die because you smiled at them on the street. And in that way, in the smallest of ways, you’re a little less alone.