Needy thoughts

These days, there are so many good reasons to be alone. Loneliness is being cultivated, as if it needed to be preserved for future days.

Ever since the pandemic interrupted my life, I managed to have about 150 cups of coffee outside of my home. Most of them were a Vanilla Latte, while some where lucky enough to taste like Pumpkin spice. For a very long time, I have had them alone outside in the cold, what was the right thing to do at the most critical times of the pandemic, I guess. By now, I dare to have them inside a coffee place again and at least once a week I got there to write.
All on my own.

When I was younger I thought that being able to do things alone made me a real adult.
I felt so grown up when I bought my first pair of shoes without the advice of a friend.

There are so many sayings that value the ability of doing things alone. They are about something being only really good for you if you can enjoy it on your own. Or about you only being at peace with yourself if you can do so. Alone time is valued as an important competence, apparently.

A competence that more and more makes me wonder if I even want to be good at living in this world.

The worst one I came across so far has always been: „If you‘re not happy single, you won‘t be happy taken.“

To me, this is a misconception of relationships.
A misconception that you can get as advice from anyone ending up sitting with you in a kitchen and having a deep talk after 10 PM. Or, written into sunset photographs to fly across social media. But who the hell came up with it?

Why am I supposed to be happy all on my own, when I am having a caring heart?
When I want to talk to someone?
When I want to take care of someone?
When I want to hold someone?
When it makes me happy to listen to someone?
Why am I supposed to swallow my heart?

People in our lives make up parts of ourselves.
To some we are compassionate friends.
To some we are someone to care for.
To some we are creators of fun memories.

All these things a little parts of ourselves, or aspects that the right people around can bring out in us and make us feel and realize.
I find it most dangerous to even assume that we can replace all of this on our own.

In my personal observations, people who come up with sayings like this have just never experienced real loneliness. They may live on their own and have had friendships and relationships that did not last, so they feel entitled to say so, but if you look closer, you will find people to have their back. A family, a good friend since kindergarten – someone like that. And they cannot imagine that some people really live without all of this.
(I am being terribly judgmental here, I know.)

And so they give their advice to be lonely.

Cute someone wrote back a few hours too late?
“You can do better.“
Still lives with the parents?
“Get out of there.“
Said one word too clingy?
“Run.“

You would like someone to watch a movie with?
Someone to cook for?
Someone to go on a trip with?
“Learn to do these things on your own to be happy!”

This advice is harmful.
It is most natural to want people in our lives.

I cannot be my own best friend, and I sometimes want to share a laugh or a thought with someone.

I cannot be my own mother, and I sometimes need reassurance.

I cannot be my own lover, and I sometimes need to be surprised by how they see me.

I do not mean to underestimate that relationships can be unhealthy, and a growing awareness of this is good, if it does not go too far and makes us all unable to connect to anyone.
Especially lonely and vulnerable people tend to get lost in something not good. I know what I am talking about. I grew up very lonely, and I have been through a lot of abuse in different forms when I was younger.

I still think it‘s the right thing to want friends, to want a relationship and to even want a family.
The pandemic, the fear of the war, and the general crisis mood make us cultivate a loneliness that sometimes makes me not want to live int his world at all.