Of course loners have friends. Loners, with our extra capacity for concentration, focus, our fewer distractions, make excellent friends. To a few. One, maybe, but a real one. Time shared, even with true friends, often requires loners to put in extra time alone, overtime, to recharge. It is a master of energy: as a rule, loners have so much for the social machinery, the talk, and sympathy. But our fuel runs out. This is what a nonloners don't understand about us, what they cannot see.
Friends do not come easily to us. Being friends with a loner requires patience and the wisdom that "distance" does not mean dislike. Friends are all the more essential to loners, because in many cases, they are our sole conduits to the outside world. When we find good ones, we pour ourselves into them.
On Sex
The public would conclude that sexually satisfied loners are an oxymoron, or we're compulsive masturbators. It's so obvious. What else could we possibly be doing? This, of course, is because it is a solitary practice. Things done alone are mysterious, dangerous, wrong, shameful, incomplete. In the eyes of the world, they do not count. On the sexual-options coolness scale, it ranks pretty much at the bottom, barely above bestiality. (Woody Allen, to his credit, has called it sex with someone you love.)
On Love and Relationships
Well, since they think we're eunuchs or compulsive masturbators, either way, we're fucked.
Meeting anyone at all is not a loners long suit. Meeting an assembly line of maybes has as much appeal as severe sunburn. Opening lines, small talk, seem repulsive and we haven't even mentioned pursuit. We fear, loathe and are bored with small talk. Spending time even with those we know, even with old friends, can grate. For loners, spending time with strangers, again and again, a stream of strangers, not merely to get it over with but to discern whether someday you will put your tounge inside this person's mouth, is the definition of surreal.
It has been said before, let's say it again: loner is not a synonym for misanthrope. Nor it is one for hermit, celibate, or outcast. It's just that we are very selective. VERRRRRRY SELECTIVE.
Secretly, we are romantics, romantics of the highest order. We want a miracle. Out of millions, we have to find the one who will understand. We would prefer to be alone with our own thoughts than with a less than perfect fit. We are almost constitutionally incapable of casual relationships.
Loners, if you catch them, are well worth the trouble. Not dulled by excess human contact, not blase' or focused on your crotch while jabbering about themselves, loners are curious, vigilant, full of surprises. They do not cling. Separate wherever they go, awake or asleep, they shimmer with the iridescence of hidden things seldom seen. You don't need to be told this. You know.
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