Skip to main content

Bowling Alone? Yes, Thank You

I just spent five hours playing video games, by myself, and I don't regret it. I don't want my five hours back to sit on a bar stool, talk about Breaking Bad, watch whatever game is on with other fans, or do something, anything, else with another person. Constant company for a good life is one more piece of conventional wisdom I've scuttled. I like going home and bolting the door. I like to read, think, watch Netflix, play with my dog, and putter around the yard. None of this requires another person. I don't keep up with the Joneses and nobody gives me a hard time about much of anything.

I've read that being alone is as bad for you as smoking, but as we like to say, correlation isn't causation. Even if it is in this case, I'll take my own company and take my chances.

If you're lonely, I empathize. I've been there. But not all of us loners want company. If togetherness is so good, why have houses gotten so much bigger and households so much smaller? People used to raise four kids in a two-bedroom bungalow; now that we can afford it, it's two kids in a McMansion. The parents stay on even after the kids (and perhaps the spouse) have left. Come to think of it, when human ancestors became meat eaters, they spread out and became thinner on the ground. They were vulnerable to predators, and without a fire during the day, or while they hunted, constant yammering wouldn't have done. We may be social animals, but we aren't herd animals.

As Susan Cain put it, there's a name for such people: thinkers.
Labels:

Comments

Running Stitches said…
If you are alone, it doesn't mean you are lonely or lonesome. I relish my few hours of early morning solitude.

I like this poem about being alone performed in the video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7X7sZzSXYs
October 02, 2013
tess said…
IN SPADES. :-) i HAVE to be alone some, or i lose my mind!
October 02, 2013
Lori Miller said…
One of the things I missed during basic training was silence.
October 02, 2013
Angel said…
I just had to explain a few days ago to a friend (that thought I should have no problem finding a date for a social event) that I live like a hermit. I didn't have the opportunity to explain to him that I like it. I like the long stretches of solitude and silence. I have a handful of good friends, whom I see once or twice a week, and that's it for social interaction. No, I don't have a pool of guy friends to draw on for the once-or-twice yearly ought-to-have-a-date social event; I am so accustomed to going about my business alone, that I don't even think much about going to social events alone either. I am just grateful that I live in a time and culture that doesn't ostracize women for being alone and independent.
October 02, 2013
Lori Miller said…
I've quit going to such events. For me, they involve either coworkers, whom I see every day, or family, whom I don't have a thing in common with.
October 02, 2013
Lowcarb team member said…
"If you're lonely, I empathize."

Yes loneliness and being alone, are quite different. It is always nice to enjoy some 'me' time. But many 'older' folk do get lonely and a smile from a friend and a cheerful 'hello, how are you' works wonders.

All the best Jan
October 02, 2013
Lori Miller said…
As my father says, if you want a friend, be a friend.
October 02, 2013
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

1972: Carole King, M*A*S*H and...Food for 2014?

I feel well enough to try Atkins induction again. The palpitations are gone, even without taking potassium. My energy level is back to normal--no more trucking on the treadmill early in the morning  to burn off nervous energy or emergency meat, cheese and mineral water stops after yoga. It's back to lounging around to Chopin and Debussy in the morning and stopping at the wine bar for pleasure. I'm using the original Atkins book: Dr. Atkins' Diet Revolution from 1972. While looking in the book for a way to make gelatin (which is allowed on induction, but Jello(TM) and products like it have questionable ingredients), I felt the earth move under my feet : those recipes from 42 years ago look delicious and they're mostly real food. It makes sense, though: the cooks who wrote the recipes probably didn't have had a palette used to low-fat food full of added sugar or a bag of tricks to make low-fat food edible. Anyone who writes a recipe called "Cottage Cheese and...
21 comments
Read more

In Defense of Fast Food

Another modern trend - healthy food should be expensive, not nutrients-dense and preferably exotic, or you would be eating like plebs who live on a dollar McD menu. --Galina L. I don't try to jump over seven-foot hurdles, I look for one-foot hurdles I can step over. --Warren Buffett, pleb who eats at McDonald's Despite all the talk about wild-caught v. farmed, grass-fed v. CAFO and the vilification of fast food, a lot of us plebs benefit simply from carbohydrate restriction. But even though diabetes and obesity are rampant, and carb restriction alone would help millions of people, the impression is out there that you need to eat in a very specific way, far beyond just watching the carbs. Following a low-carb diet is already a high hurdle for many people. If some people want or need to raise the bar for themselves, that's fine with me, but there's no need to turn low-carb into a hurdle that a lot of people can't jump over. Organic produce and grass-fed or p...
17 comments
Read more

Mince Meat Pie Recipe, low carb

The star of Christmas dinner this year was made of unlikely ingredients. Fruit and beef tongue sound high carb or unpalatable, but mince meat pie was so popular 250 years ago that it was in many cookbooks from the time--and it wasn't just for Christmas. My version cuts the carbs by using tart cooking apples, cranberries, monk fruit sweetener and a nut flour crust. The main flavors are orange and slightly tart fruit; the meat and fat make it filling. Have it for dessert or with coffee or tea for breakfast. Make some soup with the collagen-filled broth and discover how tender and tasty the rest of the beef tongue is. Worth the time and effort. IMPORTANT--start this recipe the day before. Links in the recipe go to hard-to-find ingredients and directly to the cookbook with the recipe for the pie crust. (I made the almond flour variation of the crust.) Recipe 1 beef tongue (I get mine here ; look for farms or ranches in your area that sell directly to consumers) 2 Granny Smith apples 1 ...
2 comments
Read more

My New Favorite Sweetener

If you're looking for a low-carb sweetener with no aftertaste, no franken-ingredients, and that doesn't upset your stomach, try monk fruit (also known as luo han guo). This is what Quest bars were sweetened with when they first came out. Monk fruit is Dr. Davis approved. You can buy monk fruit in powdered or liquid form; both are super-concentrated. They might seem expensive, but you use the powder by the spoonful (even in baking recipes) and the liquid by the drop. The baking recipes I've made with the powder have turned out well. Available from Amazon . Beware monk fruit sweeteners with erythritol.  The package of powdered monk fruit sweetener I bought says, "Use 1/8 teaspoon to create the same sweet taste as 1 teaspoon of sugar." But it's so sweet that I use 1/10 the amount. To replace a cup of sugar, I would use 5 teaspoons of monk fruit sweetener. Tip: hand-stir this in before using the beaters. It's such a fine powder that it flies up and out of the ...
2 comments
Read more

Carrageenan: A Sickening Thickener. Is it a Migraine Menace?

Let me tell you about my ride in an ambulance last night. I woke up at six o'clock from a nap with a mild headache. I ate dinner and took my vitamins, along with a couple of extra magnesium pills. Since magnesium helps my TMJ flare-ups, I thought it might help my headache. Then I went to see my mother. A few hours later, I had a severe headache, sinus pain and nausea. During a brief respite from the pain, I left for home, but less than a mile later, I got out of my car and threw up. A cop, Officer Fisher, pulled up behind me and asked if I was okay. He believed me when he said I hadn't been drinking, but he said I seemed lethargic and he wanted the paramedics to see me. (Later he mentioned that a man he'd recently stopped was having a stroke.) Thinking I had a migraine headache, the paramedics wanted to take me to the hospital. But since I knew that doctors don't know what causes migraine headaches, and I didn't know what effect their medicine would have on m...
15 comments
Read more