Learning to be alone and enjoy being alone has been one of the most important lessons that I have learned during my time at Notre Dame.
I’ve found that much of my time in college has been spent by myself. Even though I enjoy going out with my friends on the weekends and scheduling meals with them a couple of times throughout the week, I’ve still found that in between classes, extracurriculars, exercising, homework, grocery shopping and the other tasks that take up my day-to-day life, I spend the majority of my time alone. This has consistently been a struggle for me, not necessarily because I have a fear of being alone, but perhaps it is a fear of being seen alone.
The image of college that I had — and sometimes still have — in my head was one where people are always surrounded by friends, and at a social school like Notre Dame where it seems like most people usually are not alone, but rather moving in pairs or groups, it often felt wrong to be by myself.
I remember wondering whether I was doing something wrong or whether people would see me by myself and judge me for being alone. In this way, I kept reinforcing the idea that being alone is the same as being lonely and, since being lonely is inherently negative, then being alone is a bad thing. Thus, untangling the association between being alone and being lonely taught me an important lesson that I’m glad to be learning in college rather than face an avoidable struggle in the real world next year.
I’m probably not alone in learning this uncomfortable lesson of young adulthood that many of us first face in college. Growing up, there wasn’t much time for me to really be alone because I was either with my family at home, at school in many of the same classes as my best friends from childhood or at sports practice with my teammates. So, it wasn’t until college that I really faced myself and my own company for the first time.
With the freedom and independence that comes with leaving home behind also comes a void of familiarity and consistent presence that forces us out of our comfort bubbles. Of course, I love my friends here and they’ve enriched and comforted my life in more ways than I can count, but there’s definitely a sense that, at the end of the day, everyone has their own separate lives as we each navigate our academics, early career paths, relationships and more on our own. There’s less overlap in these friendships compared to our relationships with our families and childhood friends, and as a consequence, there’s more likely to be time spent alone.
But how does one learn to be comfortable with the often-times inevitable abundance of alone time we’re faced with in our lives? How can we learn to be alone without feeling lonely?
For me, the most important step has been to get comfortable with being seen alone. Even though eating at the dining hall by myself instead of with my friends felt weird at first, I noticed that the more I looked around the more people I saw who were eating by themselves — and how normal it is. Same goes for working out at the gym, going on a run around campus or studying at the library. My fear of loneliness and of being seen alone blinded me in a way to the normalcy of being alone, and with this new realization came a sense of peace with my own company.
There’s also a sense of freedom in being comfortable alone. I don’t have to make sure my schedule lines up perfectly with my friends’ schedules each day of the week so I always have someone to go grab a meal with or do a workout with. All of my friends being busy with work doesn’t stop me from doing something fun like going shopping or watching a movie because I’m less afraid to just go by myself.
Even staying in alone on a weekend to read a book or watch some TV and drink a glass of wine by myself instead of going out doesn’t feel as daunting and wrong because I know there’ll always be next weekend to go out, and I’m usually not missing out on too much.
Of course, like almost everything in life, there has to be a balance. I know, for myself, how important and fulfilling my personal relationships are, so I can sense when I’m becoming too comfortable being alone to the point of isolation. And, at the same time, I can sense when I’m becoming too dependent on the company of others that being alone feels lonely. So, it’s going to be a significant goal of mine this final semester to get better at striking a balance between this spectrum of alone time and committing to my friendships, because these relationships remain central to my life no matter how much more comfortable I’m becoming with being on my own.
Much of young adulthood is inevitably spent alone, and this doesn’t have to be a bad thing.
Meg is a senior majoring in political science and minoring in data science and business economics. Besides writing, she enjoys spending time with the people she loves, riding on public transportation and listening to good music.
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
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