Single…

….and single. As in a single person. Not a couple or a group. One unit.

I went out for a walk yesterday during the few weekly hours of sun we’ve been getting in the past month of rain, and it depressed me. Everywhere I looked, all I saw were couples holding hands, kissing… and groups; lying around, walking, shopping, having water fights in Piazza Castello. Doing stuff that people do when they are in a group.

Does no one go out of the house alone anymore? Am I the only freak who still enjoys solitude? Or should I say enjoyed… Seeing all those throngs of people made me feel “roooonerryyyy” (Kim Jong Il parody, Sophie gets me). And nauseated. I don’t know why the latter, but I had this sick feeling creeping up my stomach.

So it got me thinking. I know “they” say that the human being is a social animal, and that no man is an island and all those other sayings you can think of, but why can’t a human being just take a walk alone? I mean, sure, we need others for socialization and to learn the basic rules of survival and decency (Did you know that, technically speaking, Man is the only animal born without instincts? We have no in-built knowledge, no real survival instinct. That’s all the product of socialization.), but do we need them in every single moment of our conscious lives?

I grew up a pretty lonesome kid. Partly because I was an only child with a working mother and a bear of a father, and partly because I liked it that way. I had my books, my music, my computer and whatnot to keep me occupied. I didn’t need other people. Sure, there’s a pretty cool invention that goes by the name MSN that keeps people in contact even though they may be on different continents, but I was a lonesome kid even before the internet era. I guess I have my lonely-gene to thank for being pretty well-read. [Although it seems that, in French schooling, if you haven't read certain "classics", it's like you've never read a book in your life. I don't enjoy most of the "classics"... Anyway, that's another vent of mine.]

Back to the subject: did me being a lonesome kid make me a freak? Then and today? The fact that I’m the only one left at the apartment tonight might indicate that the correct answer to this question of mine is indeed “yes”, but… I don’t know. Sure, I don’t feel the need to be with people 24/7 and am actually quite happy being on my own from time to time. And sure, I also feel the need to be with others from time to time, like last night when I went to see “Camorra” with D, but I feel I’ve grown up to be an awfully “normal” 20-year-old when it comes to… wait. No. I’ve always had messed up relationships with people. Friends that are few and far between, usually literally so (Africa? America? Australia?A’s?). Boyfriends that… well, let’s not even go there.

My relationships with people have often been conflictive, but is that due to my socialization (or lack, thereof), or simply to who I am? Am I alone tonight because I had no friends in primary school, or would I have been alone even if I had been the primary-school courtyard star?