Learning to love something is a truly beautiful process. However, it is a really difficult
process to begin- especially when you are learning to love something you initially
hate. As a book girl, I liken this kind of situation to the ‘enemies to lovers’ trope. It’s
always destined to be love, but initially that is very hard to see- and it’s even harder
to see how it could be logistically possible. For me, the biggest example of this trope
in my life is my relationship with loneliness and the state of being alone.
Our rapport has fluctuated over the years, as does any relationship. At times I loved
being alone, seeking safety and comfort in solitude’s hands. Other times it plagued
me, taunting me as I sat paralysed in my bedroom. However, in hindsight, I have
been able to detect my hamartia: I could not make the distinction between the mental
state of loneliness and the physical state of being alone. I viewed them
synonymously. It was so engrained into my thinking that it acted as an obstacle to
learning to love being alone. Only now, on my year abroad, do I feel I have
reinstated the distinction between the two, allowing me to make small changes to
enjoy my time alone.
I would like to share with you some of the ways I curved my thinking and actions I
have taken to help resolve this false equivalency.
One way to begin to curve your thinking is to define the difference between being
lonely and being alone, I misconstrued the two. I learnt to appreciate that being
alone did not mean I was lonely. The way to begin is to consciously put yourself in
the situation where you are alone. A university of Reading study revealed that the
negative impacts of solitude are reduced when solitude is motivated by personal
choice. To make it personal choice, I began by marking out slots where I would
consciously make the effort to spend time alone. I started small, doing thirty minutes
at a time. Gradually this time increased to one hour, two, and sometimes half the
day. It became almost like I was planning dates with myself. I then made sure to see
people after the time I spent alone. This helped me to discover the fact that I am
never lonely, I would just occasionally find myself in the physical state of being
alone. I took ‘lonely’ out of my vocabulary and swapped it for ‘being alone.’ This
helped reinforce the distinction between the two.
One of the harder changes I made was spending time away from my phone in my
designated time alone. In times of solitude, TikTok or Instagram became friends to
me, scrolling endlessly through posts and reels. This led to me comparing my
situation to other people who were posting pictures of them out with friends.
Comparison is the killer of joy and was another obstacle to loving being alone.
Therefore, I began taking the conscious decision for swapping my phone for a book
or my journal when I found myself alone. Disconnecting from comparison to others
allowed me to reconnect with myself.
Another thing I began to do was actually going out and leaving the house alone. A lot
of the time I only went outside when with others. Therefore, when I was alone, I was
always confined to my bedroom which catalysed the feeling of loneliness as I was not physically in the presence of anyone. Currently one of my favourite things to do is go to the cinema alone. I still enjoy it when I go with my friends, but it is a whole different feeling when I am alone. I buy myself a nice drink, choose a new film I have
never seen before and allow myself to fully immerse myself in the film without
distractions, as I can’t just doomscroll on my phone in the cinema. In that moment I
am never truly alone anyway, as I can share laughs and cries with other audience
members. This is a nice metaphor to take for any time alone: You are never truly
alone; there will always be someone else nearby. It doesn’t have to be the cinema; it
can be a cafe date, a hot girl walks, a shopping trip, a sweet treat run. Just physically
leaving the house helped as I disconnected the link between my bedroom and
loneliness.
Another important factor was me trying and testing new hobbies, as silly and cliché
as it sounds. It’s always the first advice given to cure loneliness or FOMO, but I
always ignored it. But when I began to embrace the advice, I found I loved trying new
things. This is especially useful for when you can’t go out and do find yourself
restricted to your room or house. I’m not someone that is great with hobbies; there is
not one individual activity that I do religiously for fun. So, I started enjoying trying a
new thing every week: crochet, baking new recipes, yoga, scrapbooking, writing.
Often, I failed at many of the things I tried- but that didn’t matter as I had so much fun
trialling and failing. Now whenever I have a minute alone, I look forward to trying
something new.
My current hobby is reading. I have fallen in love again with reading having received
a kindle for Christmas. I now spend most of my time alone absorbed in books, and I
am so happy to have taken myself out of the reading slump I faced in first and
second year. I was never able to focus as my mind was too preoccupied by the fear
of being alone, but now I have helped avoid that mindset and can allow my brain to
rest and appreciate the words on the page. I have even started a monthly book club
where I call my best friend to discuss what we have read, meaning I can now share
one of my alone-time hobbies with someone else, and appreciate and reflect on how
much I can now read each month.
Little changes like this have really helped me learn to love being alone. But this
process looks different for everyone. It’s the small changes that matter – physical
and mental. Upon reflection, I have improved incredibly in my ability to be alone
between my first year at university and now, and it has brought me so much peace.
So, if you have read to the end of this, I assume you may also be seeking a similar
kind of peace. So go try it, make small changes and learn to love being alone. It can
be scary, facing up to being alone, but with time you will truly begin to appreciate,
learn and love that you will never be lonely if you can embrace your own company.