A time to be alone

CEBU, Philippines – How important is it to you to have times when you are completely alone, away from anyone else?

The Pew Research Center asked a representative sample of American adults that question. Their options were: 1) very important, 2) somewhat important, 3) not very important, 4) not at all important, and 5) don't know.

Results showed that Americans really like their alone time. More than half (55 percent) said it was very important to be able to have time completely alone, away from everyone else, and another 30 percent said it was somewhat important, for a grand total of 85 percent saying it was important to have time to spend completely alone. (In the minority were the 9 percent who said it was not very important and the 2 percent who said it was not at all important. Another 2 percent said they didn't know. The other 2 percent didn't answer.)

Participants were also asked about the significance of their homes as places where they are not to be disturbed. Results were nearly identical. A total of 85 percent said it was important that they not be disturbed at home (56 percent ‘very important’ and 29 percent ‘somewhat important’, as compared to just 9 percent who said it was not very important and 2 percent who said it was not at all important).

In the research I did for my forthcoming book, "How We Live Now: Redefining Home and Family in the 21st Century," I traveled the country, asking people to show me their homes and tell me about their lives. I went into the project expecting everyone to want at least some time alone and some time with other people, though in vastly different proportions.

Occasionally, I met a person who claimed to have little or no interest in having time for themselves. But as we continued to talk, there almost always came a time when they waxed poetic about a particular time of the day when they were totally on their own and just loved it. Typically, it was an early morning hour, when no one else was up.

So are there really people for whom it is "not at all important" to have time to be completely alone? Are there people who really do get no time at all for themselves - and like it that way? I suppose there are a few but my guess is that their numbers are dwindling.

I loved a section in an issue of Time Magazine with lots of different brief and imaginative contributions by some wonderful writers, about spending time alone in New York City. Here are a few of my favorite quotes from the individual contributions:

"Spending time alone in a city that can provoke loneliness - but also reward solitude" opens with this:

"In this crowded city of 8.4 million - in fact, the most crowded New York has ever been - one of the great and rare pleasures is finding solitude, whether on the subway or at the movies or in a booth facing the wall at a Chinatown noodle shop. But being alone when surrounded by so many others holds a different appeal from being alone in a cabin in the woods…"

From "Walking Alone," by Vivian Gornick:

"Here, alone in the street, I feel free as I do nowhere else, except perhaps at my desk. There is no one to bore, embarrass, or threaten me. No one to whom I owe attention or from whom I need attention. I feel free to shop, dawdle, or move on as I will…"

From "Riding the Subway Alone," by Jennifer Szalai:

"…That time on the train is mine. Nothing is expected of me…The time feels stolen, like something I didn't have before, though in truth it is the opposite - a drop of what was once in such steady supply that I didn't even notice it was there."

From "Seeing a Movie Alone," by Darin Strauss:

"Maybe the romantic part derives from being alone. Alone is key. You know how Sinatra makes being dumped a decisive expression of the stylish adult? Alone is cool. Alone is how we start and what we return to."

From "Climbing the Empire State Building Alone," by Zach Woods:

If you take the last elevator to the top at 1:15 a.m., "it's empty, it's beautiful, and the city sounds like the ocean."

From "Going to Coney Island Alone," by James Hannaham:

"…it has become a solitary ritual. I always linger there, savoring the ocean air mixed with the scents of fried clams and asphalt, the eeriness of a nearly deserted carnival on a drab weekday, an atmosphere that practically impersonates memory."

From "Staying in a Hotel Alone," by Kate Bolick:

"In this new life, I am my better self. Having someone else make the bed helps. I work industriously in the morning, run an errand at lunch. At dinner, I meet a friend. For two days, an unknown corner of the city is mine. I return home refreshed."

From "Riding the Staten Island Ferry Alone," by Eileen Myles:

"Being on the water is an animal thing, and that a great city continues to have a common and available appendage to its waters means New York remains cool, grotty, and plebian. Which is exactly this poet's studio or anyone's dream."

In her insightful and beautifully written book, "Party of One: The Loners' Manifesto," Anneli Rufus opens with a story of being alone in a crowd, "together with the crowd and yet apart." Then she begins her explanation of what loner really means, and it is not any of the scary things we have heard:

"Some of us appear to be in, but we are out. And that is where we want to be. Not just want but need… an orientation, not just a choice. A fact…we are loners. Which means we are at our best, as Orsino says in 'Twelfth Night', when least in company."

Editor's note:

We borrow this article from www.psychologytoday.com in the belief that the same popular craving for periodic solitude is creeping into the local lifestyle.