forget who it was who told me that once you’ve known what it’s like to love and be loved, you’d want to be in that magical place for always. Maybe not necessarily with the same person, because forever with somebody is less effortless than how fairy tales and romance novels lead us to believe. But having experienced what it’s like to be in a relationship, you’d want to stay in one, in that flowing river of love and air and light between two people. It’s a private place that’s impervious to external upheavals: career prospects abroad, other people’s disapproval, even (sometimes) affairs. When the bond is broken, as it must be sometimes, you’d wander around the desert, hoping to find the Promised Land again. And as you grow older, you realize that it’s not the person, it’s the place.

This is the question I’ve been asking, as an incorrigible wanderer: Why am I alone? I’ve plotted all my routes, rummaged in every city, conversed with all kinds of strangers. At the end of the day, I’m still a wanderer, a pilgrim in my own hometown.

Aloneness—I’ve examined you from every conceivable angle, put you under a microscope, dissected you like a hapless frog, broken you up and put you back together, and you are still inscrutable. Just an inert, cold word.

I like to say sometimes that being alone has its compensations, which is true. There are moments when you truly prefer to be by yourself, without worries or obligations, completely free (which is what one really is, even with somebody). And people say that you could be in a relationship and still feel horribly alone, which is the worst feeling of all. The other cannot be your salvation from your freedom; you can never escape the nothingness within—to use Jean-Paul Sartre’s words. Despite this incandescent little piece of wisdom, though, one can’t help it. One’s aloneness, the absolute freedom that is the beginning and end of oneself, is experienced as a burden. Adulthood means plodding down well-worn paths, itching all over beneath uncountable layers of costume, putting on more than you take off. Sometimes you long to bare it all for somebody, but you don’t feel safe enough to undress. Aloneness can be very uncomfortable and exhausting.


Like being in a relationship, being alone is an art. In some ways, it’s more fundamental, because you can never escape it—despite and through love. Or is it just me? I’ve noticed that no lover can really banish that specter within myself. I spend my waking moments trying to bury it under daily routines and mental to-do lists: that faceless ghost that takes over my soul at night, when the fragile layer of ego melts into the vast, undifferentiated unconscious.


Susan Sarandon’s character in the movie Shall We Dance? says something to this effect, that one braves the pitfalls of marriage because one desires a witness to one’s life. Our absolute freedom is as frightening as it is undeniable; we want somebody to limit it somehow, to look at us in order to locate us in the world. There is a song that partly goes, “Love can help me know my name.” This is why we love: for somebody to name us, even though we are, at bottom, nameless.

Why am I alone? Not because I have no choice, but because I choose to be. The secret of oneself is so private, so attached to one’s arteries, that one doesn’t hand it over—gushing blood—to just anybody. Aloneness is the price one pays for safety, for self-esteem, and ultimately, for freedom. It does have its compensations.



I QUOTED THIS FROM MY PHILO PROFESSOR'S BLOG (MS. LESLIE, DAYM SHE'S GOOD!!) BUT OTHER THAN THAT, I TOTALLY, MOST CERTAINLY AGREE WITH HOW SHE PERCEIVES "ALONENESS".

IVE BEEN THROUGH RELATIONSHIPS, MYSELF, NOT JUST RELATIONSHIPS, THEY WERE DISAPPOINTING AND FRUSTRATING. IVE ALWAYS DREAMED OF HAVING A LONG-TERM COMMITMENT. I AM YOUNG, I KNOW. BUT THAT DOES NOT STOP ME FROM WISHING AND PRAYING THAT GOD WOULD GRANT ME A GUY, WHO MAY NOT PASS UP TO MY STANDARDS, BUT WOULD DEFINITELY KNOW HOW TO BE A GOOD PARTNER. IVE BEEN THROUGH A LOT OF RELATIONSHIPS. SOME, I CANT EVEN REMEMBER (MAYBE BECAUSE IT NEVER REALLY GOT TOO SERIOUS) BUT SOME, LEFT ME MISERABLE, THEY BROUGHT OUT THE BEST IN ME AND AT THE SAME TIME, THEY ALSO GOT THE STUPIDITY IN ME. THEY WERENT WHAT I DREAMED ABOUT, BUT WHAT CAN I DO, ITS LOVE, CLICHE AS IT IS.

THINKING ABOUT MY SO-CALLED "PASTS", I NEVER REALLY PASSED A MONTH WITHOUT HAVING A BOYFRIEND. I ALWAYS ASK MYSELF WHY, THOUGH. I ALWAYS SAY, I EASILY FALL. THAT IS WHY WHEN SOMEONE COMES ALONG, I ALWAYS OPEN MYSELF UP TO A NEW RELATIONSHIP AND AT THE END, I ALWAYS FAIL. BUT AS I TRY TO DECIPHER HOW I REALLY FELT FOR THOSE MEN, IT WASNT REALLY LOVE. IT WASNT BECAUSE, I WANTED SOMEONE TO HELP ME GET THROUGH MY FAILED RELATIONSHIP WITH AN EX, NOT BECAUSE I WANTED SOMEONE TO LOVE, BUT BECAUSE, I WANTED TO BE LOVED ONE MORE TIME. ITS PROBABLY THE CAUSE WHY I GO THROUGH SO MUCH PAIN AFTER A BREAK-UP. ITS BECAUSE I LOST MY CHANCE OF BEING LOVED, FOR WHO KNOWS, FOREVER? OR MAYBE BECAUSE, I DIDNT GET WHAT I ACTUALLY EXPECTED FROM THEM. AND AGAIN, I QUOTE MS. LES LOVE IS:

"It’s a private place that’s impervious to external upheavals: career prospects abroad, other people’s disapproval, even (sometimes) affairs. When the bond is broken, as it must be sometimes, you’d wander around the desert, hoping to find the Promised Land again. And as you grow older, you realize that it’s not the person, it’s the place"

SO NOW I KNOW, I DONT MISS THE PERSON, I MISS BEING WITH SOMEONE. ITS NOT THE PERSON, ITS THE PLACE. :-)