When I Say "Leave me Alone"

Sometimes I like to have “space”. I like solitude, time on my own. You don’t really get much of that when living in a residential college.

There is, however, one pretty good way of being left alone. You could tell people you’d like to be left alone. But there’s a catch.

Tell people you’d like to be left alone, and you will be left alone. Unfortunately, it’s pretty much one-way. You could try to reverse it by telling people you’d like to join them “from now on” (the solitude’s been great, but I’ve had enough), but chances are good these people were probably a little offended you found you needed space from them in the first place.

Solitude’s a very difficult thing to understand. You want some, but not too much.

I’ve found that my best friends are the ones who pretend I don’t need the solitude. Even upon declaration of, “I need sometime alone”, they’ll call me maybe a couple of times, and leave me a couple of text messages (“hey, you alright? Join us for dinner, ya?”). They’ll carry out weak attempts to persuade me that I don’t need to be alone, while knowing full well that I do.

I wish I could be more like them.