Afraid of Lonely

Monophobia is the fear of being alone.  When going through a breakup, one of my friends posted this video on my facebook.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7X7sZzSXYs

It’s a video all about being comfortable with being alone. It inspired my very simple goal to take myself to the movies alone… I’m a very social person and I have never really liked being by myself. I find comfort in conversation and the harmonious ping of my text message tone. It could be my inner attention-whoriness fueled by a lack of personal confidence, but no matter how you psychoanalyze it, I really have never liked being alone. I mean, think about it. Does anyone really? We are all socially designed and conditioned to search for something that keeps us from feeling lonely. We are afraid of lonely. The fear of being lonely has infiltrated our thoughts until we get to the pathetic point of stalking our news feeds at weird hours because that little bit of contact is better than no contact at all.

I dated a guy once who was REALLY insecure. But the way he compensated was by always surrounding himself with people. He was always with friends or hanging out at friendly… dating him made me question: Do I really want to be the type of person who has to rely on other people to entertain my loneliness, because I don’t know how to cope?

The answer is no. I don’t. I want to stop having to text my best friend for advice I really don’t need. I don’t want to become hooked on constant communication with the outside world. I don’t want to be so lost in this need for people that I lose sight in myself. I don’t want to rush into one heartbreaking relationship after the other when the only thing we have in common is that neither one of us wants to be alone.

 I don’t want to be afraid of lonely.

Dwell on it, my curious companions