Okay, Im supposed to be revising for my quiz tomorrow or sleeping.(I have a 8am class tomorrow. Craps.)
Havent been paying attention in that module class. Have no idea what is going on in class.
Anyway, I came across this interesting article in the newspaper today. It reminded me of a topic Nicole and I were talking about today when we went to the toilet. hmmm..
Extracted from:Life!People The Straits Times Monday, October 22, 2007
Girl Talk by Suzanne Sng
There is a difference between being alone and being lonely, and while I like to be alone, I do not get lonely - not often anyway.
I am good at doing things alone. I can shop alone. I can eat in restaurants alone. I can even watch movies alone. Sometimes,I even like doing so.
As far as I know, few of my friends do this, and fewer of them enjoy solitude.
"Why would you want to watch a movie alone?" a colleague asked, almost incredulously. He has never gone to the cinema by himself, ever.
"Cant you find a friend to go with you?:
Sure, I can, but it's easier to go by myself.
One, it's difficult to arrange a time to meet up with friends. They are busy with work, significant others, kids and other stuff more important than, say, catching a huge movie with tiny balls.(That's the tagline for Balls of Fury, which is about innocent little pingpong balls, for you gutterbrains out there.)
Two, if we are to make the supreme effort to synchronise our schedules, I'd rather we meet for dinnerwhere we can have an actualy conversation instead of sitting in the fark and having irate patrons shushing us when we so much as whisper.
And three, I'm anti-social.
I thought I was all alone in enjoying my own company until I read a piece about one of my favourite fashion designers, Marc Jacobs, in the latest issue of W magazine.
"I have a funny love for melancholy," says Jacobs, who, in the evenings, occasionally finds himself eating in his dining room all by himself.
Sitting at the table, he says, he'll experience an odd sense of sorrow, which brings its own satisfacion. "I do like being in this house, feeling lonely and a little sad," he says adding, "It really does it for me."
There is a crucial difference, though, between being alone and being lonely.
You can be alone and happy to be spending some ME time away from the madding crowd. Its\'s a time to slow down from the frenzy of work and simply contemplate life.
You can be at the rowdiest party and feel lonely because the booze, throbbing music and sweating bodies rubbing against you cant fill the huge empty void inside. Or you can be having dinner with your boyfriend and suddenly realising he doesnt make you laugh any more.
Then there is the not altogether unpleasant feeling of being alone and lonely.
It's sort of like the Portuguese emotion known as saudade, which originates from the Lation word for solitude and loneliness.
It's a feeling of longing for something that one is fond of, which is gone, but might return in a distant future. It often carries a fatalistic tone and a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might really never return.
I have no qualms admitting that, now and then, I happily wallow in bouts of melancholy, when I just stay at home alone on Sundays, listen to the Cowboy Junkies, hauntingly croon Blue Moon Revisited on repeat mode, and mope - for no reason at all.
But not many people do that and even if they did, they will not admit it. It's a sign of weakness, after all.
Guys, from the purely unscientific observation of my friends, are more susceptible to loneliness and more afraid of being lonesome than girls. They cant even watch football on a Saturday night without concregating in some pub or at least having the company of an ice-cold beer.
A report from the Australia Institute two years ago reinforces my observations. According to a study, irrespective of age, men were less likely to experience social support, especially those who live alone, and hence were more likely to feel lonely.
In comparison, women who either lived alone or with others perceive very similar levels of support and friendship.
A British family study in the same year found that 56% of males said they were sometimes lonely compared with 48% of females.
Yet, paradoxically, men are less likely to admit to feeling lonely - to another human being, not in an anonymous - unless you know them very well (or if they are extremely inebriated, in which case they may express their state of loneliness to any available female, if you know what I mean).
The same Australian study finds that men rely on their wives and girlfriends for their emotional and social needs to a greater degree than women, who draw on wider sources of support.
I have a married friend whose husband cannot be left to his own devices on weekends. If
she goes out without him, he turns into this needy creature who calls every hour because he
doesnt know what to do without her.
I've seen it happen often enough when guy friends break up: They go out, get riproaringly
drunk and hook up with a random floozy-or worse, partake in a string of meaningless flings-
because they are unable to cope with being single.
Yes, girls do stupid things too out of loneliness, but seldom do they go in hunt of inappropriate
men.
As a silly insecure 20something, I used to feel like a loser if I didnt make plans for the
weekend. On Friday nights, I would sit at home wondering what cool parties were going on
that I wasn't invited to. Or I'd imagine my coupled friends going to fancy restaurants
and having romantic candlelight dinners.
But now that I am a little older -and hopefully wiser - I know better.
As Marc Jacobs puts it in another peice, this time in New York magazine (yup, this guy sure
is hung up about his lonesome self): "For the first time in my life, I can stay at home alone
and feel okay....
" I used to think that if I was alone physcially, that meant I was lonely, but for the first
time in my life, this is not the case."
Still, he admit:"There are nights when I cant's sleep. I go into a fantasyland and tabeau
sort of thinking, like, Tonight would be the perfect night to say, 'Honey,I'm really tired
and worried about work. And tell me about your day'."
He asks hopefully:"Do you think someone will read this and try to get in touch with me? If i read
that about someone, I'd drop him a note."
At the end of the day, being alone is okay and I can enjoy it, but let's also
admit it- it can sometimes get a wee bit lonely, whether you are a world-famous designer
or just a journalist.
So drop him a note. Or drop me one. "
