I know the intention was good, but here’s the truth: I had actually been invited out by someone else that night, and I turned it down because “I already had plans.”
And the “plans” were me, having tea and cake with my silly literary characters while reading a manga.
What always surprises me is how hard it is for people to believe that some of us genuinely love being alone. They assume it’s a performance, a self-soothing lie, an elaborate emotional workaround.
But it isn’t.
There’s no hidden yearning, no secret wish for a more magazine-worthy social life, no sad adjustment that we would immediately drop *if* someone, *anyone*, would be willing to share with us instants of their louder and brighter day.
Don't get me wrong. I like humans.
But I also genuinely love being alone.
I simply like my own company.
Solitude is not loneliness.
For how unbelievable it seems to you, solitude is an active choice.
